Tories Accuse Left-Wing Students of ‘Voting Twice’ in General Election

What? No Russian link? Or is Corbyn the Russian link? Aha!

Senior Tories are accusing left-wing youngsters of breaking the law during the general election, with claims they cast their vote twice.

The government has signaled it will be reviewing electoral rules amid reports of students boasting on social media about casting their vote twice – once in their home constituency and again in their university town.

Under the current system, people are allowed to register to vote in two different places, but it is a criminal offence to vote twice.

The Tories suffered a blow in the general election, losing their 17-seat working majority, forcing leader Theresa May to sign a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to help prop up a minority administration. 

It is thought that an unusually high turnout among young voters gave May’s Labour opponents a significant boost. Now senior Tories are suggesting Labour benefitted from voter fraud. 

Former Tory leadership contender Andrea Leadsom told MPs there is a need to investigate any potential abuse of the democratic system.

Leadsom was responding to Wellingborough MP Peter Bone, who claimed left-leaning students had announced on social media they had voted twice in the June 8 election.

“It has been brought to my attention that people can be registered to vote in a general election in two places.

“I am registered in London and in my constituency,” Bone said, according to the Daily Express.

“However, a number of students are bragging on social media that they voted not only where they live, but where they go to university. That is an abuse, so could we have a statement from the Cabinet Office on that matter next week?”

Bone also said an investigation is needed to verify whether groups such as Momentum, a grassroots Labour campaign, could be behind students’ double voting.

Responding to Bone, Leadsom said: “We must get to the bottom of people deliberately voting twice, which I understand is illegal. 

“We need to investigate that and ensure that parliamentary democracy, for which this country has been famous—this is indeed the mother of all Parliaments—upholds the rights of one person and one vote.”

The accusation against young voters, however, was first raised by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

In an interview with US media, Farage said voters had been so attracted by Labour’s “Marxist” policies that they voted for its leader twice.

Farage said the reason why so many people are flocking to Labour is that they are yet to understand the implications of Marxism. He claimed they had been lured by Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist promises, such as the scrapping of university tuition fees.

“Marxism is very appealing if you’ve never been exposed to it before or seen what history has done with it,” said Farage.

“Corbyn went around saying to our students ‘look, I will wipe away all your tuition fees, I will promise you a land where there’ll be money for this, and money for that, and it’ll all be absolutely lovely’ and young people were very attracted by it.”

Migration will give UK Biggest Population in Europe by 2045

© Travelpix Ltd / Getty Images

The UK is on course to be the most populous country in the EU before 2050, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Britain’s population will surpass France and Germany’s, soaring from the current 65 million to an estimated 76 million people by 2045.

The rapid growth is thought to be down to the greater number of births compared to deaths every year since 1955, with the exception of 1976.

The ageing population is another contributing factor.  The number of over 65s has grown from 14.1 million in 1975 to 17.8 million in 2015.

The ONS report said that while we should “celebrate” the growing population, it could also put more pressure on public services such as health and housing.

Much of the growth in the UK’s population may be down to net migration- that’s the difference in the number of people coming into the country and those leaving.

Net migration has reportedly increased the population between 2004 and 2015 by an average of 250,000 each year.

Migrants coming into the country tend to be between 20 and 36, which is regarded as “traditional working age”.

The UK is currently the third largest country by population among European Union and European Free Trade Association member states.

Brexit Secretary David Davis recently insisted Britain’s doors “won’t suddenly shut” to “talented” migrants.

“The hospitality sector, hotels, and restaurants, in the social care sector, working in agriculture, it will take time. It will be years and years before we get British citizens to do those jobs,” Davis said.

“Don’t expect just because we’re changing who makes the decision on the policy, the door will suddenly shut. It won’t.”

But his views are in stark contrast to those of UKIP, which has used net migration as a selling card for its Leave campaign during the EU referendum.

Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the BBC he wanted to bring migration levels “back to normality” as the figures for net migration had gotten “out of control”. 

“Normality was what we had from Windrush right up until the year 2000, where we had net migration into Britain ... between 20,000 and 50,000 people a year,” Farage said.

He added that since then “we have gone mad, we opened the doors to much of the world but in particular, we opened up the doors to 10 former communist countries, and as a result of our EU membership we have absolutely zero control over the numbers who come.”

Is Europe Lurching to the Far Right?

Katya Adler, Europe editor, BBC


A banner of Austrian presidential candidate Norbert Hofer is covered with snow in Gnadenwald, Austria, April 27, 2016. Reuters

Extreme conditions - what explains the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, such as the success of Norbert Hofer in Austria?

A ripple of concern shivered across Europe this week in establishment circles after a right-wing populist candidate stormed to pole position in the first round of Austria's presidential election.

"Triumph for the extreme right," proclaimed Spain's El Pais newspaper. Britain's Guardian warned of "turmoil" ahead. Italy's Corriere della Sera bemoaned a victory for the "anti-immigrant far right" while Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called on traditional political parties to "listen to this wake-up call!"

