JUST IN! Starmer EXPLODES As Reform UK Takes Labour to Court Over Cancelled Élections

Описание: ‎Imagine living in a democracy where your local council suddenly decides that holding an election is just too much bother, too much hassle, requires too much "capacity," so they simply postpone it for two years without asking your permission. Sounds like something from a tin-pot dictatorship rather than twenty-first century Britain, doesn't it? Well, buckle up, because that's exactly what's about to happen to over five million people across dozens of Labour-controlled councils this May. Elections that should be happening, that voters have a right to participate in, that represent the fundamental democratic principle of holding power to account, are being cancelled. Not because of war, not because of pandemic, not because of national emergency, but because councils apparently cannot be bothered to organise them whilst simultaneously managing local government reorganisation. And Reform UK has had enough. They're heading to court, preparing a judicial review, coming at the Government with everything they've got, and frankly, it's about time someone stood up for the millions of voters being silently disenfranchised by Labour's convenience politics.
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‎So let's be absolutely clear about what's happening here, because the scale of this disenfranchisement is genuinely staggering. More than twenty Labour councils, covering approximately four million people, possibly more according to latest reports, are expected to have their elections cancelled this year. Not postponed by a few weeks due to logistics, not delayed by a month because of unforeseen circumstances, but completely cancelled and pushed back until two thousand and twenty-seven. That's two years. Two years during which these councils will operate without facing voters, without democratic accountability, without the basic check and balance that elections provide. And their justification? They don't have the "capacity" to hold a vote whilst managing local government reorganisation. Capacity. As if running elections, the cornerstone of democracy, is some optional luxury that can be shelved when it becomes inconvenient.
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‎Reform UK's chairman Zia Yusuf has come out swinging, telling GB News that his party is ready to mount a judicial review in the High Court to try to force the Government to overrule the councils' requests. "Reform's lawyers are coming at them with everything we've got," Yusuf declared, and honestly, good. Someone needs to fight this, someone needs to stand up and say that cancelling elections because they're a bit of a faff is utterly unacceptable in a functioning democracy. This isn't about party politics, this is about democratic principle. If you can cancel elections for administrative convenience, what's the point of having fixed terms at all? Why not just let councils govern indefinitely until they fancy facing voters? It's the kind of logic that leads down very dark roads indeed.
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‎Let's talk about how we even got to this point, because the backstory reveals a Government that seems remarkably comfortable with curtailing democratic participation when it suits their administrative preferences. Last month, ministers asked sixty-three councils in England if they wanted to delay their elections until two thousand and twenty-seven so they could, in the Government's words, "bed in a local government shake-up." Bed in a shake-up. That's bureaucratic speak for "we're reorganising how councils work and we'd rather not have the inconvenience of elections getting in the way." These sixty-three councils were given until midnight on Thursday this week to say if they wanted a delay, and ministers helpfully said they would be "minded" to agree to any postponement. Minded to agree. That's not setting a high bar for approval, that's basically saying "if you want to cancel your election, we'll rubber-stamp it."
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