So now we’ve had two Scottish by-elections in twelve months with suspected electoral fraud. And, if true, both perpetrated by the same party running the government of the United Kingdom.
It emerged last night that police were called to two polling stations, St Dennis's and Alexandra Parade, yesterday, after voters arriving to cast their ballot were told their names had already been crossed off. The ballot boxes were handed over to the police, but the disputed ballots were still counted last night. Officials at Glasgow City Council said only three ballot papers were involved.
If things are as bad as they seem, Glasgow NE may turn out to be another Glenrothes, surely the most single minded act of political will in history. In case you have forgotten: a year ago, and with no assistance from any political party activists whatsoever, the good people of Glenrothes painstakingly filled out nearly 6,000 postal voting forms in the privacy of their own homes before carefully mailing them at their nearest letter box personally. The post office then conscientiously delivered them by normal mail to be counted on election day in the counting room. And, rather than reflecting the same spread of votes for all the parties reflected at the polling stations, every single one of them was for Labour.
Imagine that.
Humbled by the unanimity of the Glenrothes postal voters’ rejection, the SNP chose not to make a legal challenge at the time, thereby avoiding the accusation of sour grapes.
Or it may have been because the marked-up electoral register from the by-election went mysteriously ‘missing’ and, lacking a record of who had actually voted, it would have taken too long to prove what had happened and by which time nobody would have cared. Over a year since the by-election, it has still not been reconstructed.
The point is this: the SNP suspected Labour of massive electoral fraud at Glenrothes, but the hard evidence went missing.
Fast forward six months to May this year. The Commons Speaker Michael Martin resigns for expenses irregularities, and Glasgow is due another by-election. Having already proved that they could unseat Labour in Glasgow East in 2008, the SNP could afford to lose it. There was less to be gained from winning such a by-election at all costs, six months out from a UK general election in which Labour are facing annihilation. With Gordon Brown expected to hang on for as long as possible, an SNP victory would not have brought this day one second closer.
Think about it. In the coming UK election, the head of Scottish Labour – the present UK Government – will be removed from its shoulders regardless of how many seats the SNP wins at Westminster in May. After the election, UK Labour will be an irrelevance, regardless of how many seats it has on the opposition benches.
And regardless of whether London is ‘dancing to a Scottish jig’ or ‘hung by a Scottish rope’ after May 2010 – even if the SNP wins every single Scottish seat in Westminster – Scotland would still be no nearer getting its referendum over the line. In fact, if the SNP starts calling the shots in a hung Tory government, the present constitutional arrangement may well start to look remarkably beneficial for Scotland.
Which might make it preferable for many to independence.
So, what am I saying? That the SNP deliberately threw the Glasgow NE by-election?
No. But they did certainly did not throw everything at it.
Until independence, the SNP main game will be the referendum. It needs four things for it to succeed: a Holyrood budget to fund it, the parliament to allow it to happen, a cleaned-up electoral system for a fair run at it and, of course, the political will of the Scottish people to vote for it.
When the Glasgow NE By-election was called, SNP was faced with a dilemma: fight Labour tooth and nail for several grueling months for a by-election that changes nothing, or put up a high profile candidate with enough credibility to once more draw out Labour’s suspected electoral fraud machine, which would be mobilised to make damn sure Labour did not lose its second safest seat.
The SNP strategists knew Labour would fight dirty. A hard-won by-election would have sapped the SNP of funds with no return on investment other than being one voice louder on Westminster’s opposition benches for the next six months. In the event, Salmond chose to keep his powder dry for the referendum, running a by-the-numbers by-election and saving party funds for when it mattered. David Kerr was the bait and Labour took it.
Whole.
Kerr should feel no sense of shame or failure for how he performed. He may even be aware of why he was running. He is certainly no fool.
In the event, Labour won by 8,111 votes over the SNP’s 4,120. The irony being that electoral fraud – if indeed it was committed – was unnecessary, and Labour might have still won had they chosen to campaign cleanly. Or, at least, by only telling outright lies and utter fabrications about the SNP record in Glasgow.
So what was the point of all this?
The Scottish Government desperately wants to clean up the Scottish electoral system before the referendum on independence. However long it takes. With the evidence now gathered from possibly the second fraudulent by-election in twelve months, steps can now be taken to neutralise Labour’s suspected electoral fraud machine in Scotland.
Unless another marked-up electoral register going missing.
