Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is proposing sweeping election-law changes that would restrict postal voting, require regulated campaign materials to use languages native to the British Isles, end voting rights for most Commonwealth citizens and tighten rules against so-called family voting.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Reform UK is preparing a major overhaul of Britain’s election system that would narrow access to postal ballots, restrict voting rights for Commonwealth citizens and impose new language requirements on regulated campaign materials, as the party argues that mass migration has weakened public confidence in the country’s democratic process.
Danny Kruger, Reform MP for East Wiltshire, has tabled amendments to the Representation of the People Bill that he said the party would enact if it wins power at the next general election and the Labour government does not adopt the changes first.
Kruger, a former Conservative MP now tasked by Reform with challenging what the party describes as the Blair-era administrative state, said the proposals are intended to reinforce the principle that the United Kingdom should operate as a single political nation.
“We increasingly see elections being fought on ethnic and sectarian grounds, with appeals in foreign languages, often for causes – Kashmir, Gaza – that are nothing to with Britain or the remit of the politicians being elected. We will insist that all regulated election material must be in languages that are native to the British Isles,” Kruger said.
One of the most significant proposals would end voting rights for most non-British Commonwealth citizens.
Roughly 2.5 million non-British citizens from Commonwealth countries, including India, Nigeria and Pakistan, are currently eligible to vote in British elections if they live in the United Kingdom. Kruger said a Reform government would revoke that privilege and limit the franchise to British and Irish citizens.
“Voting is a conditional right – conditional on membership of the British nation, on independence from undue influence, on understanding the democracy you are part of. These conditions used to be implicit; due to mass migration we need to make them explicit,” Kruger said.
Reform is also targeting postal voting through what it calls an Election Integrity Bill.
Kruger described the current widespread use of mail-in ballots as a “flagrant abuse of a system designed for people physically unable to get to the polling station.”
He said approximately one in four votes in the last general election were cast by post and argued that the system “enables the harvesting of votes by community elders in support of sectarian causes.”
Under Reform’s proposal, postal voting would be limited primarily to members of the British Armed Forces, diplomats serving overseas and voters who are “genuinely unable to vote in person.”
The party also wants polling officials to receive greater authority to prevent what Kruger described as “family voting.”
The term refers to situations in which one family member accompanies another into the polling booth and may influence or direct how that person votes. Kruger said the practice is particularly associated with older male relatives accompanying wives or daughters and argued that it can facilitate bloc or sectarian voting.
Independent observers reported numerous examples of family voting during the special by-election in the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton earlier this year.
“We will empower officials in polling stations to insist people vote alone – and if they plainly can’t understand the voting system, their ballot will be set aside altogether (with the right of appeal to a magistrate),” Kruger said.
Taken together, the proposals would represent a major tightening of Britain’s election rules.
Reform’s plan would not only reduce the number of people eligible to vote by removing the franchise from most Commonwealth citizens, but would also sharply limit postal ballots, impose language rules on campaign materials and give polling-place officials greater discretion to intervene when they believe a voter is being influenced or does not understand the voting process.
The party is framing those changes as necessary to strengthen confidence in elections and reduce what it describes as ethnic and sectarian political organization.
Reform UK Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick backed the proposals, arguing that the changes should be viewed as a question of national political representation.
“It should not be controversial to say Britain should be run in the interests of the British people,” Jenrick said.
Farage also endorsed the language restrictions and the broader effort to redefine participation in British elections.
“Political parties in Britain should not be able to campaign in foreign languages. British elections should be for the British people,” Farage said.
The amendments now place Reform’s election agenda into a concrete legislative framework, giving the party a set of policies it can campaign on if Labour declines to adopt them.
At the center of the effort is Reform’s argument that long-standing assumptions about who votes, how ballots are cast and how campaigns communicate with voters need to be rewritten in response to demographic and political changes.
If enacted, the proposals would mark one of the most substantial changes to Britain’s voting rules in years, reshaping eligibility, postal voting and conduct inside polling stations while making national identity a central test for participation in the country’s elections.
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