PRIME Minister Boris Johnson shot down unsubstantiated claims by Ian Blackford during PMQs today, insisting that voter ID will not in any sense suppress democracy, and referencing electoral fraud in Tower Hamlets.
“This government is to impose, for the first time, Trumpian voter ID laws in the UK” SNP’s irritant MP Ian Blackford said, before, without foundation, claiming that the implementation of voter ID will particularly disenfranchise working class and BAME voters.
“It will create barriers to vote” he continued. “Prime Minister, why is this Tory government trying to rob people of their democratic right to vote?”
Hitting back, Johnson said: “Mr Speaker, what we’re trying to protect is the democratic right of people to have a one person one vote system.
“I’m afraid I have personal experience; I remember vividly what used to go on in Tower Hamlets, and I think it is important that we move to some sort of voter ID.
“Plenty of other countries have it. It’s eminently sensible, and I think people will be reassured that their votes matter.”
Given the opportunity to respond, Mr Blackford shocking accused the Tory government of trying to engage in ‘vote-rigging’, and called the Prime Minister a ‘tin pot dictator’.
Perhaps more shockingly, the Speaker of the House did not bring him to order or ask him to retract his unfounded allegations.
Dealing the final blow to anti-voter ID disinformation spread by the left, however, Johnson confirmed that voter ID’s will be provided free of charge to anyone who requires one, saying of Blackford:
“He’s making a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill. Councils will be under an obligation to provide free photo ID to anybody who wants it – and I do think it reasonable to protect the public in our elections from the idea. of voter fraud. Nobody wants to see it.
“I don’t think that elections in this country should be in any way shrouded with or contaminated by the suspicion of voter fraud. And that’s what we’re trying to prevent”.