Another fresh leak from my source in Westminster: this was received in the form of a typed memo, printed off on a blank white sheet of paper with no letterhead. The italics refer to handwritten notes made on the page.
Status of Operation 'Scorched Earth' July 31, 2009 PRESENT: GB, AD, JM.
Only Lurch and Ali-D could make it. Fat George is too busy making bloody FOI requests!
Original Action Plan from July, 2007:
1. Starve Scotland of funds, making it look as if the Scottish Govt {^Executive}is picking fights and always asking for more. STATUS: Ali-D says he is tightening the screws. It might backfire and lead to independence, but ok so far – and what the hell have we got to lose, anyway? Role of subservient Scottish press proving crucial.
NOTE: Talk to secretary about not using the phrase 'Scottish Govt'.
2. Work with other Unionist parties to block all Nat legislation in their pathetic minority government. STATUS: Not working! Bastard Tories, Greens and LibDems won’t play ball, and seem to be making deals with the Nats to pander to their electorates.
3. Maintain UK policy of keeping the West of Scotland poor, maintaining Labour loyalty from section of population on benefit. DANGER. Strategy seems to be failing – no longer possible with Nats in power. Seem to be getting their message through that Glasgow could be better off without us. Nats’ populist health and transport policies a blatant attempt at giving Scotland better services than England! FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to continue to reveal the cynical nationalist agenda that lies behind the Nats’ economic strategy. If all else fails, see next point.
4. Keep a tight hold of by-elections in Scotland, using ‘enabling’ machinery to win every by-election, regardless of the result. STATUS: Screwed up in Glasgow East, but Lurch says Glenrothes proves we’ve got it under control. FURTHER ACTION: Lurch says Nats may be onto our methods, but putting Glasgow North East back to November should give us time to do whatever it takes to ‘take care’ of things.
5. Use influence to persuade UK Electoral Commission to turn a blind eye to postal vote anomalies in Scottish by-elections. DONE.
6. Ignore all demands for transferring control of Scottish elections to the Scottish Govt. {^Executive} STATUS: WORKING.
7. Keep the Scottish press churning out our press releases verbatim, with a Labour & Unionist slants on all other news. Impossible in England, but relatively easy in Scotland with fewer outlets and almost no Tory press. STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Lurch says the blatant Unionist slant in the Scottish press is becoming too obvious. Editors of the Scotsman, Herald and Daily Record are apparently complaining that their unswerving Unionist bias on every subject under the sun is becoming ‘tediously obvious’, alienating traditional readership and causing their circulations to ‘freefall’. FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to have a word with the editors to explore further ways to secretly subsidise them via advertising.
8. Fund Scottish Unionist bloggers to counter Nat lies about Scotland’s self-sufficiency or any successes of the Scottish Govt {^Executive}. STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Unionist bloggers complaining they aren’t getting any advertising revenue, which is dependent on their sites getting a high number of hits, which are almost non-existent. FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to increase subsidies via ‘consultancy fees,’ and find ways to increase hits without more actual readers.
9. Build infrastructure to allow the UK to take the oil direct to England in case the Nats pull off independence.
DONE.
Should teach Scotland not to betray Labour, and prove once and for all that Scotland isn’t a viable state – exactly what we said all along!
10. Grab Scotland’s lottery money so that their Commonwealth Games in 2014 look like mince compared to England’s {^Britain’s} Olympic Games in 2012. DONE. NOTE: tell my secretary again the difference between England & Britain. I'm sick of explaining it to the dozy tart!
11. Put pressure on Scottish Sportsmen and women to declare their Britishness. Use press, TV and honours to bring them to heel. STATUS: WORKING: Pretty Boy Hoy and Murray under control. No longer upsetting the English with their Scottish identity. FURTHER ACTION: Some sports apparently already separated. Doesn’t seem to be any rule about which ones we compete in as British. Talk to MCG about possibility of England cricket team competing as 'Britain'.
12. Explore ways to get polling companies to issue doctored polls on lack of Scottish desire for independence. STATUS: BBC seems to have remembered which side their bread is buttered and now pulling their weight. Last poll looked good. Shitting themselves that the Tories will get in and cut them back to just BBC1 and Radio 4! Would serve the back-stabbing bastards right!
