A former electoral commissioner has accused Boris Johnson of “partisan interference” over controversial new plans to increase government control over the UK’s election watchdog.
The reforms would prevent the Electoral Commission from bringing its own criminal prosecutions over election fraud and would compel the supposedly independent body to follow the government’s ‘priorities’.
David Howarth, who served on the Electoral Commission’s board from 2010 to 2018, told openDemocracy that the proposals are “precisely the kind of partisan interference with the Commission that we feared”.
