Elections Bill - time to keep the pressure on
Following a thorough, motivating zoom meeting with Lord Newby, our Leader in the Lords, on March 15, the fight against the anti-democratic Elections Bill is still very much on!
This week, the Lords move to voting on the bill. - and there are two actions we should take:
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Lord Newby has asked us to:
- between the key dates of April 4-7, write to as many of these peers as possible. This targetted list consists of cross bench and independent peers; all selected by our Lords team as the priority ones to lobby.
Use one or more of these messages - we are continuing to campaign on:
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Stop compulsory voter photo ID - 'a solution to a problem - voter fraud - that effectively doesn't exist in this country.' Literally millions could be disenfranchised and the government has earmarked £180 millions to deal with the problems its own unnecessary law is creating.
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Keep the Supplementary Vote for Mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections: do not reverse democratic choice by imposing First Past the Post.
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Save the independence of the Electoral Commission by removing clauses that undermine it.
And two additional issues:
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Prevent the massive cut in election spending by trade unions and other outside groups that the bill proposes.
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Stop overseas voters being permissible donors to political parties.
Obviously tailor your mails to your own words and key concerns.
Please let us know of any meaningful responses you get. Write to info@lder.org
We'll keep you posted on further developments.
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Write a Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper. Adapt the messages of course - but this time alerting readers to the fact that, unnoticed by most of us, our democracy is being eroded by this damaging bill.
Thanks to everyone for your great support. So much to do, but we're making headway.