Just imagine it. For years issues with the country have been worrying you. You’ve taken the time to weigh up which option is best for your family. You’ve walked down to your local school or community centre with your polling card and when you’ve got there you’re told you won’t be allowed to use the right to vote that generations of your ancestors fought and died for. Why? Because you don’t have ID.

In the UK, we’ve never been required to have identity cards, in fact when ID cards were suggested it faced a wave of ‘principled’ opposition from the Conservatives, including from our current MP, before he was elected to Parliament. All that is about to change, for the first time every citizen will be required to have an ID, or you’ll lose your right to vote.

Fraud at UK elections is incredibly rare, at the last election there was only one individual convicted for impersonating another voter, the existing systems already mean it would be almost impossible to undertake fraud at a level which would affect the outcome of a single seat.

Meanwhile, in the eight council areas the Government has already trialled the new system, 819 voters have been turned away due to not having an ID. Those sorts of numbers would change election results, which is probably why they are doing it.

There are 11m people in the UK without a Passport or Driver’s License, most of them on lower incomes and the majority are not Conservative voters. Without the roll out of voter ID by Republicans in the USA, Trump wouldn’t have been elected. Don’t doubt how effective this will be at rigging our democracy.

The UK already has one of the lowest turnouts in the West, these proposals will only make that worse. Let’s be clear, they’re taking away your liberty by making you have an ID card, taking away your vote if you don’t go along with it, and they will happily mutilate our democracy so long as it keeps them in power. That’s what your Conservative Government is doing in your name.

Cllr Peter Lamb

Leader, Crawley Borough Council