Boris Johnson turned away from voting due to his own ID law amid catastrophic Conservative results
Former prime minister of the UK Boris Johnson was turned away from voting after failing to bring the correct ID. (Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
The controversial decision to bar people without photo ID from voting has seen former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who introduced the requirement, turned away from his local polling station for not bringing acceptable ID.
According to Sky News, Johnson was initially turned away from casting his ballot in South Oxfordshire, after he failed to bring acceptable photo ID, but he later returned and was able to vote.
Accepted forms of ID, of which there are 22, include as a passport, driving licence (full or provisional), biometric immigration document or a PASS card.
Following Johnson’s departure from Number 10, MPs and LGBTQ+ activists told PinkNews his legacy would be defined by his fuelling of a transphobic culture war that has put lives at risk.
Under the former prime minister’s government the requirement for photo ID to vote was introduced in the Elections Act 2022. The change was implemented for the first time at local elections in May 2023.
The change sparked fears that trans and non-binary people – and those who couldn’t afford the required ID – would be deprived of the right to vote due to lack of ID – or concerns that they wouldn’t feel comfortable producing it.
Other criticism levelled at the new rules included the fact that disadvantaged people and minorities are less likely to have photo ID such as a driving license, with people suggesting the move was a cynical one aimed at making it harder for those groups – who have historically been more likely to vote Labour – to vote.
However, even if this was the case, it doesn’t seem to have worked out in the way the Conservatives had hoped. The party are so far losing in the 2024 local elections, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s future hanging in the balance as a result.
Election expert, professor John Curtice, told The Independent that results so far, including the Conservatives losing the Blackpool South by-election to Labour, has signalled that “we’re probably looking at certainly one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performance in local government elections for the last 40-years”.
