New legal changes laid in Parliament for approval mean that in future Mayoral elections will be carried out using the outdated First Past The Post election system currently used in English elections for Parliament and local councils.

This will prevent people exercising a second choice, which was how Cambridgeshire & Peterborough managed to oust its unpopular Conservative mayor James Palmer last year.

And starting with the council elections next May, voters will have to bring identification with them to the polling station.

According to the Electoral Reform Society, which has written about the Voter ID pilot schemes carried out in 2019, far more people were turned away from polling stations for not having ID than have been found to have committed voter fraud—the supposed reason for this change. And requiring voter ID can have a potentially disproportionate impact on certain groups.

The conclusion of the article studying the pilot schemes was that this change “poses a risk to democratic access and equality”.

There is no doubt why the Government is doing this.