Representation of the People Bill

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister responsible for introducing this Bill. I am proud to have worked on these important proposals in government and remain determined to ensure that we protect, renew and enhance our democracy.

Our democracy has inspired people and movements around the world. We are rightly proud of it, but as we have heard, democracy is hard won and fragile. Today there are forces that wish to damage our democracy and shake its foundations, with intimidation on the streets and disinformation online. Our democracy must be resilient and robust in the face of these threats, which is why this landmark Bill is so important. It represents the most ambitious change to our democracy for a generation by allowing 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in UK-wide elections for the very first time; by introducing tougher rules on political donations; by tackling the scourge of harassment, intimidation and abuse of those participating in public life, which is having a chilling effect on our democracy; and by improving our system of voter ID to encourage more people to engage with and participate in our democracy.

As we have already heard, votes at 16 is a historic opportunity to breathe new life into our democracy. If someone is old enough to work, pay tax and serve their country, they are old enough to have a say in how it is run, but that right to vote should be matched by the right to be informed and educated about our institutions, our politics and our policies. That is why it is crucial that we have high-quality citizenship education in our schools, and we must do more to connect with the millions of people who, as we have heard, are eligible to vote but choose not to take part in our democratic process.

I welcome the measures to strengthen the rules around political donations to address the risks posed by malign actors who seek to interfere with and undermine our democracy. I especially welcome the moves to introduce new “know your donor” and “follow the money” checks, and fines of up to half a million pounds for those who do not follow those rules, as well as the introduction of a UK connections test and increased transparency for corporate donations to prevent shell companies from funnelling dodgy donations to political parties.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about shell companies. Does she agree that it was really concerning that so many loopholes were left open by the previous Government, who allowed foreign money to reach the highest levels of our politics, often hidden by those very same shell companies? Indeed, this loophole was used by the Conservatives to accept hundreds of thousands of pounds from foreign-based donors, including £550,000 from Britannia Financial Group between 2019 and 2022. Company accounts show that in 2020—the year the firm donated more than £350,000 to the Conservatives—its ultimate controlling party moved from the UK to Switzerland. Does she agree that is a serious concern?

[Rushanara Ali]

My hon. Friend makes the case for why it is crucial to legislate to close those loopholes, so that we can clean up our politics and ensure that the public have confidence in our political system.

Turning to the subject of cryptocurrency, we know that it offers a number of ways of circumventing donation laws, including by using multiple crypto wallets with different addresses or fragmenting large donations into smaller amounts through crowdfunding in order to bypass the reporting threshold, and by offering anonymity through the use of privacy coins. Ireland, Brazil and several states in the US already have bans on crypto donations.

The enemies of democracy are constantly looking at new ways to undermine our system. Unless action is taken now, the threat of foreign interference in our democracy will continue to grow. The Government have previously committed to taking action, and I am reassured to hear from the Secretary of State that action will be taken to ensure that cryptocurrency does not find its way into political donations. This Bill provides a very important opportunity to legislate, so I implore the Secretary of State and the Minister to make sure that, once the Rycroft review has concluded, we include in this Bill the changes necessary to ensure that we ban cryptocurrency donations, in order to reduce the threat of foreign interference in our democracy.

I turn to the subject of harassment and intimidation in our politics. Our democracy depends on the willingness of ordinary people to step forward, to knock on doors and to serve our communities, so the new powers in this Bill to allow courts to impose tougher sentences for offences involving electoral intimidation, and to remove the requirements for candidates to publish their home addresses, are necessary protections. Although parliamentary candidates have had the option of taking their home addresses off the ballot paper, local candidates have not, and this is an important change to protect them.

Most Members of this House and many candidates, regardless of whether they were elected or not, carry their own experiences of threats and intimidation. The July2024 general election saw a disturbing spike in intimidation and harassment, with Electoral Commission research revealing that more than half of candidates experienced harassment and intimidation. The Speaker’s Conference found even more evidence of harassment and intimidation of candidates. Tyres were slashed, families were targeted and campaigners were driven off the streets, while women and minority ethnic candidates were disproportionately affected. However, all candidates in different ways found themselves facing harassment and intimidation. We cannot go on like this. This was not heated political debate; these were organised attempts to intimidate people into silence. Many elected representatives do not discuss the harassment they have faced as it can trigger further abuse and compromise our safety.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for making a powerful speech. On that point, I know what she personally went through during the last general election, and many Members from right across the House have also had to face it. Does she agree with me that, if we do not address this, we will see good, locally rooted candidates feeling afraid to put themselves forward to enrich our democracy because of that fear and intimidation?