13. Scottish press to persuade Scots they don’t want independence, and that a referendum is a waste of time in such difficult/ bountiful economic times (delete as appropriate). Demoralise ordinary Scots into accepting the status quo. DANGER: Lurch warns that a general engagement in politics in Scotland is growing, and that the message that the referendum is a waste of time is starting to fall on deaf ears. FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to talk to Fat George about continuing to sow FUD on separation/ isolation/ building barriers /dependency via Scottish press to counter the Nat’s cynical message of re-entering the world community of nations/ removing barriers to dealing with the world directly/ ending oil subsidies to England / Scotland's wealth in natural resources.
14. Spin news to make Scots believe their economy is dependent on British military contracts. STATUS: NOT SURE IF WORKING. Scottish press playing the game but the Nats are on to us. Lurch recently tried to make it look like he saved a big contract, but Nats successful in showing that Lurch did bugger all. Lurch says Nats got the message through that the Tories could still cancel it. FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to stay on message. Those with defence jobs might still vote Labour from fear of losing them.
Additional Item
15. Respond to Calman Commission findings. STATUS: Lurch reassures me his fancy footwork to distance us from calamity Calman is working. FURTHER ACTION: Delay response to findings until it is forgotten. Leave the Tories to deal with it, which means it'll never happen.
Special Note: All meeting actions henceforth to be approved by PM. Still waiting for the Pink Baron to grant me an audience. Said he was too busy with all his committee work for ‘stupid Scotch stuff.’ Have left him four messages. Secretaries Brett and Hans say he’s tied up in an important debriefing.
Misc Personal Stuff
1. Talk to EU about possible presidential role after election/referendum defeat.
In a former post, we looked at some of the many loopholes in the UK’s democratic system. Turning this around, let us now look at the many ways the British electoral system may be successfully exploited by a party sufficiently determined to seize power - or hold it at any cost.
Combining the findings from a number of recent investigations into electoral fraud in Britain (1,2,3,4,5), it is absolutely clear that - despite the current government's lip-service to electoral reform - all of the following means of electoral fraud remain relatively easy to execute across the whole of mainland UK (6):
1. Nominating people as postal voters without their knowledge, for the fraudulent use of their vote by a third party. The first voters know of this is when they turn up at the polling station and find they have already voted. (7)
2. Family voting by the householder on behalf of everyone in the house. The householder is in total control of the household voter registration, both in terms of who is registered and who is not. If he or she doesn’t approve of how someone will vote, they can delete them from the household register, or vote on their behalf by post, knowing their date of birth. (8)
3. Registering bogus voters on a household’s voter list. The householder can make up as many names/birthdays/identities/signatures as he/she wants. (9,10) This is particularly effective if a party persuades the householder to vote for it by post as a block. According to the Council of Europe inspection team, this is “very difficult to detect”. (11)
4. Registering to vote in multiple electorates. Many people do this legally, for example students who live away from home. But since there is no central electoral register, there is no limit to how many constituencies in which a person can register. Using postal voting, it is “childishly easy” in a General Election to send off multiple postal votes in plenty of time for all the constituencies where you are registered. (12)
Although illegal, routine collection and handling of postal votes by party activists (‘If you fill it in now, I'll post it for you.’), enables each of the following three related forms of electoral fraud:
5. Intimidating or bribing socially vulnerable voters to vote for the party that is collecting the postal vote, or to leave it blank for the party activist to complete later. This is devastatingly effective if the household is a student dorm or an old folks’ home, giving the activist enormous voting power. (13,14)
6. Altering completed postal votes. It’s as easy as crossing out one choice and replacing it with another. There are very lax rules about this. The party activist doesn't even have to match the pen colour.(15)
7. Destroying postal votes for the opposing parties. (16)
In addition, the UK Department of Justice (17) wants to bring in e-voting and e-counting, both of which are wide open to the same kinds of abuse to which all forms of remote voting are vulnerable: impersonation, bribery and intimidation.(18,19,20). If the Opposition objects to their use, this also creates a clear conflict of interest for the IT suppliers of the systems, and a strong commercial incentive to extend the incumbent Government’s tenure by:
8. Programming or changing results for electronic counts of postal votes. This is relatively easy to achieve, especially when observers are kept away from the computers doing the counting.(21) The Open Rights Group findings make it clear that for the systems so far deployed there is absolutely no way to verify the results produced. (22)
9. Hacking, programming or changing results of e-voting (online voting) totals. Again, there is absolutely no way to verify the results produced, particularly when the e-voting computer servers are locked away in data centres remote from the scrutiny of observers in the counting rooms. (23,24)
Thus, if e-voting and e-counting are deployed for the next General Election (as they were for Scotland’s elections of 2007), there will be in place nine separate ways for committing serious electoral fraud across the length of Britain.
