THIS bit of political news is making headlines this week: the Boundary Commission for England has just unveiled plans to redraw the UK’s 650 parliamentary constituencies in what could be the most wide-ranging change of the electoral map in decades.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s Boundary Commissions are yet to publish their proposals. Still, the first elements of the proposed changes give plenty of food for thought.
The current boundary map is based on data from two decades ago, but the population has changed a lot since then, hence the proposed reform.
The redistribution of political representation and the country’s 650 Westminster MPs will be made at the expense of the north of England, Scotland and Wales.
England will get an extra 10 members of Parliament while Scotland will lose two, down to 57. Wales will see the biggest change, with the number of Welsh MPs plummeting from 40 to 32, while Northern Ireland will keep the same representation.
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On the face of it, it does make sense to say that the electoral map should be changed to better represent today’s UK population.
As a proportion, there are more people in the south of England, so it seems only logical that they should get more MPs. However, one has to wonder how these changes are going to help redress imbalances in a country that already suffers from territorial disparities.
Scotland, Wales and the north of England feel their voices are not strong enough and often bypassed, despite the first two having devolved parliaments. This is also happening at a time when the future of the Union has never been so uncertain, with pro-independence campaigners arguing there is little prospect of seeing the Tories out of power in the near future.
This story is more important than the individual fate of Tory MPs who might face an uphill battle to keep their seat. Electoral reform experts say the changes are very likely to favour the Conservatives, while the Labour Party, already struggling to win a majority in General Elections, faces a titanic ordeal to regain power.
Coming from a country where the capital and its region also has a huge weight compared to “la province”, the condescending term Parisians use for the rest of the country, I will nevertheless always be amazed at how uneven the UK is.
It is paradoxical though. The average size of constituencies in France is generally bigger than what the Boundary Commission aims to achieve, however there is less variation in their sizes. Take, for example, the beautiful rural department where I grew up in the centre of France: l’Indre.
With about 220,000 inhabitants in 6800 square kilometres and right in the heart of what is called by geographers “the empty diagonal”, this is one of the least populated parts of the country.
READ MORE: UK plans to cut number of Scottish MPs in electoral map shake-up
But we still get two MPs, each representing not only half of the population, but half of the department’s geographical territory. That doesn’t mean that citizens never feel that politicians are disconnected from everyday life, far from it. But in practice, it is much easier for MPs to thoroughly cover their whole constituency than if it were the size of some Scottish constituencies.
The question of the territorial net, and whether it should be tightened in some parts of the country, seems as relevant as the question of population size.
More generally, the boundary review makes me wonder if any fair change can be achieved without a much bigger electoral reform. Westminster’s First-Past-The-Post is a system from another age that has no place in a modern, 21st century democracy.
On its own, it prevents a more accurate representation of the UK’s electorate.
Are the mainstream parties ready to put forward proposals for at least a bit more proportional representation to have a parliament that better reflects the diversity of opinions in the country?
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