"Ministers are to postpone elections for new mayors in four parts of England, triggering accusations from opposition parties that Downing Street is cancelling democracy."
"Generally it's dictators that cancel elections. Some 7.5 million people are now going to be denied the opportunity of voting in mayoral elections. Funny isn't it: we've just announced our mayoral candidates for all of these areas and all of a sudden the government, terrified of losing to Reform, are cancelling them, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. To delay it two years: that is a deliberate dictatorial cancelling of democracy in the United Kingdom and we shouldn't tolerate it."
"Josh MacAlister, the children's minister, said on Thursday the reasons were technical and that the areas have still got district and county levels of government to be unified."
Ministers will postpone inaugural mayoral elections in four English areas — Greater Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton — until 2028. The government will argue that additional time is required to complete local government reorganisation and to unify district and county levels. Josh MacAlister described the reasons as technical and emphasized remaining unification steps. Opposition parties including the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK condemned the delay as a cancellation or subversion of democracy. Reform deputy leader Richard Tice said some 7.5 million people would be denied voting and called the move dictatorial.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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