Stramer's Labour government under double attack

Labour was accused of plotting a shameless bid to 'rig' the next election by sweeping away laws to prevent voter fraud and allowing millions of foreign nationals to vote, ‘The Daily Mail’ reports.

Speculation is mounting in Westminster that ministers are drawing up radical reforms that will dramatically overhaul the way elections are held – and potentially 'lock in' a Labour Party majority.

The Government is already planning to extend the right to vote to 16 and 17-year-olds, with legislation expected later this year.

Now the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a Left-wing think-tank closely aligned with Labour, has called for the 'removal or relaxation' of rules that force people to show photographic identification before voting.

Introduced in 2022, the rules were designed to protect postal and proxy voting from fraud and crack down on vote intimidation.

The IPPR, however, warns turn-out is falling among non-graduates and renters and says lessening the photo ID requirements, or axing them, would 'reduce inequality at UK general elections'.

The IPPR also suggests that 5 million foreign nationals be allowed to vote – a massive extension of the franchise likely to overwhelmingly benefit Labour.

The report says: 'Around five million permanent taxpaying residents of the UK do not have the right to vote in its elections.

'This is because citizens of countries other than the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth nations cannot register to vote, regardless of how long they have been resident in the UK.

'There is clear need for a wider political conversation about the notion of citizenship and voting rights in the UK.'

The IPPR also says the Government could explore automatically registering voters 'shortly before their 16th birthdays' – a move that would add 700,000 young people to the electoral register each year.

The report last night sparked outrage from Tory MPs, who believe Labour is cynically preparing to 'gerrymander' elections.

Nigel Huddleston, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, said: 'This is nothing more than a shameless attempt by Labour to rig elections in its favour and turn a blind eye to electoral fraud.

'It is no surprise that Labour has resorted to dirty tricks to improve its chances of electoral success and try to distract people away from its failures.

'In six short months in power it has trashed the economy, whacked up taxes and cut the winter fuel payment for 10 million vulnerable pensioners.'

Former defence minister Sir Alec Shelbrooke added: 'It's patently clear that Labour is gearing up to roll back sensible ID voting reforms introduced by the Conservatives and introduce other changes to gerrymander the result of future elections in its favour.

'As Labour and Sir Keir Starmer's poll ratings collapse, this Government will get even keener on trying to rig election rules.

'But any changes won't be about fairness – they'll be about ministers trying to save their own skins.'

Musk says UK’s Starmer should be in prison. Trump ally keeps up his feud with Britain’s center-left government — and asks followers if America should ‘liberate’ Britain, notes POLITICO.

Elon Musk called for Britain’s prime minister to be jailed and flirted with a U.S. invasion of the country as his online feud with its Labour government cranked up a notch.

“Prison for Starmer,” Musk shared a post from an anonymous account claiming that Starmer prioritized tackling anti-Muslim abuse over condemning a child-killer. The billionaire followed that up with a poll asking whether America “should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.”

Musk has waded into a tense debate in Britain over the state’s response to child sexual exploitation in recent days, attacking Starmer for his record as the country’s top prosecutor.

The Labour government recently rejected a national inquiry into grooming gangs, often of South Asian men, who targeted vulnerable young women in northern England, pointing to a series of inquiries on the issue.

A 2014 state-commissioned report by senior social worker Alexis Jay found that some 1,400 vulnerable children were targeted and sexually abused in the northern English town of  Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. Jay blasted “collective failures” in the care system and said local authorities had failed to confront Pakistani-heritage perpetrators of the abuse, in part because some staff feared being labeled racist.

The findings of that report, and a subsequent local inquiry on exploitation in the town of Oldham, have since become rallying points for figures on the right of British politics.

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