In our latest update, we share an interview with Roger Casale by Josiah Mortimer from Left Foot Forward, a political blog which provides "hard-hitting, evidence-based analysis of British politics, policy and current affairs.

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In a detailed interview Roger Casale was able to set out the latest state of play with our campaign for a public inquiry into #DeniedMyVote.

Asked whether he thought it was a case of ‘cock-up or conspiracy’, Roger Casale said:

“What I imagine is that Tories were leaned on. There‘s no obvious advantage to the government in what happened – it probably handed five or six seats to the Brexit Party.

Maybe some didn’t want them to prepare properly for the elections. Who had an interest in them acting with such staggering complacency? Those are questions for later and for the inquiry.”

The whole sorry saga is reminiscent of the Windrush scandal,  where many longstanding UK residents and Commonwealth citizens were threatened with deportation (and in many cases deported), after landing cards noting their longstanding status in the UK were destroyed.

“The government stonewalled [the issue], as with Windrush. There was complacency and a total lack of understanding. Obviously being denied a vote is not same as being thrown out of the country [as with the Windrush scandal]. But the attitude by the government was the same.”

“People are looking at the UK and this is impacting our standing in the world – this is not the way to run a democracy,” Casale added. “This is something that goes well beyond rights of EU citizens abroad – this says something about our democracy. Somewhere you have to draw a line and take a stand.” Roger Casale said

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