Shropshire MPs reject bid to give convicts vote
Friday 11th February 2011, 11:29AM GMT.
David Cameron was on a collision course with the European Court of Human Rights today after MPs overwhelmingly rejected controversial plans to give prisoners the vote. Not a single Shropshire MP voted for giving inmates the vote.
Ministers are drawing up a compromise proposal after the House of Commons voted to keep Britain’s 140-year-old ban on convicts voting. Loud cheers greeted the result, although fewer than half the chamber voted.
The motion, tabled by senior Conservative David Davis and Labour former justice secretary Jack Straw was last night backed by 234 to 22.
Telford Labour MP David Wright and Wrekin Tory MP Mark Pritchard voted for retaining the ban. Tories Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham; Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow; Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, MP for North Shropshire; and Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire; either abstained or missed the vote.
It was a historic defence of Britain’s sovereign right to make its own laws in defiance of a ruling by the ECHR – but non-binding.
The Government hopes the vote will strengthen its hand when it begins negotiations with the Strasbourg court and seeks to water down its ruling.
But even under a limited compromise of giving the vote to those serving less than four years would give 28,000 inmates a say.
It follows a long-running legal tussle with the ECHR after it ruled the present UK ban was unlawful in 2004.
During an impassioned six-hour debate, Mr Davis said prisoners had “broken their contract with society”, while Mr Straw accused the court of going beyond its remit.
Tory Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, warned there would be “costs and consequences” of ignoring the European judgment.
Although Mr Cameron missed the vote because of a visit to Wiltshire, and all his ministers abstained, he said: “In my view prisoners should not get the vote, and that’s that.”
But he added: “We’re in a situation where the courts are telling us we are going to be fined unless we change this. We are going to have to sort this out .”
He said the prospect of giving prisoners the vote makes him feel “physically sick”.
By London Reporter Sunita Patel
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What about prisoners’ human rights? We cannot pick and choose which European laws we enforce or revoke however unappealing it is that people like Ian Huntley and Peter (Sutcliffe) Coonan are given the vote.
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All very righteous St. John, but prisoners are there because they committed crimes against society, and for that have been removed from society.
True they should be granted SOME basic rights but voting should not be one of them.
What next, the right to visit the pub at the weekend, attend football matches, annual holidays??
They forfeited their right to decide on the future of society when they elected to have themselves removed from it.
I have it from a reliable source,(an ex “screw”) that their life is easy enough as it is. If you don’t like the time, don’t do the crime.
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You totally missed the point of my comment and actually agreed with me.
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Indeed I did my friend, I missed the question mark on your opening sentence. My abject apologies.
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Is it really a basic human right to have the vote? Did those prisoners consider the basic human rights of those they murdered robbed raped.
Unless our own parliament is considered a total waste of space and no longer sovereign,then of course we can pick and choose which European Council laws we can enforce or revoke. Especially as this court choose to interpret human rights in this way in 2005. Who is to make our laws, the government we elect or unelected judges with no public mandate, far to often it is the unelected judges and bureaucrats who seem to be doing just that.
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I was amused by David Cameron talking tough in Parliament on this issue and giving his MPs a free vote….and then abstaining himself.
As did all the above-named gents (apart from Mr Pritchard and Mr Wright), who either abstained or were absent.
There are some who might call this cowardice, or who might think these people lack any sense of principle. I doubt whether the majority of their constituents would think proven criminals deserve the votes, but then as usual I imagine these MPs didn’t really care what their constituents thought.
Brave bunch.
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A right to vote in democratic elections is something that is an essential part of British life for the majority of UK citizens.
However once a prisoner has been found guilty in a court of law and then given a prison sentence I feel it is only right that they should forfit their right to vote whilst in prison,they have to repay debt to society.
Remand prisoners on the other hand are “innocent until proven guilty” under UK law so should have the right to vote until proven guilty by a court.
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Those sentenced to imprisonment are sent to jail to be deprived of their liberty. That does not include loss of citizenship. They should have the vote and those MPs who have made such a fuss know this. They are merely trying to placate the electorate and the tabloid press.
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Nice to see our cowardly local MPs screwing up yet again!! What where they thinking?
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Why limit the right to vote to convicted Prisoners?
Surely anyone convicted of an offence has broken their contract with society?
Any sentence imposed by a court that restricts liberty, should also restrict the right to vote.
But why stop at those convicted of a criminal offence? Those that have been found by Revenues and customs to have cheated taxes should also not be able to vote, the old expression “no taxation without representation” should equally be no representation without taxation.
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