Conservatives oppose cancelling elections

The following is the Opposition reply to the Ministerial Statement clearly opposing the idea (Hansard report)

Voters will now potentially be denied the right to elect their own representatives, and not for the first time under this Labour Government. This is the second year in a row that Ministers have scrambled to postpone elections. Now, while many people gather around their screens to watch movies like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, we are sitting here discussing how Labour is trying to steal the elections.

There is no mandate for the Government’s botched reorganisation plan, and they have behaved as the sole actor, forcing local council leaders to reorganise, with little regard for local people and their democratic rights. Has the Electoral Commission been consulted on these latest changes, or has it been ignored once again? Just as the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission noted when mayoral elections were previously cancelled, the commission exists to protect the integrity of our electoral system, but time and again the Government seem content to brush aside its advice when it becomes inconvenient.

Do the Government still believe in the Gould principle—the long-standing agreement that election rules and practices should not be changed within the six-month period of a scheduled election—or is that expendable whenever Labour finds itself politically vulnerable? The Opposition accept that there is a precedent for a single-year delay, but that is not what we face. Do the Government accept the clear advice of the Electoral Commission that further delays are unacceptable? It said that scheduled polls should be postponed only in exceptional circumstances

—what are the exceptional circumstances in this case? We know the answer: Labour’s rushed, chaotic and flawed local government reorganisation plan. It is the Government’s fault, not local leaders’ fault.