Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was turned away from his local polling station on Thursday because he did not carry photo ID, which is required by a relatively new law introduced by his government two years ago.
Polling station staff in Johnson's constituency in south Oxfordshire were forced to remove the former Tory party boss as Johnson tried to vote in local elections, as first reported by the Kingdom's Sky News united
JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
Johnson later returned with the identification needed to vote, according to Sky.
Johnson has not publicly commented on the incident. The latest post on his X account, published as voting began on Thursday in several local and regional elections across the UK, read: “The polls are now open. Vote Tory today!”
Under the Electoral Act, legislation passed in 2022 under the Johnson government, British voters must show acceptable photo ID at polling stations.
Critics of the law have said the legislation makes it harder for people to vote and will act as a form of voter suppression.
A spokesman for the British Electoral Commission said after polls closed on Thursday night that “a number of new Electoral Act measures were in force at this election, including first-time voter identification in Wales and parts of “England. The electoral community has been working hard to prepare voters for these changes, the majority of voters who wanted to vote were able to.”
“Our initial assessment of the election is that it was well organized and millions of voters were able to exercise their democratic rights,” the spokesman said.
