Voter suppression

The johnsonist government of the UK is planning to require photo ID to vote. This is voter suppression: it will reduce the rate of voting particularly amongst the poor, young people, ethnic minorities and other marginalised groups: the exact groups least likely to vote for the johnsonists. This is how the republican party in the US behave, and it is how authoritarian governments who want to retain a veneer of democracy behave everywhere. This is not the start of the transition of the UK from a functioning democracy to a one-party fascist johnsonist state – that happened in 2016 if not before – but it is another step on the road that ends with camps and gas.

Some people will say well, Germany requires photographic ID cards, as do many other countries, and we don't say that they are practicing voter suppression: what's different here?

What is different here is that those countries require ID cards to live there at all, while the UK will require one only to vote. If you live in Germany and you are entitled to vote you can do so, because you already have photo ID¹. On the other hand you can live in the UK with no form of photo ID at all ... until you want to vote, when you will discover that you can't. A requirement to have photo ID to live in the UK at all is not voter suppression: this proposal is.

Other people will say, well, everyone who is at all engaged in society in the UK will already have photo ID, so this is not a real problem. If you think that, read it again, and think about what you are saying this time.