Guido first raised Starmer’s potential multiple electoral law breach last month over his living in an address in a constituency other than the one put on his nomination paper. Starmer himself said he and his family moved into Lord Alli’s £18 million penthouse before the deadline for submitting nomination papers – in the Cities of London and Westminster…
Starmer admitted about his son:
“I promised him we would move somewhere, get out of the house and go somewhere where he could be peacefully studying”
UKIP’s Paul Nuttall was investigated by police in 2017 for claiming on his nomination paper that he lived at a house hadn’t yet moved into. He was forced to prove to them that he used his house regularly as a “base” in the campaign for the Stoke By-Election. Guido understands that the City of London Police are in the process of referring the matter to the Met in response to a submitted inquiry. The Met will be formally required to consider it. An equal application of the law would see the matter investigated, seeing as Nuttall was officially probed for the exact same reason…
Starmer told parliament he was living at Lord Alli’s in Covent Garden (Westminster and Camden) before and after the election, declared as the sworn truth that at the time he was was living in Kentish Town (Holbron & St Pancras) on his nomination form. The law is clear, must be current address or you are committing a criminal offence.
Those who contact the Chief Executives Office of Camden Council with regard to Starmer’s potential breach of electoral law have been contacted by Camden’s Borough Solicitor, who advises them to contact the police “immediately.” Translation: ‘We do not want to deal with this one’…
The Starmers say they moved into Lord Alli’s £18 million penthouse in Soho on 29th May and ceased to use it on 13th July this year. They valued this period of use at a bargain £20,437.28. Starmer said this week:
“I promised him we would move somewhere, get out of the house and go somewhere where he could be peacefully studying”… “if you are putting to me Beth that I should have stayed in my Kentish Town home and disrupted my son’s GCSEs… then I think you should put that to me.”
This suggests Starmer was actively living in the penthouse for the entirety of the period – using it as his primary residence. This would have started just before nominations opened for the General Election on June 4th….
When in 2017 UKIP’s Paul Nuttall claimed on his nomination papers he lived at a house he hadn’t yet moved into, it was made clear that the address had to be the place where he was actually resident at the moment of nomination. Peter Stanyon, deputy chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said: “The general provision will clearly be that it needs to be a factual statement made at the point the nomination was being submitted.” Starmer’s nomination paper claims he was living at an address in Holborn and St. Pancras on that day. But we now know he was at Alli’s penthouse is in the Cities of London and Westminster…
Nuttall was investigated by police. He managed to prove to them that he used his house regularly as a “base” in the campaign for the 2017 Stoke By-Election. Starmer has accidentally admitted that he lived in a different property to the one on his declaration – did he campaign from his Kentish Town house? Downing Street will have to say so…
In addition, Starmer’s stated explanation for his use of the donated penthouse is that he needed the accommodation for his son’s exams. In itself this would mean it is not subject to Labour’s national general election campaign expense. But it would be if he held any campaign meetings there, used the property for campaign purposes or did campaign work there…
It could also shift into the local expense in his capacity as an MP. There is no declaration of the donation during a regulated election period on Starmer’s Electoral Commission entries. Starmer’s period of residence at Lord Alli’s therefore may have breached electoral law. Twice…
For the first time in years, a Lords’ Private Members Bill has a very good chance of passing into legislation thanks to support from the government and opposition. Its aim? To close down so-called ‘family voting’.
Family voting is the practice whereby – not always but in the vast majority of cases – the patriarch of the family stands over his wife or teenage children in the ballot box, telling them how to vote. According to the UN, Family Voting:
“often stops women from casting a vote of their own choice. In many situations, while the woman physically casts her own vote, she is under a strong cultural expectation to obey her husband or father and vote for the candidate or party that she has been instructed to vote for.”
According to a Democracy Volunteers report of UK local elections in 2022, family voting occurred in 25% of all the polling stations they observed, with England seeing 21% and Northern Ireland a whopping 42%.
The Lords’ Private Members Bill is the brainchild of Lord Hayward, and less than an hour ago passed the final committee stages in the Lords. It will now head to the Commons with full government support.
According to a 2015 Manchester University paper for the Electoral Commission, they found evidence among interviewees in Pakistani and Bangladeshi-origin communities that more hierarchical family structures means women are often expected to “follow the lead of the head of the household,” creating additional Family Voting vulnerability among ethnic minority households.
When passed into law it will close up the current legal loophole and give presiding officers much more authority to demand individuals are able to stand alone while casting their votes in the ballot booths – with obvious exceptions for the disabled, blind and parents voting with young children. A long overdue reform…
