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Conservative and Reform attempts to ban election materials published in ‘foreign’ languages were roundly defeated in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
The Government’s flagship elections bill cleared the Commons on Wednesday evening, by 411 votes to 102, with the Conservatives and Reform opposing, having seen their efforts to criminalise campaigners for using languages not ‘native’ to the British Isles rejected.
Conservative MP Paul Holmes’ amendment to introduce a ‘foreign’ language ban for campaign materials during elections was defeated by 410 votes to 105. Reform had attempted to push an even stricter amendment.
After Byline Times first reported on Reform’s language-ban efforts in July – which would have made use of Cornish, Irish, Scots, Gaelic, Manx and other ‘native’ languages illegal in election materials – the party pledged to rewrite it.
They did so, extending the permitted languages to all ‘languages native to the British Isles’, but the amendment was not called. Reform’s amendment, unlike the Conservatives’ fine-based approach, would have put campaigners in prison for using non-‘native’ UK languages.
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Conservative Katie Lam launched her case for the party’s amendment by citing the recent Gorton and Denton by-election, won by the Greens’ Hannah Spencer MP. Lam said the Green Party published leaflets in Urdu telling voters that if they wanted to “give the Muslims a strong voice, give your vote to the Greens”.
The shadow communities secretary said: “It should terrify all of us that election material in our country is being produced in a foreign language and designed to drum up support among a particular religious community. Not only does this contribute to a culture of group-based grievance politics, but it makes it impossible for the vast majority of the British public to scrutinise what candidates are saying.”
Labour’s Peter Lamb hit out at Conservative Lam’s remarks, where she linked “coercion, fraud and sectarianism in our democratic process” explicitly to migration.
The Labour MP implied the comments were racially motivated, telling the House: “It was a good thing we had free hearing tests in Parliament just before recess, but I did not need one: the dog whistle across the Chamber was so loud that it was apparent to all of us.”
Hannah Spencer, the Green MP for Gorton and Denton, later challenged the factual basis of Lam’s account of her by-election, hitting out at “misinformation about family voting in the Gorton and Denton by-election, despite the fact that it was run within the law and saw me elected with an overwhelming majority, and that Greater Manchester police found no evidence of criminality.” Deputy Speaker Ghani declined to rule on the content, and Lam did not withdraw her comments.
Lib Dem Lisa Smart also replied to Lam’s remarks, saying: “I wonder whether the shadow Secretary of State sees a certain irony in attempting to legislate for linguistic purity in a language that, for over a millennium, has borrowed vocabulary ad hoc from other languages, such as Italian, Latin and French, and in a Bill that talks about elections, referendums, vetoes and manifestos.”
Lam replied: “The fact that English takes words from other languages does not mean that an English voter, or indeed any British voter, would be able to read election material in Latin.”
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Labour’s Luke Akehurst also challenged the Conservatives on their own practices, asking: “Could the hon. Lady confirm to the House whether the Conservative party has ever published election leaflet…