Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to cancel council contests for millions of Britons this spring have been slammed by the head of Britain’s elections watchdog.
Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, said it was a “fundamental point” the contests be held.
He criticised the decision of 29 local authorities to delay their elections this year, a move which will deny 4.5 million Britons the vote this May, and another 2.5 million people will be denied their say for the second year running.
Of the 29 areas postponing elections, 21 are currently Labour-controlled, the Conservatives rule six and the Liberal Democrats hold one.
Mr Rangarajan insisted budget constraints should not be treated as valid grounds for cancellation.
“We would hope that no government would go and say that somehow elections are fungible with other parts of council money,” he said.
“It’s a fundamental point that they have to run elections on those timescales, and we would put the bar very high for postponement.”
He maintained resource limitations did not constitute “sufficient reason” for denying citizens their democratic rights.
The election watchdog has slammed the decision to delay voting for millions of Britons in May
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Mr Rangarajan also took aim at the process by which postponement decisions were made, identifying what he termed a “conflict of interest” in the current arrangements.
Ministers invited 63 councils with scheduled elections to indicate whether they wished to delay, permitting councillors themselves to cite stretched budgets as justification for cancellation.
The Electoral Commission chief argued this approach was fundamentally flawed, as it allowed elected officials to determine when they would next face the electorate.
“There is this conflict of interest where you’re asking people to decide how long it is before they face voters,” he said.
Of the 29 areas postponing elections, 21 are currently Labour-controlled
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“We think it should be the other way around – the voters should decide how long it is before they (councillors) face voters.”
He suggested such decisions should instead rest with council chief executives, who are unaffected by electoral cycles.
Mr Rangarajan also expressed alarm about councils facing consecutive postponements, describing these as “double delays” that have left residents without a vote since 2021.
Five county councils fall into this category: West Sussex, East Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk and Surrey.
Vijay Rangarajan insisted it was a ‘fundamental point’ local elections be held
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Councillors in these areas, originally elected four years ago, will now remain in office until at least 2028, effectively serving seven-year terms.
These five councils alone represent a population of roughly 3.5 million voters who have been denied the opportunity to choose their local representatives for an extended period.
He added postponements could only be justified where a council itself faces abolition, calling elections in such circumstances a “waste of voter time”.
The postponements face a legal challenge, with Reform UK set to bring a judicial review before the High Court next week.
More than four million people are set to be denied a vote this May
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GETTYMr Rangarajan said the case could provide clarity on ministerial powers under the Local Government Act 2000, which critics argue should be amended to make cancelling elections more difficult.
“Obviously, there’s a judicial review on the way, which may actually clarify this,” he said. “So we’ll see what the court case comes to as well, because that will raise at least some of these issues.”
Robert Jenrick, who defected to Reform last year, told MPs the government’s actions were “almost certainly illegal”.
He said legal advice he received while in office indicated that postponing elections for a second consecutive year was not legally sustainable, adding that even during the Covid pandemic, votes were not delayed for two years running.
Last week, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey wrote to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, pleading with her to instruct peers to “defend our democracy” and back their motion that would compel the votes to go ahead.