Local elections 2023: ‘It’s just disenfranchisement on a grand scale’ – young people’s fears over new voter ID rules
A fundamental change to the voting system in England is coming.
Brought in with little fanfare but potentially huge consequences, a new requirement for voters to show photo ID for the first time could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people.
The rule change was a Conservative manifesto pledge, and parliament approved the change.
But as the first test of the new system approaches – May’s local elections – the dissenting voices are growing louder.
Across the country, up to 3.5 million eligible voters are without a valid ID. Although the government is offering free ID that can be accessed online, many are still unaware of the scheme.
At higher risk of being turned away at the ballot box are the elderly, those on low incomes, and people in rented accommodation and claiming unemployment or disability benefits.
And there are particular hotspots, like Hull in East Yorkshire.
At the Warren community centre, which provides a hub in the heart of the city for vulnerable young people, some of the regular attendees expressed their frustration and surprise at the policy.
Kytt, 25, described the new rules as “just another obstacle to people from underprivileged backgrounds or marginalised communities to vote”.
While Zalea, 22, said: “Young people themselves are struggling with job applications, so voting and getting a free ID is our last priority.
“I’ve never voted and trying to implement an ID process… it’s just making it a barrier, and we have enough barriers already.”
Political correspondent Liz Bates speaks to young people in Hull about new voter ID rules
Others had never heard of the free ID scheme, and those who had thought it could be more difficult to use for some than the government was suggesting.
Laura, 25, said: “Some people might have disabilities, they might need help… like I did.”
Her grandmother, she explained, had to help her with voter registration: “I didn’t know big words or how to fill one in. Ever since that, I’ve not voted.”
Also raised was a general lack of access to the internet. “We know Hull is a massive area of data poverty. People don’t have internet or stable enough connection,” Kytt added.
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The Warren’s CEO, JJ Tatten, had wider concerns about the long-term impact compulsory voter ID could have on vulnerable voters.
He said: “If they turn up at a polling station and they’re turned away because they don’t have the right ID… they will see it as a judgement on them – you don’t count and you are not eligible.
“All of those words are quite negative towards a cohort that already feels quite put upon and is already struggling with a whole host of issues.
“It’s just disenfranchisement on a grand scale.”
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Why will voters need photo IDs to vote?
Ministers say it’s necessary to prevent in-person voter fraud despite the vanishingly low number of cases: there was just one incident which initiated court proceedings across all UK elections last year, according to the Electoral Commission.
That is one reason why Conservative former minister David Davis says there must be an urgent rethink. “It’s preventing something that doesn’t happen,” he said.
“This is an answer to a problem that’s not there… are we actually going to discriminate against the old and the poor in our election system?”
Given the low uptake of free IDs, the MP for Haltemprice and Howden in West Yorkshire is calling on the government to pause the policy.
He said: “I would like it scrapped, but they’ve spent a lot of political effort putting it through parliament, parliament’s approved it, but the system they put in place to deal with the problem of those with no ID has not worked.
“I would at the very least just delay it and say, ‘look we will do this in due course when we’ve got enough of the people in that vulnerable group covered’. If they do that, at least it avoids the worst outcome which is thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people are prevented from voting and exercising their democratic right.”
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Responding to suggestions by critics that the policy is being pushed because it will disproportionately disadvantage Labour voters, he said: “We see in other countries a lot of gerrymandering… I don’t think that’s the reason behind this, and I hope it’s not.
“But if it were, it could turn out to be a spectacular miscalculation. Elderly voters – I suspect three quarters of them vote Conservative – this could blow up in our face. It is wrong morally, wrong politically.”
Hitting back against the criticism, a government spokesperson said: “We cannot be complacent when it comes to ensuring our democracy remains secure. Photo identification has been used in Northern Ireland elections since 2003.
“The vast majority of people already have a form of acceptable identification. We’re urging anyone who doesn’t to apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate as soon as possible and we expect more people to apply over the next few weeks.
“We’re working closely with the sector to support the rollout and are funding the necessary equipment and staffing for the change in requirements.”
