Reform UK has pledged to prevent people from voting if their English is not good enough to understand the electoral rules in an effort to clamp down on family voting and coercion. The Telegraph has more.
Officials in polling stations would be told to deny someone a ballot paper if they were concerned about “their ability to understand the voting process or language”.
The measure is one of several amendments tabled by Danny Kruger, Reform’s policy chief, to a Government bill.
Reform’s measures would crack down on family voting, where relatives accompany voters into the polling booth or seek to influence their decision.
The amendment states that no more than one person should enter a voting booth at a time. Voters who did not comply and attempted to advise family members on how to vote could face unlimited fines or six months in prison.
Reform’s amendments would also stop parties from publishing election leaflets in languages not native to the British Isles, remove the vote from Commonwealth citizens and restrict postal voting to those unable to travel to the polling booth.
Kruger told the Telegraph: “With every election, our democracy is being systematically eroded. Britain’s electoral system – once the envy of the world – now buckles under the strain of uncontrolled immigration.
“In too many parts of the country, elections have been captured by foreign conflicts and sectarian interests, not by what is best for Britain.
“Reform UK will not stand by while our political system is undermined. Britain should be run in the interests of the British people. That’s why we are introducing these changes to save our democracy.”
Worth reading in full.
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Policies are only good if they can be put in place. Who decides what level of English a person has? people do not just fall into two categories. (1) Can Speak English, and (2) Cannot Speak English. —Then who among all these volunteers at poling stations will enforce this? It is ok to support a political party but it isn’t necessary to agree with every policy, especially if it seems unworkable. The principle is a good one, but how how it could be put in place I am not sure.
How about banning spending taxpayers money on any form of translation. If you can’t speak my language you either pay for translation of FO back where you came from.
Unless people are loony lefties/bleeding hearted liberals they shouldn’t oppose this.
There are very clear rules. Before we invent more rules how about we just enforce the existing ones?
Just ban anyone not ethnically British.
I couldn’t understand why they didn’t just taser the people performing family voting
Mosques telling people to apply for a postal vote then collecting all the ballot papers and filling them in is probably a much bigger problem than family voting at a polling station.
Farage is spot on to scrap postal voting for anyone who wants to vote this way. It’s not hard for people who often work away from home to prove this in order to get a postal vote. If someone can prove they’ve booked a holiday that means they can’t vote in person they should get a one off postal vote just for the election that coincides with their holiday.
It’s a great idea but how many officials in polling stations will risk the amount of abuse, including threats of or actual violence, enforcing the rules is bound to result in.
What happens if the officials are Muslims? It’s highly unlikely they’d enforce the rules, would they have to be banned from officiating?
Armed police in polling booths in paki areas, with orders to shoot to kill.
Some people might find that slightly extreme…
No muslims should ever be allowed in positions of power over ethnic british.
The problem with the Muslim religion is that its followers are directed to promote Islam in every circumstance. It’s called Taqiyya and has half a dozen variants covering any situation in which advancing Islam would benefit it and its followers. This means that the Muslim religion directs its adherents to not tell the truth – to LIE.