A Very British Coup.
Up to 10 million people are about to be disenfranchised in this country. Not my view. but the view of the Electoral Commission. In any developing country this would surely be viewed as a scandal and given ample time in the Western media, yet somehow most people haven't a clue what is being done in their name and most seem to be unconcerned even if they do have an inkling.
Despite their hostility to politics in general, people seem to generally trust that one person one vote is enough for things to be fair, but under our system each vote only really affects the result in a minority of constituencies, and where you draw the boundaries determines who wins and whose votes count or not. This boundary task is left to the unelected boundary commissions - quangos with the power to allocate power. Where you draw the boundaries can have a bigger impact on the result than even large swings in voteshare for the parties.
The government are implementing boundary enlargement to increase the number of electors per constituency, thereby making MPs even more distant and unaccountable.
On top of this they are restricting variation in the size of 596 of the 600 seats to just 5% either way. This is leading to seats that are even more arbitrary and confusing, as county boundaries and geographical considerations are overlooked. As Lewis Baston puts it; "The impartial boundary commissions are carrying out very partial legislation".
The Tories are desperate for these boundary changes to correct what they see as a gross unfairness in the system - the fact that they can't win a majority of seats with just 36% of the vote (like Labour managed in 2005). Of course the real unfairness is that ANY party be allowed to win a majority of seats with such a small voteshare - but it would require proportional representation to cure that and hell will freeze over before the British people get that for Westminster elections.
But what really scares me, above all this, is the proposal to remove the legal requirement to register to vote. Mostly it is the young urban poor that fail to vote that will fall off the register. If they don't vote, why does this matter? Because boundary size is determined by those who register, not those who live there. Already urban areas have larger adult populations, this will exarcerbate the problem. The Tories are annoyed that Labour can win seats in urban areas despite low turnouts of voters there. This change coupled with the enlargement of such seats to include more rural Tory voters will add seats to the Tories without winning any extra votes. The Lib Dems would be mad to support this change that will go to parliament in 2013. But before the 5th December you can register your disapproval, if you can be bothered, that is.
Despite their hostility to politics in general, people seem to generally trust that one person one vote is enough for things to be fair, but under our system each vote only really affects the result in a minority of constituencies, and where you draw the boundaries determines who wins and whose votes count or not. This boundary task is left to the unelected boundary commissions - quangos with the power to allocate power. Where you draw the boundaries can have a bigger impact on the result than even large swings in voteshare for the parties.
The government are implementing boundary enlargement to increase the number of electors per constituency, thereby making MPs even more distant and unaccountable.
On top of this they are restricting variation in the size of 596 of the 600 seats to just 5% either way. This is leading to seats that are even more arbitrary and confusing, as county boundaries and geographical considerations are overlooked. As Lewis Baston puts it; "The impartial boundary commissions are carrying out very partial legislation".
The Tories are desperate for these boundary changes to correct what they see as a gross unfairness in the system - the fact that they can't win a majority of seats with just 36% of the vote (like Labour managed in 2005). Of course the real unfairness is that ANY party be allowed to win a majority of seats with such a small voteshare - but it would require proportional representation to cure that and hell will freeze over before the British people get that for Westminster elections.
But what really scares me, above all this, is the proposal to remove the legal requirement to register to vote. Mostly it is the young urban poor that fail to vote that will fall off the register. If they don't vote, why does this matter? Because boundary size is determined by those who register, not those who live there. Already urban areas have larger adult populations, this will exarcerbate the problem. The Tories are annoyed that Labour can win seats in urban areas despite low turnouts of voters there. This change coupled with the enlargement of such seats to include more rural Tory voters will add seats to the Tories without winning any extra votes. The Lib Dems would be mad to support this change that will go to parliament in 2013. But before the 5th December you can register your disapproval, if you can be bothered, that is.
New Constituencies Make A Mockery Of Democracy.
So now we know what has been happening behind the closed doors of the boundary commissions. We know a little earlier than we should of thanks to this leak (hat-tip brighton politics blogger). The 4 constituencies we had in Brighton Pavilion, Brighton Kemptown, Hove and Lewes have become 3 - Brighton Pavilion & Hove, Brighton & Hove North, and Lewes & East Brighton.