"The extreme right" - A bit hysterical, don't you think?

Most publications identified some link between Norbert Hofer's strong showing and Austria's centre-stage role in the EU's migrant crisis.

"In Austria, European governments see a mirror of their own future. Social tensions are rising," noted another editorial predicting the rise of Europe's far right. But this writer wasn't talking about Sunday's vote.

Trotskyist journalist Peter Schwarz penned his thoughts 16 years ago, back in February 2000, when the Freedom Party (FPOe) first joined an Austrian government.

At the time, the party's charismatic and controversial leader, Joerg Haider, had provoked condemnation at home and abroad with his praise for Hitler's Waffen SS, with his strong anti-immigrant stance and Eurosceptic views.


Thousands of demonstrators with banners and flags on their way to Heldenplatz on 19 February 2000 for a demonstration against the new Austrian coalition government between Joerg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party and the conservative Peoples Party, AP

The rise of Joerg Haider's Freedom Party in Austria 16 years ago prompted outrage - now there is little more than a raised eyebrow.

I was living in Vienna then and reported from amongst the tens of thousands of anti-Haider protesters chanting "Never again!" in Heldenplatz - the emblematic square in central Vienna where Hitler chose to celebrate the annexation of Austria in 1938.

Europe was appalled at the inclusion of the Freedom Party in government. For the first time in EU history, all other members imposed sanctions on one of their own.

Diplomatic relations with Vienna were frozen. Austria was ostracised.

Then. But not now.

Now European eyebrows are raised, but little more than that.



Austria is hardly a novelty these days. Resurgent right-wing populist groupings shout anti-immigration and Eurosceptic slogans across much of the EU.

They find acclaim amongst large chunks of the electorate in Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, France and the Netherlands, for example.

So does this mean that Europe is veering to the far right? I would argue not.

A number of these political parties existed and enjoyed some popularity back in 2000 - such as the Danish People's Party, Italy's Northern League and France's National Front.

But what is very different now is that right-wing populists' bread-and-butter issues have become mainstream, (because of negligence by the governments of the day).

Socially acceptable

This, following a toxic shock to the European public - made up of the current migrant crisis and the 2008 economic downturn which fuelled the euro crisis.

Questioning (while not always decrying) immigration, integration, the euro, the EU and the establishment, while promoting a stiff dose of nationalist sentiment, is now entirely "salonfaehig", as German-speakers would say.

This literally means "passable for your living room", or socially acceptable.

And something else has been spreading throughout Europe.

Dissatisfaction, cynicism and outright rejection of traditional political parties (as well as business and banking elites), many of which have been in power in Western Europe in one way or another since the end of the World War Two.

This, and not far-right fervour, is arguably driving voters to stage ballot-box protests or to seek alternative political homes - to the delight of Europe's populist parties.



Greece's Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn cannot be lumped with Britain's anti-establishment UKIP, AFP

But they vary enormously in their political make-up from far left, to far right, to right-wing populist. They have different values and objectives.

Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece cannot be put in the same political basket as anti-establishment UKIP, which campaigns for the UK to leave the EU.

Lumping these parties together as evidence of the rise of the far right is simply incorrect.

We also do not know if Mr Hofer will be voted Austria's president after a second ballot next month.

France's National Front has often flopped at the last hurdle in presidential and regional elections.

More accurate than a warning "to heed a wake-up call on the far right's march across Europe" would be to heed a wake-up call that Europe and many of its citizens are floundering and trying to find a voice.

Right-wing nationalism in Europe - a snapshot


Protesters trample a burnt European Union flag during a demonstration entitled 'To be members, or to be free?' and called by the right-wing parliamentary party 'Jobbik' against European Union in front of the European Union Parliament and Committee headquarters in downtown Budapest on January 14, AFP

In Austria, for the first time since World War Two neither of Austria's two main centrist parties made it to the presidential run-off

Denmark's government relies on the support of the nationalist Danish People's Party and has the toughest immigration rules in Europe

The leader of the nationalist Finns Party is foreign minister of Finland, after it joined a coalition government last year

In France, the far-right National Front won 6.8 million votes in regional elections in 2015 - its largest ever score

The far-right Jobbik party - polling third in Hungary - organises patrols by an unarmed but uniformed "Hungarian Guard" in Roma (Gypsy) neighbourhoods

Perspective 

There is the matter of perspective here that Katya has not addressed. Aside from the neo-nazi types, other far-right wing parties may appear to be extreme only because they contrast so greatly with the left wing governments that have been in place in much of Europe for many decades. From a right-wing perspective, some of them might be seen as 'far-left' governments.

From a 'centrist' position, most right-wing parties are not extreme, or even that 'far' right. Current governments, however, see themselves as 'the norm' or 'centrist', when that is clearly not the case.