The prime minister seems temperamentally unsuited the demands of his own increasingly authoritarian agenda

“Creeping authoritarianism” is the wolf of the left, and we cry it all the time: I remember, almost nostalgically, thinking David Cameron was a creeping authoritarian for outsourcing punitive benefits initiatives to private companies; and that Theresa May was one when she earned the dubious accolade of politician least likely to answer the question in a broadcast interview. However, there is no ignoring or denying the vastly more anti-democratic manoeuvres of Boris Johnson’s government.

The elections bill, currently in the Lords, features mandatory photo ID, which is well known to disfranchise younger and lower-income voters. It poses a direct threat to the reach and independence of the Electoral Commission, has serious implications for who can and cannot campaign at election time, and extends the perverse first-past-the-post voting system to the election of mayors and police commissioners. Beyond the explicit restriction of democracy, there is no plausible rationale for the bill; and unsettlingly, very little attempt has been made to produce one.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.