Labour would rig future elections by giving vote to EU migrants and prisoners, claim Tories

Labour would use a “super-majority” victory to rig future elections by giving votes to EU migrants and prioners, a Cabinet minister has said.

Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, claimed that handing Sir Keir Starmer such a large number of seats would embolden him to bring back policies he had shelved.

Mr Dowden said this could include handing the vote to millions of EU nationals and allowing prisoners to take part in elections, increasing the number of Left-wing voters who could give Labour even larger future majorities.

The Tories said that would “shift the voting dynamic of the electorate and lock Labour into government for a generation”, and claimed the Labour leader could potentially use that to take Britain back into the EU.

Mr Dowden said: “Keir Starmer has long advocated giving EU migrants and prisoners the vote, along with 16-year-olds. A large majority would give him a blank cheque to do just that, locking Labour in power for a generation.

“He knows these are groups which would overwhelmingly support Labour and cancel out the votes of the Britons he wants tax to the hilt. For millions of older voters, this could be the last time to make their vote count.”

It is official Labour policy to lower the voting age to 16, another change the Conservatives fear could skew the country to the Left. However, despite having spoken of extending the vote to convicts and EU migrants in the past, these are not Labour policy.

But the Conservatives claimed that, in a large Labour majority scenario, the party would be given carte blanche to re-introduce policies it had sidelined before the election when in government.

They claimed Labour would allow 6.7 million EU nationals the right to vote, and could give the vote to 27,000 people serving up to four years in jail. In 2020, when he was standing to be Labour leader, Sir Keir said he wanted to provide full voting rights for EU nationals.