[Rushanara Ali]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I have heard many say exactly that. In fact, a number of us have ourselves wondered whether, if we had known what we know now about the state of harassment and intimidation in our politics, we would have stood for Parliament. Of course, we have to fight against these threats, because if we do not, the next generation will be put off politics. It is on us all to take action to make sure politics is a safe space in which people can operate and candidates can stand forward, whichever party they belong to.

The intimidation and harassment of elected representatives is not, of course, unique to one party or one group of candidates; it is widespread in a way that I had never imagined. The industrial scale of intimidation and threats we experienced in the run-up to the 2024 general election was unlike anything I had previously experienced, and I suspect the same applies to many other Members. There was organised disinformation and death threats in a campaign conducted with constant concerns for physical security and the security of campaigners and decent, law-abiding people who want to participate in our democracy. In my constituency and across the country, many brave campaigners stood up for our democracy and bravely fought against that hatred, but they should not have had to work in such a hostile environment.

This happens not just during the election cycle or election campaigns. We have seen Members threatened with murder and receiving death threats on a regular basis. We have seen local councillor candidates being threatened. When I was working on this strategy last summer, I received a threat to my life. Two weeks ago, I received another threat. Sadly, this is now commonplace, with too many MPs, candidates and local representatives experiencing this hostility. So we have to redouble our efforts to stop this hostility and the chilling effect it is having on our democracy. We must have a zero-tolerance approach to those who wish to undermine our elections in this way, and we have to work together on that across the parties.

It is not just the thugs on our streets; it is the hostile actors, which we heard about in the Front Benchers’ speeches. Hostile actors are exploiting online platforms to flood the debate with disinformation and deepfakes. Disinformation online fuels intimidation, hostility and violence offline. That has been the experience of many of us during the last election and subsequently. The toxic ecosystem is connected, and this Bill begins to address that reality, but we have to do more. Alongside this Bill, we need the Government to do much more to tackle the very serious threat of foreign interference through the use of online platforms, not to mention the proliferation of online threats and the failure of platforms to take action. That means more action to stop platforms allowing threats and online hostility against those in public life and our citizens.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

I would like to add to that list of issues that need to be tackled. Does my hon. Friend agree that, given the role that the media play in our politics, the Government have a responsibility to think long and hard about what we do in that space?

[Rushanara Ali]

Absolutely. We all have such a responsibility, and I know of plenty of journalists in the media, particularly female journalists, who are being threatened and intimidated as well. This is a wider societal issue about making sure we can express ourselves freely and protect freedom of speech, but also protect those operating in our media, those in our politics and public life and, more widely, those participating in our democracy.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree that what also fuels the division and the attacks on politicians is when some individuals, including Members of this House, express that they are driven mad by the sight of black and Asian people in different spaces in our society? Does she agree that that should stop, and that all Members have a responsibility to call it out?

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point. We have to take action against racism, anti-Muslim hatred, antisemitism and other forms of hostility and hatred towards particular groups in our society, especially those with protected characteristics. There are laws in place that need to be enforced, and those laws are often breached online. We must ensure that we take responsibility and show leadership in the way we conduct ourselves. Otherwise, we are going to see those with protected characteristics being driven out of public life. I am seeing that already in local communities and of course in our Parliament, because of what we are experiencing.

In conclusion, our democracy is fragile, and it must be supported and strengthened in the face of rapid change and the threats from foreign interference. It is our duty to be stewards of our democracy, leaving it in a better place than we found it. It is at the heart of our liberty and our citizenship, and we must defend it, nurture it and future-proof it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Representation of the People Bill

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Zöe Franklin]

I could not agree more. We have seen the difference that such a change has made at a local government level, where councillors’ home addresses are no longer in the public domain, and I certainly think it should be the same for all candidates.

Returning to my point about the safety of candidates and those in elected office, I have tabled amendment 1 and new clause 6 to extend the existing protections beyond the candidates themselves and to their staff and families. Sadly, threats and intimidation do not stop at the candidate. Campaign staff are on the doorstep with us and run our campaign offices, often late into the evening, and our families can find themselves targeted simply because of the public role that we choose to take on. We must do everything we can to protect candidates and all those who serve in our democracy at every level.

If the Government take these issues seriously, they will support both of my amendments and commit to continually review the threats to candidates, to work with organisations such as the Local Government Association and to listen to the plethora of councillors at every single level—from town and parish, right up to unitary—who are telling terrible stories of death threats and attacks on their homes. We have to address these issues, because we must ensure not only that candidates are kept safe, but that our democracy is kept safe. It is a rapidly changing political environment, and we all have a responsibility to address it.

