Another Fine Mess

The coalition government only has until December to comply with a Council of Europe directive that outlaws a blanket ban on UK prisoners being able to vote. Now it goes without saying that governments of all hues would rather just let the subject lie. There are almost certainly no votes in it for them and the issue is unlikely to play well in the letter columns of the Daily Mail or Telegraph. In fact I'd say the 'shire' counties are going to erupt when the news breaks that we have absolutely no choice in the matter and some hapless minister will have to explain that it's being done in the name of fairness. As it happens Ken Clarke can breathe a sigh of relief as responsibility moved to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in July. 

The last Labour government proposed several alternatives involving partial enfranchisement either by type of offence or length of sentence, but all this is academic as it now appears that nothing less than almost total enfranchisement is acceptable under Human Rights legislation. 

The issue then becomes, when enfranchised, exactly which constituency do prisoners cast their vote in? One obvious answer is the constituency where the prison is located, but I can see a number of MP's being more than a little uneasy about suddenly having upwards of 1,500 new captive electors to canvass. Perhaps it could be the constituency where the prisoners last home address was registered? This could prove quite an administrative headache, especially for long term prisoners and then there's the homeless to consider. Sentenced prisoners move around the system a lot too, so there will have to be a method of making sure their postal vote catches up with them. HM Prison Service is not renowned for such administrative things. 

I'll put my cards on the table and say I think such decisions should be taken by the UK Parliament, not the Council of Europe and I have sympathy with the 140 year-old historical argument that says if a citizen is sentenced to imprisonment, they have lost the right to cast a vote during their incarceration. The argument begins to get a bit more tenuous though if, as Ken Clarke envisages, prisoners will soon be be working a 40 hour week and start paying tax and National insurance. Remember the old rebel refrain, "no taxation without representation".