Political Parties and Elections Bill

I should understand that, were it a reason for preventing somebody from voting, but the argument is that a British citizen has a sufficiently substantive connection with what is going on in this country to be allowed to vote and to stand in an election, but not to donate. The suggestion that there is somehow a moral or rational justification for the measure, based on the fact that somebody does not pay taxes in this country, does not fulfil the requirement that the hon. Gentleman knows the European Court of Human Rights would impose—namely, a rational justification for the intrusion into the right. We need a legitimate objective. The measure has to be rationally connected with the objective and to be no more than is necessary to achieve it. We know that large numbers of people who are not in the Labour party's bête noire category, but are relatively modestly affluent, will be prevented from donating. The Secretary of State for Justice proposes a limit of £7,500, but that is an arbitrary figure, plucked from nowhere. Why not £15,000 or £20,000? Why not £30,000? The figures that the Labour party objects to are in the millions, but relatively modestly affluent people who feel strongly may wish to donate £7,500, £10,000, £15,000, £20,000 or £30,000. Frankly, if we allow somebody to vote and stand in an election, and if they are a British citizen who feels strongly about the fate and destiny of their country, how can it conceivably be rational to prevent them from supporting their own campaigns or those of the party that they support? It simply makes no sense to me at all, and I am fortified in that opinion by the fact that the opinion of the Secretary of State for Justice is the same.