Thread by @BlayneyDeborah

🤣IMPORTANT!!⚠️
#democracyindanger🔥

'The Electoral Commission is now under government control. We should fear for UK democracy'🚩
@ElectoralCommUK

MUST READ @prospect_uk article!
Will add key concerns in thread! 🔥

https://twitter.com/AlexDean94/status/1651557828044226560

'When I asked the chair of the Commission, John Pullinger, if the Elections Act is incompatible with the body’s independence, he was direct: “Yes.”'🔥🧐 @ElectoralCommUK @hrw @PublicStandards @ConUnit_UCL @HLConstitution @AdamWagner1 @BinghamCentre @clm_cambridge @EndCorruptionUK

'Without an independent invigilator to ensure the fairness of the vote, there is concern the government could go into polling day with an inbuilt advantage. That could undermine voters’ confidence that they have taken part in a sound election, and..

events in the United States show how dangerous that is. So, is the government making these changes simply because it has failed to grasp the dangers inherent in such meddling—or is there something more sinister at work?' ..

'Helen Mountfield, a leading QC specialising in democracy and human rights, posed the question in this way: “How can the Electoral Commission conceivably be an independent regulator of elections if it has to take policy direction from the government of the day?”
@HelenMountfield

'Former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve said such proposals for government supervision should have been stripped from the legislation. And Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer and former director of human rights organisation @libertyhq, was least impressed of all:

“Britain is an old unbroken democracy because of respect for referees and the ‘rules of the game,’” she said, but with this legislation Boris Johnson is “closely emulating Trump.”🔥🔥

@shamichakrabar1
#democracyindanger

'But now, thanks to the #ElectionsAct, not only will the government be at liberty to set the overarching direction of the Commission but, in the most extreme circumstances, the relevant secretary of state could direct it to avoid looking into anything inconvenient,..

and refuse to fund activities that he or she doesn’t like.'..

'Governments have only one priority for the next election: to win it

There is little precedent for such measures among advanced democracies:

“We have not been able to find another example where, on the face of the act, there is an opportunity for the government to ­issue [such] a statement… we’ve not found one anywhere,” said Pullinger of the strategy and policy document.'🚩@ElectoralCommUK

@HLConstitution @JMPSimor

'Igor Judge, former lord chief justice of England and Wales, led the fight against the legislation in the House of Lords. He told me that if the Electoral Commission is still independent, then it “seems to me to be really rather an unusual form of independence.”🔥
@HLConstitution

'The truth of the matter is that over the years the @ElectoralCommUK will become more and more dependent on what the secretary of state’s statement asserts,” as Judge put it on another occasion. 🚩🔥..

If similar rules were applied to the judiciary—if their approach was dictated to them by the government—there would be uproar. Yet the Electoral Commission, a quasi-judicial body, has been subjected to precisely this treatment.' 🚩🔥
@davidallengreen @TheLawSociety @thebarcouncil

'The Elections Act is a power grab in the truest sense of the term'
#democracyindanger

@ElectoralCommUK
@PublicStandards @bricksilk
@EndCorruptionUK @SirJJKC
@allthecitizens @GreenJennyJones
@AdamWagner1 @maitlis @BestForBritain @adamboultonTABB @Channel4News @SkyNews @krishgm

rianCox @mrjamesob @GaryLineker @MarinaPurkiss @carolvorders @allthecitizens @ByDonkeys @campbellclaret @FFSake_ @brexit_sham @BylineTimes @IanDunt @maitlis @UKLabour @EdwardJDavey @CarolineLucas @SarahLudford @natalieben
twitter.com/areYouYesYet/s…
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6358…