Interestingly, of all the recommendations in the various reports, the UK government chose only to focus on the checking of personal identifiers on returned postal ballots, which is now mandatory.(25) Unfortunately, the potential fraud is not with who is voting by post, but the pressure brought to bear on those who voted, the handling of these votes, the corresponding destruction of postal votes for other candidates, and in whether the voter exists at all. (26) So this does absolutely nothing to eliminate any of the problems inherent in the concept of remote voting. What is more, this reform was in place before the highly dubious Glenrothes by-election result of November 2008 (27), and so had no effect whatsoever.
Whether intentionally distorting the truth by careful choice of words, or astonishingly unaware of the realities of electoral fraud, the report by the Electoral Commission on Glenrothes contained the following gem:
“A full check of all returned postal voting statements is the only way of checking that postal votes are returned by those who applied for them. Full checking will also remove actual and perceived loopholes in the system and can be expected to deter further attempts at malpractice. We therefore commend the Returning Officer and his staff for undertaking 100% verification on the first occasion of the Regulations being in force in Scotland.” (28)
Considering that all the Returning Officer was doing was checking unverifiable names and dates of birth on postal votes against a list of equally unverifiable names and date of birth on the electoral roll, this is utter nonsense.
Everyone seems to be missing the point. Even the author of the latest report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life seems to argue that the only issue at stake here is one of the public's faith in our democracy:
“Electoral fraud is not a trivial matter. It is an affront to the democratic principle of one-person one vote. Left unchecked it will eventually undermine trust and confidence in the democratic process and by implication the electorate’s consent to the outcome of elections.”(29)
But it’s even more serious than that. If ever there was a perfect time for a determined political party with a ruthless political machine to seize and hold the British state by massive electoral fraud, this would surely be it.
With Scottish independence looming and an increasing number of English demanding their own assembly, the danger is that some might see this as the only way of saving Britain, ironic as that may sound.
UPDATE 25-5-09
Since I wrote this, the expenses scandal has broken, and the BNP look like it might be seen by many as the alternative English party in the coming election. If you add immigration levels to the mix of why many think Britain needs saving, the BNP look particularly dangerous - especially if they get their act together on electoral fraud. It will indeed be ironic if they do, considering the EU - born in the wake of fascism - had the chance to clean up Britain's electoral system in 2005. And blew it.
References
(1) The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) report on the May 2005 UK General Election, August 5, 2005, p18: “The ODIHR is the lead agency in Europe in the field of election observation. It co-ordinates and organizes the deployment of thousands of observers every year to assess whether elections in the [Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe] area are in line with national legislation and international standards. Its unique methodology provides an in-depth insight into all elements of an electoral process.” http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/15922.html
(2) UK Electoral Reform Society (ERS), Policy on e-Voting and Counting, April 2008. http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/Electronic%20voting%20POLICY.pdf From its website : “Since its foundation in 1884, the Electoral Reform Society has worked for the development of democracy not only in the United Kingdom but also abroad, promoting, organising and monitoring elections."
3) Open Rights Group (ORG): report into the May 2007 English and Scottish elections, June 2007, p63: “The Open Rights Group is a fast-growing NGO focused on raising awareness of issues such as privacy, identity, data protection, access to knowledge and copyright reform.” http://www.openrightsgroup.org/e-voting-main/
(4) Council of Europe (CoE), Venice Commission report, ‘Application to initiate a monitoring procedure to investigate electoral fraud in the United Kingdom,’ January 9, 2008. http://www.assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2008/electoral_fraud_UK_E.pdf From the CoE website : “The European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, is the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters."
