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Britain's
Attorney General Dominic Grieve © Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters
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Former Attorney General
Dominic Grieve has claimed election fraud is on the rise and blamed immigrants
from countries “in which there is a tradition of electoral corruption and
fraud” for perpetuating the practice. Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative
Party conference on combatting extremism he warned of the risk posed to the
Conservatives by fraud.
“The
more successful the Tory party is, the more risk it will affect us and if we
lay down the ground rules now we will be thanked, particularly by those people
who have come from countries where I am afraid there is an endemic tradition of
corruption,” he said on Tuesday.
Grieve,
who has recently been appointed chair of the British parliament’s intelligence
and security committee, proposed increasing security and controls to crackdown
on voter fraud, including a thorough system of identity verification for those
who want to vote by post.
RT report continues:
“I
am puzzled why there is so much resistance in the political class for these
changes. I know we want to maximize the number of people who vote. I am all in
favor of that. But there is no point in creating a fake participation that
masquerades as the real thing,” said Grieve, the MP for Beaconsfield.
He
blamed a “favors culture” as the “very root of electoral corruption.”
“It
is the belief that you can only by using a ‘favors culture’ and manipulating
the system get the outcome which reflects your status as a group within a
community. That is why it is so important that, as politicians in a democratic
society, we should speak out against it because it is insidiously corrupting.
Once you get into the habit of this, then another group will say they are
disadvantaged unless they start behaving in a similar manner.”
Grieve’s
speech coincided with the launch of the biggest-ever investigation into
electoral fraud in the UK. In August, former Communities Secretary Sir Eric
Pickles was appointed by the Conservative government to head the inquiry into
corruption in response to the alleged fraud scandal involving Tower Hamlets
Mayor Lutfur Rahman. Pickles, who oversaw a 37 percent cut in central
government funding to local councils under the Tory-Lib Dem government, has
criticized authorities for “turning a blind eye to criminal conduct.”
However,
democracy monitoring group Democratic Audit UK has said “despite the concern
about electoral fraud and a subsequent current government enquiry into the
issue… the problem is considerably overstated in polling stations.”
The
group’s 2014 report found that less than 1 percent of polling stations reported
any concerns, and only around 5 percent suggested any doubts about voters’
identity.
It
is not the first time that Grieve has made controversial allegations about
electoral fraud and ethnic minorities. In 2013, when Attorney General, he came
under fire for attributing corruption in public life to “minority communities”
that operate a “favor culture.” The top Tory specified he was referring to the
Pakistani community in particular, but added that other minority communities
face similar problems.
“Yes,
it’s mainly the Pakistani community, not the Indian community. I wouldn’t draw
it down to one. I’d be wary of saying it’s just a Pakistani problem,” the MP
said. On that occasion, he later apologized for his comments, but his new comments
effectively repeat the same accusation.
Grieve’s pronouncements at
conference echoed Home Secretary Theresa May’s fiery anti-immigrant speech on
Tuesday. May announced plans for asylum reform and pledged to reduce the number
of immigrants claiming benefits in the UK. Speaking in Manchester, May
claimed that high immigration made it impossible to build a “cohesive society.”
The speech has been widely criticized by business groups and universities as
divisive and “irresponsible.”
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