Democracy in danger: why the government must restore the Electoral Commission’s full independence

A fully independent Electoral Commission is critical to ensuring the integrity of UK elections, and maintaining public confidence that elections are run fairly.

However, the previous Conservative government curtailed the independence of the Electoral Commission by introducing a new power for a minister to set out a strategy and policy statement (the Statement) for the Commission. This power weakens the Electoral Commission’s autonomy, leaving it vulnerable to the whims of a ruling party. And it creates serious risks that in the wrong hands a governing party could shift the rules of the electoral game in its favour and direct the Commission to act in ways that help it maintain power. Political capture of the Commission would have devastating consequences for the health of our democracy.

In July 2025, the Labour government announced its long-awaited strategy for electoral reform, Restoring Trust in Our Democracy: our strategy for modern and secure elections. While this strategy contains many welcome reforms, the government has chosen to maintain the new power rather than remove it from statute. This undermines the central tenet of reforms which is to strengthen the UK’s democracy and restore public trust.

As we lay out in this report, the ministerial power to set a policy and strategy for the UK’s electoral body:

• was widely condemned by the Labour party in opposition, multiple parliamentary committees and the Electoral Commission itself, as well as its Parliamentary oversight mechanism, the Speaker’s Committee;
• breaches eight international standards on electoral management;
• has caused the UK to fall from ranking among the top 15 countries in the world for the autonomy of its electoral body to ranking 49th, putting it on a par with Ghana, Nepal and Croatia;
• puts the UK at odds with comparable democracies such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland; and
• creates serious vulnerabilities that would enable a future government with autocratic tendencies to use the power to distort the electoral rules in its favour.

Removing the power is critical for restoring the independence of the Commission and ensuring full public trust in its activities. Lessons from countries that have experienced democratic backsliding show that this will also need to be accompanied by further measures to future-proof the integrity of UK elections, including beefing up the independence of the Speaker’s Committee.