The deadline for applying for free voter ID in time to vote in May’s local elections is 5pm on 25 April.
It has been an extraordinary few hours which may well set the tone for a hugely consequential week ahead.
In the time that it took me to fly from London to Saudi Arabia, where President Donald Trump will begin a pivotal Middle East tour this week, a flurry of news has emerged on a range of key global challenges.
• On the Gaza war: The Trump administration has confirmed it’s holding talks with Hamas, which says it will release a hostage amid renewed hopes of a ceasefire.
• On the Ukraine war: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is prepared to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul – this announcement came minutes after Trump urged Zelenskyy to agree to the meeting.
• On the China-US trade war: The White House says the two countries have agreed to a “trade deal”. China said the talks, in Geneva, were “candid, in-depth and constructive”.
All three of these developments represent dramatic shifts in three separate challenges and hint at the remarkable influence the US president is having globally.
This sets the ground for what could be a truly consequential week for Trump’s presidency and his ability to effect change.
With his unique style, Trump is seeking to align numerous stars as he embarks on his first foreign diplomatic trip of his second presidency.
For days, it’s been unclear how the week ahead would unfold and which global challenge would be dominant.
The Saudi government has been instrumental as a broker in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and Qatar has been a mediator in the Gaza war.
Trump will visit both countries this week.
President Donald Trump on Air Force One earlier this month. File pic: AP
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Putin under pressure?
On Ukraine, Putin held a late-night news conference at the Kremlin on Saturday at which he made the surprise proposal of talks with Zelenskyy in Istanbul this Thursday.
But he rejected European and US calls for an immediate ceasefire.
The move was widely interpreted as a delay tactic.
Trump then issued a social media post urging Zelenskyy to accept the Russian proposal; effectively to call Putin’s bluff.
The American president wrote: “President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY. At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the U.S., will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly! I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who’s too busy celebrating the Victory of World War ll, which could not have been won (not even close!) without the United States of America. HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!”
Within minutes, Zelenskyy responded, agreeing to the talks.
“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy. There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The prospect of Putin and Zelenskyy together in Istanbul on Thursday is remarkable.
It raises the possibility that Trump would want to be there too.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomes other world leaders to Kyiv. Pic: Presidential Office of Ukraine/dpa/AP Images
Israel’s war in Gaza
On Gaza, it’s been announced that US envoy Steve Witkoff will arrive in Israel on Monday to finalise details for the release of Idan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage being held by Hamas.
The development comes after it was confirmed that Mr Witkoff has been holding discussions with Israel, Qatar and Egypt and, through them, with Hamas.
The talks focused on a possible Gaza hostage deal and larger peace discussions for a ceasefire.
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Gaza after around a year and a half of Israeli attacks. Pic: Reuters/Mahmoud Issa
Just days ago, Israel announced a new military plan to move back into Gaza.
When do candid talks become a trade deal?
Meanwhile, officials from the United States and China have been holding talks in Geneva, Switzerland, to resolve their trade war, which was instigated by Trump’s tariffs against China.
Late on Sunday evening, the White House released a statement claiming that a trade deal had been struck.
In a written statement, titled “U.S. Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva”, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said: “I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks… We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive. We had the vice premier, two vice ministers, who were integrally involved, Ambassador Jamieson, and myself. And I spoke to President Trump, as did Ambassador Jamieson, last night, and he is fully informed of what is going on. So, there will be a complete briefing tomorrow morning.”
Beijing Global Times newspaper quoted the Chinese vice premier as saying that the talks were candid, in-depth and constructive.
However, the Chinese fell short of calling it a trade deal.
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A Qatari gift
In a separate development, US media reports say that Qatar is preparing to gift Trump a Boeing 747 from its royal fleet, which he would use as a replacement for the existing and aging Air Force One plane.
The Qatari government says no deal has been finalised, but the development is already causing controversy because of the optics of accepting gifts of this value.
