The Electoral Commission this week tweeted an unprecedented riposte over the UK’s government’s latest attack on our democratic institutions – a plan to severely undermine the commission’s independence as the country’s election watchdog.
Writing for openDemocracy last year, one former electoral commissioner claimed that the Elections Bill, which is set to be debated in the House of Lords on Wednesday, includes measures that are “serious threats to the fairness of all future elections in Britain”.
So serious is the threat that yesterday the Electoral Commission announced it had written to UK ministers to warn that “enabling the government to guide the work of the commission – is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democratic system”.