(5) Committee for Standards in Public Life (CSPL), 12th Report, April 2008. http://www.public-standards.gov.uk/Library/OurWork/AnnualReport2007.pdf From website: “The Committee on Standards in Public Life is an independent public body which advises government on ethical standards across the whole of public life in the UK.” This is the first report by the new chairman Sir Christopher Kelly. His predecessor, Sir Alistair Graham, was sacked by Tony Blair in April 2007 after criticism of his government’s attitude to standards of integrity in public life as having ‘a low-priority’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1545488/Anti-sleaze-watchdog-in-attack-on-Blair.html
(6) As a result of the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act of 2002, the UK Government closed some of these loopholes, but only for Northern Ireland: individual voter registration replaced household voter registration, and the requirement for photographic proof of identity in the polling station was brought in. UK Electoral Commission: ‘Electoral Fraud Act 2002: an assessment of its first year in operation,’ December 2003. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/election/electoralcommission1203sum.pdf As a result of the tighter identity checking, the number of voters fell by 10% as the bogus identities dropped off the electoral roll. CoE report, note 68, p10
(7) CoE report, note 21, p5
(8) Open Rights Group, ‘Observer Handbook (ORG Handbook): May 2007 Elections’, April 20, 2007, p2 “Unsupervised voting includes postal voting and Internet voting. Such remote methods can be done in unsupervised areas such as home or work where others can influence or steal votes. The secrecy of the ballot cannot be maintained and there is the potential for ‘family voting’ whereby the head of the family casts the entire family’s votes on their behalf.” http://www.openrightsgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/org_observer_handbook.pdf
(9) CoE report, note 85, p12-13: “The main underlying weakness of the electoral system in the Great Britain is the current household registration system without personal identifiers. This system makes it extremely easy to add bogus characters to the voters’ lists. All a head of household has to do is to add a number of names on the yearly canvas form. The Registration Officers have only limited power to check these names and the absence of personal identifiers makes any checking of these names an all but impossible task. Therefore, as long as the names on the registration form are not overly frivolous, and the number of bogus entries is not unrealistically large in comparison to the residency in question, all names will be de facto accepted on face value and added to the voters’ list."
(10) CSPL, p10: “In the Committee’s view, the safeguards introduced by the Government in the 2006 to combat electoral fraud are easily bypassed because of the fundamental weaknesses in the current system of electoral registration. In most cases the information supplied on completed electoral registration forms is taken at face value, and few checks are carried out at polling stations to verify a voter’s identity."
(11) CoE report, note 89, p13
(12) CoE report, note 91, p13: “The fact that a person is legally allowed to be registered on the voters’ lists in more than one locality offers another opening for electoral fraud. Although its is illegal to vote more than once in the same national election, the onus on not doing so is completely on the voter itself. While it would be physically difficult to vote in person in multiple polling stations in different localities, the postal vote arrangements make it childishly simple to do so, and equally difficult to detect.’ "
(13) ODIHR report, p8: “Postal voting presents challenges with regard to the secrecy of the vote, and the possibility of undue pressure on voters at the time of marking the ballot. This may be of particular concern with regard to perceived as being most vulnerable.” See also CoE report, note 100, p14
(14) CoE report, note 32, p6: “Multi occupancy households, such as student dormitories and caring homes for the elderly, are also considered to be single households for the purpose of voter registration."
(15) CoE report, note 98, p14
(16) Times Report on Labour advising it student canvassers to destroy opposition votes in Leeds: ‘Get the votes and we can win, but don't get caught with them,’ TimesOnline, 29 April 2007. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1719968.ece The Council of Europe report, p5, note26, also states that when the police found the two Labour candidates in the Birmingham warehouse with the thousands of completed postal voting packs they were either altering or destroying votes for other candidates.
(17) The Department of Constitutional Affairs became the Department of Justice on May 9, 2007 after assuming some of the duties of the Home Office.
(18) ERS report, p3: “When votes are cast outside a polling station the secrecy of the ballot cannot be assured and there can be no guarantee that the elector did not suffer intimidation or was offered a bribe while voting."
(19) ORG Handbook, p2
(20) ERS report, p4: “Being a form of remote voting, it compromises the secrecy of the ballot, significantly increasing the risks of voter intimidation, bribery and impersonation. The Society therefore opposes the introduction of internet, text and telephone voting at present."
(21) ORG Report, p13: “In most locations computer screens were positioned too far away from barriers to be observable or were turned away from view so they couldn’t be observed."
(22) ORG Report, p3: “ORG is concerned that the lack of reliable audit trails, the actions of some vendors that left no audit trail and a general reluctance to perform manual counts to confirm the results of e-counting mean that there is no meaningful way to verify that voters’ intentions had been accurately counted."
(23) ORG report, p1: “E-voting is a ‘black box system’, where the mechanisms for recording and tabulating the vote are hidden from the voter. This makes public scrutiny impossible, and leaves statutory elections open to error and fraud.” p20: “No matter what access was provided, fundamentally the servers are opaque to the human eye. No observer would be able to examine what the server was doing, what data it was sending and receiving or whether problems were occurring, without detailed technical access to the software and its operating system, yet it would be inappropriate and is clearly against guidelines for observers to handle anything to do with the running of the election. Hence ORG must conclude that the servers and their operations were—and will remain in future elections—unobservable."
