Rishi Sunak has defended new voter ID legal guidelines after former Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed they have been a backfired try to enhance the Conservatives’ electoral probabilities.

The Prime Minister additionally insisted that voting is a “privilege” that shouldn't be prolonged to 16-year-olds and settled EU residents as Labour considers extending the precise. His feedback got here after an evaluation of council knowledge prompt 1000's of individuals didn't vote on this month’s native elections as a result of they lacked the proper ID.

Mr Rees-Mogg, who had been supportive of the transfer whereas in Government, subsequently mentioned it was an try at “gerrymandering” that had backfired to suppress the Tory vote. But Mr Sunak mentioned he was “very comfortable” with the transfer and indicated he could be pushing on with requiring ID on the subsequent common election.

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He defended the legislation whereas on his method to the G7 summit in Japan, arguing that the overwhelming majority of individuals have the proper ID and it's required in lots of different nations.

“Those are all the facts that make me think it is an entirely reasonable thing to do in line with lots of other countries including in Northern Ireland, which the Labour government did,” Mr Sunak mentioned.

“Also I think it is an entirely reasonable thing that there is integrity in our voting system. That’s my general view on that.”

The Electoral fee will consider and publish its findings on how voters have been impacted.

“But in general I’m very comfortable about the approach that we’ve taken,” he added.

The BBC collated knowledge from 160 of the 230 councils in England that held votes on May 4 displaying 26,165 voters have been initially denied poll papers at polling stations. Of these, 9,577 didn't return, whereas 16,588 folks went again with legitimate ID.

Labour chief Sir Keir Starmer has indicated he backs reducing the voting age to 16 and lengthening voting rights generally elections to settled migrants. But Mr Sunak dominated this out, saying: “Our position on that hasn’t changed.

“I think that voting is a privilege. We have a set of rules in place about who is eligible to vote and we have no plans to change that.”