Boris Johnson turned away from voting station after not bringing correct form of photo ID
Boris Johnson was turned away from a polling station on Thursday as he tried to vote in the local elections after he forgot to bring the correct form of photo ID.
Volunteers in South Oxfordshire, where a police and crime commissioner for the Thames Valley was being selected, were unable to give the former prime minister a ballot as he failed to comply with legislation he introduced while in Downing Street, Sky News reported.
Being turned away will likely be very embarrassing for Mr Johnson because the requirement to bring photo ID to polling stations forms part of the Elections Act, which he introduced in 2022 while still in Downing Street.
The Electoral Commission has warned that hundreds of thousands of people could be excluded from voting because of the law, which it said could have a disproportionate effect on some groups.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson did not deny the reports but told Sky News: “Mr Johnson voted Conservative.”
In 2004 Mr Johnson said in an opinion piece in the The Daily Telegraph that if ID cards for all UK citizens were introduced by the then Labour government, and he was ever asked to produce his he would take it out of his wallet and eat it.
Another Tory MP, Tom Hunt, also admitted he was forced to rely on an emergency proxy vote after claiming his dyspraxia caused him to misplace his photo ID.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer also today apologised to former military personnel who have been blocked from using their veterans ID in order to vote in the local elections in England.
Downing Street said it would “look into” changing the controversial new rules which require photo ID in order to vote, to allow veterans’ ID cards on to the list of valid identification.
Mr Mercer said after reports emerged of a veteran being turned away from a polling station: “I am sorry about this. The legislation on acceptable forms of ID came out before the veterans ID cards started coming out in January this year. I will do all I can to change it before the next one.
A government spokesperson said it was the intention to add the veterans card to the list of accepted ID and that defence identity cards for serving Armed Forces members were already accepted. “We are already consulting on this,” they said.
Under the new rules, older people can use travel cards as valid forms of ID, but young people cannot show their rail cards.
