If Labour win with a significant majority at the upcoming election the party could “rig the system” to ensure they are the “forever government”, Michael Gove has claimed.
It comes after a string of polls released on Wednesday forecast a large Labour victory this election.
A YouGov poll projected 425 seats for Labour and 108 for the Conservatives; while a survey by More In Common projected a Labour majority of 162, just shy of its 1997 and 2001 landslides, with the Conservatives falling just 155 seats — their worst total since 1906.
A poll by Savanta projected an even more disastrous result for the Conservatives, with Labour winning 516 seats and the Tories falling to 53 MPs.
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Gove, the levelling up secretary, warned on Thursday morning about what such results could mean for the future of democracy.
He told Sky News: “I hope we are getting our message across on tax and one of the things is that if people do reflect on the polls, and of course some may, they will ask themselves this question: ‘If Labour do have that really big majority, what is to stop them rigging the system?’
“What is to stop them giving votes to EU citizens, 16 year-olds, prisoners, and making sure that they could be a forever government?”
Labour has pledged to lower the voting age to 16, but the party’s manifesto makes no mention of allowing EU citizens or prisoners to vote.
The Conservatives’ ‘super-majority’ warning has already backfired on Rishi Sunak
Last week, defence secretary Grant Shapps urged voters not to hand Labour a “super majority” at the general election.
Asked about the Conservatives’ social media adverts which suggest the party could be reduced to just 57 seats in the next parliament, the defence secretary warned that Keir Starmer could possess “unchecked” power in government as he made the case for a “proper system of accountability”.
He said: “I think the simple point is that if you want to make sure that in this next government, whoever forms it, that there is a proper system of accountability, then we would argue that you don’t want to have somebody receive a super majority.”
He added: “And in this case, of course, the concern would be that if Keir Starmerwere to go into No 10 — it will either be Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer, there is no other outcome to this election — and if that power was in some way unchecked it would be very bad news for people in this country.”
Shapps said this would amount to “a blank cheque approach, allowing someone to do anything they wanted, particularly when their particular set of plans are so vague.”
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