Yes to AV, Yes to Equal Constituencies, but not like this.

I am a long standing and passionate supporter of electoral reform. I feel that our current system of voting is manifestly unfair and skews our public policy agenda in favour of the few and not the many. The alternative vote is far from perfect, it isn’t the system I would chose but it is better than the status quo.

So I was delighted when the Labour promised to back AV in the manifesto. And whilst I was devastated to see the Tories back in power a small crumb of comfort for me was that part of the coalition agreement would deliver a referendum on electoral reform that I hoped would make our politics better.

AV ballot paper

I also support, in principle, the idea of equal sized constituencies. It is clearly inarguable that in a democracy this is a desirable, and necessary thing. It has long been a tenet of progressive and left wing politics, dating back to the chartists, that we should have equal sized constituencies.

But the problem for me is the basis on which the Condems are trying to introduce the equal sized constituencies; namely that of the existing electoral roll. The problem with this is that there are millions of eligible voters not currently on the electoral register.

People not on the electoral register are disproportionately the poor, the young and those form ethnic minorities. It will be fundamentally and in principal wrong to draw new constituencies without first making real efforts to get these people onto the roll.

Or better still if we are going to move to equal size constituencies lets base them on numbers of people eligible to register to vote. This would be fairer, and more democratic, and it would also make it impossible for the wreckers in both Labour and the Tory parties to oppose constitutional reform.

The Tories have obviously set Labour a trap here and it is necessary to act wisely and cautiously. By tying the AV referendum (something that is a Labour manifesto pledge) to boundary reform that Labour can never accept they are putting Labour into a difficult position.

For me the sensible course of action would be to make it clear that Labour will offer full support to the bill on the proviso that the basis of equal sized constituencies is changed to those eligible to register. This would put the ball back in the Governments court and it would be them, rather than us who seem unreasonable.

So in short Yes to AV, Yes to equal constituencies, no to the dishonest way the government are basing the boundary reviews.

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29. July 2010 by Ralph Ferrett
Categories: Activism | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 comments

Comments (6)

  1. As you say, this is far from the ideal, but even the imbalanced redrawing of boundary lines proposed is a step forward from the current situation.

    Surely it is acceptable to support any version of reform that can be proposed by the coalition right now? If it is enacted by the referendum then Labour can campaign on a promise of further electoral reform in the next general election. No doubt with the support of the Liberal Democrats, now freed from their need to compromise for the sake of the coalition.

    • I see what you are saying here Steve but the problems with what are being proposed are manifest and unfair. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

      On balance I think it would be tragic if this once in a generation chance for electoral reform was missed. But I am sure that this situation is far from an accident, the Tories don’t want AV, don’t want a referendum and I think this is complex manoeuvring to try and get it killed with clean hands. It requires clever handling (certainly not Jack Straw’s rubbish approach).

  2. I feel the redrawing of boundaries as suggested is a rather bad idea, in my neck of the woods scotland it would lead to unmanageable constituencies due to geography and population density. Under the proposals the Highlands, Northern Isles and Western Isles would become a single constituency. Can you imagine trying to cover that as an MP, it would be a full time job in and of itself and would result in a deficit of democracy for people in the remote rural areas. Surely the left should be reaching out to these people as well? Rural poverty can be much worse than urban due to the lack of access to social services etc.

    I think it was dishonest of the coalition to combine the legislation and to go away from the tradition of parliamentary boundaries being somewhat non-partisan (as non partisan as these things can be). I think the current labour position on this matter is actually quite well thought out, these should be two separate bills. The constituencies do need to be looked at but the population approach isn’t always appropriate and may well be damaging for the institution of democracy leading to far greater disenfranchisement and disillusionment with the system.

    Just my 2ps worth!

  3. My two pence worth …

    John H is wrong in so much as Orkney and Shetland would retain it’s MP as would Eilean Siar, and they have sort to cap the physical size of possible constituencies so that none would be significantly greater in size than the largest at present.

    As to the electoral register not containing all voters, are you saying that someone has to guess how many non-registered voters there are in a particular constituency? the current legislation provided for (I think) 5 yearly reviews so each election will be fought on (more) equal sized constituencies. As the non-registered voter situation is sorted, as it surely must be then the changes will feed through over time … I suspect many of the inner city areas have higher non-registration and thus would seem to be under represented but we have to have a starting point somewhere … increase the registration take up and representation increases! and not to be too party political Labour did have quite a long spell in government and quite a healthy majority to use to sort this, and as these would appear to be their natural support base , it does rather beg the question why didn’t they try and sort it?

    On a personal level my only issue is that in England we are going to have to see local ties broken as unfortunately the country does not break down conveniently to fit neatly with the electoral number – Northamptonshire for example would be entitled to about 6.7 MP’s and Worcestershire 5.7 so it looks like county boundaries will have to be crossed to meet the +or-5% limit … with presumably a similar situation in the rest of the UK.

    Maybe having too many tight rules will prove it’s undoing, and a little more discretion should be given to the Boundary Commission, for example, no more than 600 MP’s but make it an aim to be within 5% but an allowance of upto say 7.5% where a region can be broken down neatly within most existing boundaries but where one “county” would be slightly over the limit and equalising that county means that local ties are broken elsewhere?

  4. How do you count unregistered voters?

    • Hi Ben,

      I don’t pretend this would be a straight forward thing to do. But state has more sophisticated means of keeping information about the population than just the electoral register.

      We have all the people who pay tax, claim benefit, access other government services, respond to enquiries. Additionally we have heard the government talking about using Credit Reference agencies to “shop benefit cheats”.

      If the aim was to fairely make constituencies equal sized then in my view it would be quite possible to use this other information to make a fairer estimate of likely eligible voting size.

      Ralph

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