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Johnson likes to dress up as a mini-dictator. But is he really up to that job? | Zoe Williams
The prime minister seems temperamentally unsuited the demands of his own increasingly authoritarian agenda
“Creeping authoritarianism” is the wolf of the left, and we cry it all the time: I remember, almost nostalgically, thinking David Cameron was a creeping authoritarian for outsourcing punitive benefits initiatives to private companies; and that Theresa May was one when she earned the dubious accolade of politician least likely to answer the question in a broadcast interview. However, there is no ignoring or denying the vastly more anti-democratic manoeuvres of Boris Johnson’s government.
The elections bill, currently in the Lords, features mandatory photo ID, which is well known to disfranchise younger and lower-income voters. It poses a direct threat to the reach and independence of the Electoral Commission, has serious implications for who can and cannot campaign at election time, and extends the perverse first-past-the-post voting system to the election of mayors and police commissioners. Beyond the explicit restriction of democracy, there is no plausible rationale for the bill; and unsettlingly, very little attempt has been made to produce one.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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