What these changes do is create 1 very safe Green seat and 2 safish Tory seats. It also demonstrates the arbitrariness of the boundary system. There are no community links between some of these wards. For instance the Brighton and Hove North constituency doesn’t even live up to its name. It includes coastal wards like Westbourne, Wish and… South Portslade!!
If we are to have a horizontal – north/south divide of Brighton and Hove, it makes much more sense to swap these B&H Nth wards for BP&H wards Goldsmid and Preston Park which lie to the north of the coastal wards. This would leave both constituencies relatively unchanged in terms of electors (plus 523 in B+H Nth 80118 and minus 523 in BP&H - 75468). Still well within the remit of having between 72,810 and 80,473 electors that the rules allow.
It would also have been possible to have kept the east/west split and therefore kept the constituencies similar to the present situation if they had wanted. A cynic might suggest these boundaries have more to do with containing the Greens within 1 constituency and therefore just 1 MP. Making the changes I suggest would turn both B+H Nth and BP&H into marginal Green/Tory seats, surely a much better outcome for democracy and common sense. It will be interesting to see if any of these suggestions are seriously considered during the consultation process which now follows for 12 weeks ending 5 December.
Generally, these boundary changes are a big political con, a gerrymander to help elect more Tory MPs. The boundary commissions may try to be impartial in theory, but they work within a clear remit that is very partial indeed as Lewis Baston puts it:-
What these changes do is create 1 very safe Green seat and 2 safish Tory seats. It also demonstrates the arbitrariness of the boundary system. There are no community links between some of these wards. For instance the Brighton and Hove North constituency doesn’t even live up to its name. It includes coastal wards like Westbourne, Wish and… South Portslade!!
If we are to have a horizontal – north/south divide of Brighton and Hove, it makes much more sense to swap these B&H Nth wards for BP&H wards Goldsmid and Preston Park which lie to the north of the coastal wards. This would leave both constituencies relatively unchanged in terms of electors (plus 523 in B+H Nth 80118 and minus 523 in BP&H - 75468). Still well within the remit of having between 72,810 and 80,473 electors that the rules allow.
It would also have been possible to have kept the east/west split and therefore kept the constituencies similar to the present situation if they had wanted. A cynic might suggest these boundaries have more to do with containing the Greens within 1 constituency and therefore just 1 MP. Making the changes I suggest would turn both B+H Nth and BP&H into marginal Green/Tory seats, surely a much better outcome for democracy and common sense. It will be interesting to see if any of these suggestions are seriously considered during the consultation process which now follows for 12 weeks ending 5 December.
Generally, these boundary changes are a big political con, a gerrymander to help elect more Tory MPs. The boundary commissions may try to be impartial in theory, but they work within a clear remit that is very partial indeed as Lewis Baston puts it:-
"Part of the Conservatives aim is to tilt the balance in marginal seats based on free-standing towns by adding a few thousand rural electors.They don't even deliver the equal constituencies they champion. Before we had constituencies varying from 55,000 to 110,000. But this was skewed by a few anomalies - western isles and Isle of Wight, most were actually within the 65,000-80,000 bracket. The new boundaries do nothing about the current extreme anomalies and boundaries will still vary from 55,000 to 81,000. But as Lewis states about the new rules:-
"An under-appreciated aspect of the legislation is the further boundary reviews every parliament. These will not be minor tweaks, as the likelihood is there will be huge disruption each time. The numbers on the electoral register, particularly in urban areas, are not a stable quantity and they are likely to fluctuate more wildly when Individual Electoral Registration is introduced from 2014. This will cause unstable parliamentary boundaries. Even fairly small changes in numbers registered can have big ripple effects...This instability, as well as some highly artificial constituencies will undermine the electoral system....If the constituency is little more than an arbitrary splodge on the map, with a lifespan of about five years, what becomes of the 'constituency link' argument for First-Past-The-Post?"
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