(24) ERS report, p4: “The use of internet, text message and telephone voting seriously compromises the security of an election, both because: It is vulnerable to hackers and other attacks on the electoral system by those who might want to influence the outcome by interfering with the equipment or software"
(25) Among other things, the UK Electoral Administration Act 2006 allowed independent observers at UK elections for the first time, in line with most democracies. It also brought in identity-checks on all postal votes, checking date of birth and signature against those provided (but not verified for authenticity) at the time of voter registration. There is nothing to guarantee that any of these identities are real. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/pdf/ukpga_20060022_en.pdf
(26) CoE report, note 84, p12: “It does not take an experienced election observer, or election fraudster, to see that the combination of the household registration system without personal identifiers and the postal vote on demand arrangements make the election system in Great Britain very vulnerable to electoral fraud. The 2006 changes to the electoral law only partially addressed this vulnerability."
As Scotland’s minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution, Mike Russell’s job is to deliver a successful independence referendum in late 2010. This will not be easy. In the first part of this series, we look at some of the obstacles that lie in his way as he charts the path for Scotland out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The UK Situation
As she stands today, Scotland is still part of the UK, which has so far refused to hand over the running of Scotland’s elections to Holyrood. Scotland must therefore continue to endure Britain’s easily corruptible electoral system, which has already been the subject of an investigation by the Council of Europe.
Against protests from the British Government, two representatives arrived in February 2007 to investigate claims of fraudulent aspects of the UK electoral system. They spent two days meeting a cross section of people with first hand experience of the true extent of British electoral fraud: representatives from the Electoral Commission, Amnesty International, the Police, the Electoral Reform Commission, and members of the judiciary, among others.
In its report of January 2008, the EU’s Venice Commission concluded (1) that:
Handling of postal votes by party activists must stop.
The “arcane” system of household voter registration must go.
"It is still childishly simple to register bogus voters on the voters’ list”.
"The use of postal voting is the key to using these bogus voter identities to vote. It’s not so easy in polling stations.
“None of the 2006 changes to the electoral code (2) addressed the vulnerability of electoral fraud by means of bogus entries on the voters register”.
The outcome of a general election can still be changed by these means, if a party is sufficiently organized.
“the checking of personal identifiers on 100% of the returned postal ballots [should be] made mandatory by law in all of Great Britain before the next elections take place.”
“Countering the public perception that electoral fraud was widespread was an important objective in its own right.”
Interestingly, they noted that the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act of 2002 rendered Northern Ireland’s system vastly superior to that of the mainland, principally by the use of rigid identity checking at both voter registration and actual voting. [Note: without ID cards.]
The report then went further, questioning “the reluctance, or even refusal, of the current British government to introduce individual voter registration with personal identifiers, despite strong recommendations to the contrary by the Electoral Commission.”
Astonishingly, given the weight and number of findings, the Council of Europe still declined to initiate mandatory electoral monitoring of future UK elections:
“Despite the vulnerabilities in the [British] electoral system, there is no doubt that elections in the United Kingdom are conducted democratically and represent the free expression of the will of the British people … We can therefore not recommend opening a monitoring procedure with respect of the United Kingdom.”
So even though they had met with people who had provided clear evidence of systematic electoral fraud - and there were criminal convictions on the public record - their conclusion was that the electoral loopholes had not been sufficiently exploited to be a concern, UK elections were essentially free and fair, and no monitoring of the UK’s elections would take place.
In other words, a whitewash. A slap on the wrist at most.
Was a commitment given by the UK government to avoid a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon in return for a lenient finding? Or a threat made to hold one if the findings were unsavoury?
What we can be sure of, after the democratic travesty of Glenrothes, is that the Labour Party has not changed its ways and indeed has no intention of eliminating electoral fraud before the next general election.
Lately I’ve been watching the British news with what can only be described as morbid fascination. Will the rump of the Empire survive its present woes, or are we witnessing the death throws of the artificial construct that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? I’m not the first to ask this question: political commentators, investment analysts and historians (1) have been predicting Britain’s inevitable demise for decades. My goal here is to summarise the political forces for both cohesion and disintegration, and to speculate on how the existing British state might counter these political threats to its existence.
