Thinking Beyond The Boundaries

The House of Commons has just debated Afzal Khan's Private Member's Bill to stop the reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600 with no reduction in the size of the Government, one of Theresa May's several anti-parliamentary power grabs. Pat Glass did sterling work against this in the last Parliament.

Khan was first elected this year, but he is already Shadow Immigration Minister. He is certainly a man to watch. His Bill never did stand much chance of becoming law, but the new boundaries will have to be signed off by the Commons, where it is far from clear that there is any majority for them. Labour won the vote to close the filibuster on this Bill, by 229 to 44.

But if this reduction in the number of constituencies were indeed to go ahead, then the number of MPs might nevertheless remain the same. The whole country could elect 50 MPs, with each of us voting for one candidate, and with the top 50 elected at the end. Candidates would not be nominees of political parties, but any party of which a candidate happened to be a member would be listed next to his or her name on the ballot paper, for the information of the voters.

What would be the deposit to become such a candidate? There would not be one, as there ought not to be in general. Instead, the requirement to be a constituency candidate might be nomination by at least five per cent of the voters, while that to be a national candidate might be nomination by at least 2000 registered parliamentary electors, including at least 10 in each of the 99 lieutenancy areas. In this day and age, obtaining that would cost little or nothing.

The lieutenancy areas ought also to be the basis of a new second chamber, to which the powers of the House of Lords would be transferred, with remuneration fixed at that of the Commons. In each of the areas, each of us would vote for one candidate, and the top six would be elected, giving 594 Senators in all.

Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats would be required, and other parties would be permitted, to submit their internally determined shortlists of two to binding, independently administered, publicly funded ballots of the entire electorate one week before the election itself. Ministers would no longer be drawn from the second chamber; instead, all of them, including the Prime Minister, would appear before it regularly. Its term of office would be six years, while that of the Commons would go back down to four.

And all non-ceremonial exercises of the Royal Prerogative, including Royal Assent, would be transferred to at least six, or possibly seven, of nine Co-Presidents, elected in the same way as the 50 national MPs, with each of us voting for one candidate, and with the top nine elected to hold office for eight years. That would in fact enfranchise those who inexplicably look to the monarchy to protect them from social democracy, or social liberalism, or European federalism, or what you. It has never done any such thing.

Candidates for Co-President, for Senator or for national MP would all be required to name a second, who would also be listed on the ballot paper, to take office in the event of the position's becoming vacant.

In the words of the old Tory battle cry, Trust The People.