Dear Friend,

With local, mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales tomorrow, Full Fact has created a handy guide on what you will need to vote, both on Thursday and beyond.

England

You need photo ID to vote in person in local elections, including parish and other council elections, mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections and local referendums.

Wales

In-person voters must show photo ID in Police and Crime Commissioner elections. The Police and Crime Commissioner elections taking place on 2 May will be the first time voters in Wales have had to present photo ID at polling stations. However, voters in Wales do not need to show photo ID at a polling station in Senedd (Welsh Parliament) or local council elections.

Elections aren't taking place in Scotland or Northern Ireland but the information below could be useful for future elections.

Scotland

You are only required to show photo ID to vote in person in UK parliamentary elections, by-elections and recall petitions. You do not need to present photo ID to vote in person at Scottish Parliament or council elections.

Northern Ireland

Photo ID has been required when voting at polling stations in any election in Northern Ireland since 2003 (and before that, some form of ID has been required to vote there since 1985).

Best wishes,

Craig, Digital Campaigns Manager—Full Fact

ACTIONS

Ask Jonathan Gullis MP to stop repeating migration claims.

Will you join Full Fact in writing to Jonathan Gullis, Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party, to ask him not to repeat an incorrect claim he made in the Express on 1 April?

He claimed that: “People will understandably fear this is part of Sir Keir’s ‘deal’ with the EU, which would see us surrender our borders to his buddies in Brussels, 100,000 additional illegal migrants into the UK.”

Full Fact has looked at this claim and found it to be unreliable.

We asked Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Oservatory at University of Oxford, what she thought about the claim. She said that the claim was “incorrect: there are no two ways about it.”

"The claim that a returns deal with the EU would mean the UK accepting 100,000 asylum seekers from Europe is incorrect: there are no two ways about it."

Despite the claim being unreliable, Mr Gullis has repeated it on four separate occasions over the last 12 months. He isn’t the only senior Conservative who has made this claim either.

In the last year, we have written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asking him not to repeat this claim. We’ve also written to several current and former Conservative MPs who repeated this incorrect claim, who have not made it again since.

Will you write to Jonathan Gullis MP to ask him to correct this claim?

Write to Mr Gullis

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FACT CHECKS

It’s not true that only 8.2% of Leicester’s population identifies as ‘British’

Posts shared on Facebook have claimed that “8.2% of the population of Leicester” identifies as “British”.

The 8.2% figure actually appears to refer to the percentage of Leicester residents who specifically identify as “English only”. But 2021 census data shows that over half of the city’s population identifies as “British”.

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Support Full Fact

As a registered charity, Full Fact relies on donations from the public to support our independent, impartial fact-checking and campaigning work.

Please support Full Fact ahead of this year's general election by donating £10.

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Remind me next week

J.K. Rowling is not moving to Moscow

According to online posts, J.K. Rowling has sold her mansion in the UK and is moving to Russia because of its “traditional values”. Some posts also claim she said Russia is the “last state where I can call a spade a spade with impunity”.

But Full Fact could find no evidence this is true and a spokesperson for the author said the claim is false.

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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...

Read our latest fact checks

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All the best,
Team Full Fact

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