The array of constitutional forces tearing at the fabric of the British state is truly staggering. At one end of the tug-o-war are limbering up the combined forces of disunity – the movements for English (2), Scottish (3) and Welsh (4) independence. Two of the team members have a youthful, steely demeanour, but are wary of the third whose heart does not seem in it. At the other end of the rope are three middle-aged men. One is muttering about the need for English votes for English laws (5), another is an academic type arguing about the case for a devolved English parliament within Britain (6), while the third is a Unionist Scot, pleading with the others to pull harder in a celebration of British identity. He falls silent when he realises the others are not listening.(7)
English demands for change are of course being whipped up by elements of her right wing press, outraged at having to foot the bill for subsidy-scrounging Scots (8) and bailing out her banks.(9) The motivation for these articles would seem to be to sell newspapers, but their half-baked arguments cut no ice with Scottish nationalists, who are all well versed in the facts: it’s a long time since ‘Scottish’ Banks were Scottish run, and tax earned on Scottish oil revenues has subsidised England for 35 years to the tune of £250billion ($360billion).(10) Indeed, the dependence of Britain on Scotland’s oil was stripped bare during the Grangemouth strike of 2008.(11) The irony is that these anti-Scottish rants play right into the hands of Scottish nationalists, who I sometimes think must be behind the stories themselves, causing as they do so many pro-Union Scots to question how much common cause they have with Englishmen. If nothing else, independence would certainly end all debate about who’s sponging off whom.
Should it happen, it would be a traumatic event for British Unionists to see Scotland go, and for several reasons. I believe their fear has four distinct components: loss of identity, loss of personal income, loss of status, and fear of change. All four anxieties scream in unison in the Unionist politician. You can hear the hate and fear rising in the throat of British PM Gordon Brown when he says he will do “whatever it takes” to preserve the Union.(12) Ominous stuff, but what does he mean? Just what is he prepared to do?
An intriguing factor is the correlation between the survival instincts of the Labour Party and the British state: should Scotland become independent, Labour is almost certainly facing political oblivion for a generation in Little Britain, if not for good. You can be sure Labour party strategists understand exactly what is at stake and have not been complacent: key by-election results have been rigged (13), and attempts to reform the electoral system are routinely ignored or headed off, with proportional representation kept in reserve as a rearguard action.(14)
As for the Tories, the stench of desperation is absent. They seem much more ambivalent to the prospect of an independent Scotland, probably because they stand to hold power for many years if Scotland goes its own way. And although Eton Rifle (15) and PM-in-waiting David Cameron has also stated he will do “everything in his power” to preserve the Union, personal ambition has a lot to do with his stance. “I want to be PM of the whole UK!” he announced recently, sounding more like a spoilt child stamping his feet in the toy department of Harrods than a statesman.(16) I suspect Cameron’s sentiment is closer to that of middle England than Brown’s cornered rat snarl. You get the sense that Cameron will do anything as long as it’s legal, whereas Brown will simply do anything. You can see Cameron’s point too, or at least his thinking. How could Little Britain continue to tell others how to run their affairs? And what about her status on the international stage (17), and her seat at the UN Security Council?
So much for the politicians, but what about Whitehall? Just how far would the state machinery go to save UK Inc? You can bet your soon-to-bottom dollar that the Whitehall minions know exactly where they stand should Scotland go her own way, and though I would be surprised if they stand back and let it happen, I would, however, be astonished if force is used to keep her. Yes, it would secure what is left of the oil reserves for London, but as a strategy it would be too stupid and too obvious for words, laying the foundations for a British civil war that would take generations to put out. England, land of cricket, fair play and twitching curtains, doing the dirty on her former partner in Empire, with the world watching on? I just can’t see it happening.
No, the most likely outcome is that the unelected faceless monolith of the Whitehall civil service and the UK security services will continue to work the old ways, using every underhand clandestine trick in the book, carefully deployed over time to sap the Scottish will for independence. Whitehall was certainly complicit when the true extent of Scottish oil revenues was suppressed in 1975 to avoid stoking the nationalist fires.(18)
Frustrating Scottish independence would also appear to be within the remit of MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure.(19) MI5 is known to have infiltrated the SNP in the 1950s (20), and has played a active part in the fostering of independence movements in the Orkneys and Shetlands since the 1970s, however unsuccessfully.(21) The political infiltration and interference will no doubt continue, but I seriously doubt there will be a return to the heavy-handed tactics of the 1980s and the assassination of a key Scottish nationalist by Special Branch(22):
On the other hand, given that the British government has done its best to deny it ever happened, and the fact that the agents are probably still on the payroll, anything is possible.
