What we need are Non-Voter ID days

By Kezia Dugdale / @kezdugdale

Watching Nick Clegg deliver his statement on electoral reform caused me to shout at the TV and gesticulate so much that I accidentally emptied a box of cereal all over our office floor. What a mess… (I’ll deal with the cereal later…)

The merits, or otherwise, of AV is an argument for another day, the big question for me is what to do about Voter Registration.

Labour MP after Labour MP stood up to highlight the low level of registrations in their constituencies, the great injustice of the disenfranchised.

But it is all very well for Jack Straw and the like to bemoan the redrawing or larger constituencies and the impact that will have on inner city areas, but what is he going to do about it?

The same goes for Nick Clegg’s woeful and repetitive response that Labour had 13 year’s to sort it out.

So what I’m proposing today, is that the Labour activist machine moves its focus from Voter ID to Non-Voter ID days.

It is no longer enough to say that the Government or indeed local authorities sort out the mess that is voter registration in this country. If we are to defeat ConDem plans to redraw boundaries and increase the size of constituencies, then we need to do it with a grassroots movement where the people alone defy the government’s numbers.

We might just find that in doing so, we engage with the very people we seek to represent. The people that need a Labour Government the most and perhaps the same people who have lost so much faith in our ability to build a better Britain for them and their families.