I really hope that the Government and the new Cabinet will act on these issues as the Bill progresses, and it will be deeply disappointing if this opportunity to implement change through the access to elected office fund, or through something of a different name that does the same thing, were not put into the Bill. If the Government will not act on these issues in this Chamber, we will continue, with our Liberal Democrat colleagues and others in the other place, to ensure that these important protections for equality and safety become a reality.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on her appointment as the Minister for Democracy. I thank her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for the work that she and the brilliant officials in the Department did on this very important Bill, and I thank the Minister for tabling the Government amendments. I had the privilege of serving as her predecessor’s predecessor and working on the strategy that formed this important Bill.

This is a significant piece of legislation, and the proposal to bring forward votes at 16 is important, radical and necessary. It is right that we give young people the right to vote when they can participate in other areas of life, and when they get the vote, political parties will absolutely pay much greater attention to their interests. I would like to see whether those who oppose this particular change go and canvass for the votes of 16 and 17-year-olds when they have the vote. We certainly will, because we believe that it is important to encourage participation from an early age.

This Bill introduces important changes to tackle harassment and intimidation and to move towards automated voting, and it picks up on the important findings from the Rycroft review. This significant piece of legislation has been improved as it has gone through its different stages, and today marks another opportunity for my hon. Friend the new Minister to take on board some of the suggestions that have been made in the form of the amendments.

I express my support for new clause 34, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), which would beef up our resistance to cryptoassets flooding our political system. I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurances that we are moving in the right direction, but we need to go further, as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee also pointed out. For reasons that are well documented, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill has said, the Bill must include digital tokens and meme coins accepted into crypto-wallets, as defined by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

My right hon. Friend has done a huge amount of work and provided an analysis to warn about the dangers of cryptoassets being used to drench our democracy with malign messages, fuelling populist hate and misinformation. We are seeing that play out in our streets and our communities at the moment. I do not think that I am allowed to make a plug for his excellent book on populism, but he has outlined that £200 million has already been spent in the UK on promoting division and undermining our democracy. That is terrifying. We need to put a stop to it, and that is why this Bill needs to go further. Nothing less than a full ban on crypto donations will do, and I hope that Ministers consider doing this now rather than coming back later.

I have seen the ability of the enormously talented group of civil servants to move at pace in amending legislation and being more and more ambitious over time in making this Bill much more significant—from the time I started working on it to the end of the period when the strategy was published and subsequently. Where there is a will, there will be a way. In the interests of moving away from the incremental changes to which the new Prime Minister has committed, I hope that we can get this done in one go. I appeal to my hon. Friend the Minister to be bold and to get this done now.

Furthermore, I support new clauses 41, 47, 82 and 83, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), which seek to tackle online harms and online hate in the context of elections and deepfakes, especially videos purporting to depict politicians and candidates. This has become more and more dangerous and serious. In the 2024 election, only a handful of candidates were depicted in AI-driven deepfake images, which were already presenting disinformation and causing damage to candidates’ election chances. Now, these have become more and more sophisticated, more and more problematic and, at worst, damaging and dangerous. It means that the elector often cannot see the distinction between a real image of a candidate and a deepfake-created image.

Now—don’t get me wrong—I have seen some of those deepfakes, and some of them are quite entertaining. The problem is that the ones that are filled with poison and hate can do deep damage to the reputation of candidates. That is very damaging and is moving very fast. When citizens look at such material, we are asking a lot of them. We are asking them to make a distinction between what is real and what is fake in the context of social media, which is heavily funded with billions of pounds by tech companies. Ordinary citizens have to compete with that, and it is not feasible. 

That is why it is really important that we make those changes. As I have said, when I worked on the election strategy that was the foundation for this Bill, it was challenging to get the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to do more. I therefore hope that those Ministers can work with my hon. Friend the Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith and her Department to include the changes that are needed in the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central, so that we can get this done in one go, rather than waste time while damage is done at the speed of lightning in the form of deepfake and disinformation spreading, which is infecting our democracy and forcing candidates and elected representatives out of politics.

Increasingly, too many Members of Parliament, candidates who did not make it here and those in local government and other areas of public life are asking: how is it going to be at the next election? As well as trying to keep ourselves safe, how do we protect our reputations when lies are spreading at breakneck speed? What is the point, and how do we protect our families when these lies are being spread online? How do we compete with that as candidates? How do we protect our protected characteristics? People of colour and people from minority faiths are particularly targeted, and women—female candidates—are being subjected to a scale of misogyny and hatred using deepfake and disinformation on a scale and at a level that I never thought I would see in my lifetime.