The bottom line is that Whitehall will have its hands full over the next few years, with or without Scottish independence. Even if it manages to remain intact politically, Britain is about to endure a barrage of economic woes: depression, hyper-inflation (23) and the collapse of sterling (24) are widely predicted. And should Scotland become independent – even if hyperinflation could be avoided and sterling saved – the rump state of Britain would be an impoverished shadow of its former self, stripped of any means to repay the truly gigantic national debt that has been accrued.(25)
Or would it? Perhaps the mandarins of Whitehall have already seen the writing on the wall. They would seem to be planning for every eventuality: in the event the Scots do break free, the Scotland-England sea border has been surreptitiously relocated north, moving many formerly Scottish oil and gas fields into English waters.(26)
Sir Humphrey likes to hedge his bets, you have to give him that.
Notes
(1) As the historian Norman Davies said in 1999, ‘I happen to belong to a minority who hold that the breakup of the United Kingdom may be imminent.’ See Davies, The Isles, Oxford, 1999, p1053
See also Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain: crisis and neonationalism, London, 1977
(3) Currently scheduled for late 2010. Should either Holyrood opposition parties or Westminster either sabotage it or prevent it from taking place, a free and fair referendum will become the central issue in the Scottish election the following year. See http://www.snp.org/issues/manifestos/holyrood
(8) The Daily Express is a good example, stirring up discontent in middle England. See Jimmy Young, ‘Cameron Must Rally England in Revolt Against Scottish Perks,’ Daily Express, Aug 12, 2007.
Those in power have not been shy in pandering to this sentiment. See Gerri Peev, ‘London “Subsidising Scots Lifestyle”, says Livingstone,’ Scotsman, June 7 2006
(9) For example, Dominic Lawson’s intolerant rant: ‘A Sorry Tale of Scottish Shame – and English Tolerance,’ Independent, Feb 17, 2009
(10) The figures at http://www.oilofscotland.org/ depend on whether you consider the oil to be Scotland’s. But as Ken Livingstone, former Lord Mayor of London, has said, “It’s most probably true that Scotland subsidises the rest of Britain if you take into account a classic international law interpretation of who the oil belongs to.” Quoted from Magnus Linklater, ‘Before you start laying into those subsidy junkies . . .: Defending the Scots against English bile,’ TimesOnline, June 27, 2007
(12) Patrick Hennessy, ‘Brown Won’t Let Union Split,’ Daily Telegraph, May 10, 2008
(13) Jill Sherman, “Massive voting reform needed to block fraud loopholes”, TimesOnline, August 17, 2008.
A public enquiry has also been launched into the disappearance of the Glenrothes electoral register, which would have shown who actually voted in the by-election of Nov 08.
See Robbie Dinwoodie, ‘Demand for enquiry as Glenrothes by-election register is lost,’ Herald, Feb 4, 2009.
(15) A youth military cadet group at the famous school. Cameron was a member of this group at Eton, and even likes the song by the Jam, much to the disbelief of Paul Weller. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eton_Rifles
(16) David Cameron, “I Would Govern Scots With Respect,’ Scotland on Sunday, Feb 8, 2009
(17) Jack Straw, govt MP: ‘Our voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN Security Council.’ Quoted from ‘Jack Straw Q & A,’ BBC Question Time, Sept 28, 2006.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/5388078.stm
(19) MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure has the authority to ‘protect national security by helping to reduce the vulnerability of the national infrastructure to terrorism and other threats’ (my emphasis). The nature of these ‘other threats’ is not stated. https://www.cpni.gov.uk/about
(20) See Marc Horne, ‘Files prove that MI5 spied on SNP’, Scotland On Sunday, September 16, 2007.
(21) Magnus Linklater & George Rosie, 'Secret Plan to Deprive Independent Scotland of North Sea Oil Fields,' TimesOnline, Feb 14, 2009
(23) Heather Stewart, ‘Bank of England governor paves way for “quantitative easing”’ Guardian, January 20, 2009. Various market forecasters have predicted this will end in hyperinflation. For example: https://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7526.html
(24) Graham Tibbetts, “Gordon Brown risks 'collapse of sterling' says George Osborne”, Daily Telegraph, Nov 15, 2008
