The single biggest gamechanger since he came to power is David Cameron’s move to reduce democratic elected representation in the Commons while increasing nominated legislators in the unelected Lords.
This is the first time in British parliamentary history in which reform of the Commons is based on reducing, not enlarging, the people’s right to elect an MP of their choice. At a time when private companies, government agencies, privacy-invading media, the NHS, police and even local government bureaucrats have more and more power over citizens it seems odd to thin out the already thin line of MPs which stand between the citizen and the state or other powerbrokers.
Labour has accused Cameron of gerrymandering. Other than a cynical little deal to protect Lib Dem seats in northern Scotland this is not strictly true. The good Governor Elbridge Gerry of early 19th century Massachussets who redrew electoral boundaries so they looked like a salamander – hence gerrymander – would never have dared to be as bold as Cameron. The prime minister is making an audacious powergrab on behalf of his party to compensate for his failure to win a majority last year.
Out will go a quarter of Welsh MPs including most Welsh-speakers with a major reduction of Scottish MPs. Lib Dem MPs in England who have won and held seats on the basis of a local constituency activism will have to navigate electoral terra incognita as existing sources of Lib Dem votes are transferred to new constituencies.
Mr Cameron is amassing an electoral war chest without precedent in British political history. He has told the 1922 Committee that any Tory MPs who lose out in the re-selection process will be put in the Lords. The constitutional propriety of that promise has so far raised no eyebrows.
In another precedent, for the first time ever the Boundary Commission will redraw boundaries to reflect culling 50 MPs without any local consultation. The new seats will cross local authority boundaries, cross the Thames, and even the sea as the Isle of Wight loses its single seat status.
Like Chesterton’s meandering English roads the boundaries and sizes of English constituencies are based on a respect for local needs. In London, the Labour MP Stephen Timms in East Ham has 90,000 electors. Rotherham-born Treasury minister, Justine Greening, has just 63,000 in Putney. Illogical? Yes but very English as the arrangement suits both the citizens of Putney and East Ham with their distinct identities.
Now the Boundary Commission like 19th century imperial cartographers drawing straight line boundaries in Africa have to reparcel all constituencies into neat average 76,000 size electorates.
Most MPs of all parties will have to go into a head-to-head contest with each other to be selected for winnable seats. There will be a massive cull of well-known names. Parliament will be difficult to manage as scores of new MPs realise Cameron’s democracy-reduction law means their career in the Commons will be extremely short.
There will be no chance for new blood to enter the Commons for several parliaments. There are fears that the party machines will use the reselection process to impose favourite sons and cuties on new constituency associations which will also have to be reformatted. And each time a new housing estate is built, thus altering the size of a constituency, the whole process has to start again.
Labour is worried that Cameron’s redrawing of the electoral map will deny it a majority. Perhaps, but it should also be a spur to Labour to develop a policy for England and not rely on small Scottish and Welsh seats for its majority. But Labour should not oppose the proposals purely on grounds of political disadvantage alone.
There is a crisis of governance in Britain. Politicians, the press, the police, and the banks are all perceived to have the nation down in recent years. Taking revenge on MPs has been a popular sport since the expenses scandal. All party leaders have adopted a holier-than-thou attitude even if their own form-filling does not bear close scrutiny. But as a homogenised political culture sinks roots, and power over Britain moves to global corporations, ratings agencies and the EU, is this the time to deny British citizens men and women of their own choice to be their voice in parliament?
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Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and a former minister for Europe
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“Illogical? Yes but very English as the arrangement suits both the citizens of Putney and East Ham with their distinct identities.”
It’s not discrepencies within England that are the problem though. It’s the fact that Scottish and Welsh MPs are elected on fewer votes and shouldn’t really be voting on the majority of (English) legislation in the first place. Cameron knows that England voted for a Tory PM but he was prevented from taking power by the ‘celtic bloc’. The House of Commons needs to be ‘reformed’ into an English parliament and the Lords needs to become a federal chamber with powers of revision over the national parliaments. But the Tories, as British nationalists, are scared of that. In David Cameron’s words: “I’d rather have an imperfect Union”. In other words he’d rather have an undemocratic system in which Westminster had absolute sovereignty rather than allow England, Scotland and Wales to be partners in a union by mutual consent, under the principles of popular sovereignty.
Labour are no better, their instincts are also centralist, and worse, they have a deeply anglophobic bent. Hopefully the coming federalisation of the Tory party, and the increasing anglocentrism of Parliament and Whitehall, in conjunction with Scottish separatism, will eventually lead to a realisation that Britain is a multinational entity rather than a nation in its own right. Parliamentarians are always the last to detect the winds of change, they like to think that they have some influence, but they’re all reactionary, reacting to social change and popular opinion rather than shaping it. The Westminster “Imperial Parliament” model is in terminal decline and has been for many years, and only remains because most of our MPs are uninspirational dullards who tow the establishment line for the good of their own career prospects and the prospect of political patronage.
Labour adopt a narrative specifically for England? That’ll be the day. Those Anglophobic bigots can’t even say the words ‘England’ or ‘English’ without immature, racist jibes, such as Jack bigot Straw’s “the English are very aggressive and potentially violent.” Really, Jack? All 50-odd million of us? You might be potentially violent, like many on the left, but that’s your problem. Anyway, I thought Labour were opposed to stereotyping people, or is there always an ‘acceptable’ exception?
You should all be bloody ashamed of yourselves. Anyone reading this would believe the real motive behind it is the greed of losing your precious seats (and having to do what everyone else does, compete for a job) and being taken a step away from money-grubbing in power without thought of consequence to the rest of society. Labour has to prove it is not a prostitute to power and it will not do suo until a lot of new decent people not linked to the Banking/Corporate sector become the Shadow cabinet.
Public don’t trust you and neither do I, you had the opportunity to truly refound the party and make a commitment to public service but in the end you all decided to pursue old agendas that today have been recognised as causing many of the problems we have today. The Tories will benefit from this and nobody else as they will not have to carry the can for causing it all. As each and every time people appear on our Televisions who people associate with the bank crash continually offer their shallow viewpoints and the people suffer more and more in the struggling economyour Party will be trusted less and less.
But thats OK Ed has said there is a “New Generation” without actually delivering one, guess he will be trusted won’t he, what was his poll rating again? Maybe he’ll say we’ll have better education without actually delivering it, or better economy without actually delivering it, or may a better environment without actually delivering it….sounds like spin to me and we all know where that led us……or scrutiny withour actually delivering it, in fact he must be one of the few leaders who has not delivered on a promise or ambition even before he wins the top job.
Its about trust and all we get are more empty platitudes and patronising dishonest insults to our collective intelligence by people who have never had a real challenging job.
So come on Ed do something to prove me wrong, make me eat my words, i don’t mind because I like winning elections and not looking a complete prat asyou do at the moment when you stand before the public and make overly grand gestures and statements as though you are an epic Leader and not the sad Gimp the people see you as. I voted for you in the hopes you would become pragmatic and show real leadership and Statesmanship because winning trust was essential in a difficult time (for real working people and people you and your colleagues helped make uneployed who don’t make dodgy expense claims for abuse taxes via dodgy deals with contracts) so I think its time you built on the great work you did with Murdoch and start defining yourself as greater leaders did in history.
Oh people are still angry with expense because they still see offending people blabbing grand wisdoms on their TVs which is a reminder to them about the one Rule for them and another for us, and as long as that happens you are all effectively criminals and the Parties still in dis-repute. i did not make that the case you all did and i did not make the public angry, you all did, in fact i tried to warn many of you…but i made the mistake of placing the Party first.