Of all the fronts in Donald Trump’s trade war, none was as dramatic and economically threatening as the sky-high tariffs he imposed on China.
There are a couple of reasons: first, because China is and was the single biggest importer of goods into the US and, second, because of the sheer height of the tariffs imposed by the White House in recent months.
In short, tariffs of over 100% were tantamount to a total embargo on goods coming from the United States’ main trading partner. That would have had enormous economic implications, not just for the US but every other country around the world (these are the world’s biggest and second-biggest economies, after all).
Trump latest: US and China slash tariffs in trade war de-escalation
So the truce announced on Monday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent is undoubtedly a very big deal indeed.
In short, China will still face an extra 30% tariffs (the 20% levies cast as punishment for China’s involvement in fentanyl imports and the 10% “floor” set on “Liberation Day”) on top of the residual 10% average from the Biden era.
But the rest of the extra tariffs will be paused for 90 days. China, in turn, has suspended its own retaliatory tariffs on the US.
The market has responded as you would probably have expected, with share prices leaping in relief. But that raises a question: is the trade war now over? Now that the two sides have blinked, can globalisation continue more or less as it had before?
That, it turns out, is a trickier and more complex question than it might first seem.
Pic: AP
For one thing, even if one were to assume this is a permanent truce rather than a suspended one, it still leaves tariffs considerably higher than they were only last year. And China faces tariffs far higher than most other countries (tot up the existing ones and the Trump era ones and China faces average tariffs of around 40%, while the average for most countries is between 8% and 14%, according to Capital Economics).
In other words, the US is still implementing an economic policy designed to increase the cost of doing business with China, even if it no longer attempts to prevent it altogether. The fact that last week’s trade agreement with the UK contains clauses seemingly designed to encourage it to raise trade barriers against China for reasons of “security” only reinforces this suspicion. The trade war is still simmering, even if it’s no longer as hot as it was a few days ago.
Read more:
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And more broadly, the deeper impact of the trade rollercoaster in recent months is unlikely to disappear altogether. Companies remain more nervous about investing in factories and expansions in the face of such deep economic instability. No-one is entirely sure the White House won’t just U-turn once again.
That being said, it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that the US president has blinked in this trade war. In the face of a potential recession, he has pulled back from the scariest and most damaging of his tariffs, earlier and to a greater extent than many had expected.
World
Zelenskyy’s offer to meet Putin raises the stakes in this already high-stakes game of diplomacy
Diplomacy over Ukraine has become even more of a game of high-stakes poker.
In the early hours of Sunday, Vladimir Putin played his hand, rejecting demands for a ceasefire and proposing direct talks in Istanbul instead.
Read more:
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That was in response to the opening gambit made on Saturday by Ukraine and its European allies.
Sir Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron among world leaders in Kyiv. Pic: AP
Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer said they were “calling Putin out”, that if he was really serious about peace, he should agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire starting on Monday.
And they thought they had Donald Trump’s backing until he made his move.
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Kremlin: ‘We don’t share Starmer’s view’
Late Sunday, he drove a cart and horses through claims of western unity, coming down on Putin’s side.
Ukraine, he said, should submit to the Russian leader’s suggestion of talks.
“Ukraine should agree to this – immediately”, he posted. Then: “I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin…”
So much for the Coalition of the Willing having Putin where they wanted him.
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Are Putin’s call for peace talks genuine?
Trump let him off the hook.
All eyes were then on President Zelenskyy, who has now in turn dramatically raised the stakes.
He will go to Istanbul, he said, and wait there for Vladimir Putin.
Over to you, Vladimir.
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The fast-paced diplomacy aside, the last twenty-four hours have brought Europe closer to a moment of truth.
They thought they had Donald Trump’s support, and yet even with 30 nations demanding an unconditional ceasefire, the US president seemed, in the end, to side with the Russian leader.
He has helped Putin get out of a hole.
Yet again, Trump could not be counted on to pressure Vladimir Putin to end this war.
If America is no longer a reliable partner over Ukraine, Europe may need to go it alone, whatever the cost.
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