Redrawing The Boundaries

There is something profoundly egalitarian about First Past The Post.

Each of us has one vote, which is counted once, and the candidate with the most votes wins, thus acquiring responsibilities for and to every constituent.

This system gave us the National Health Service and the national minimum wage.

But the Conservative overall majority that it has more recently delivered makes it practically certain that the number of MPs is going to be reduced such as to abolish 30 Labour seats.

Labour needs to be ready with an alternative proposal, demanding that the two be put to a referendum, with the more successful becoming law.

It should be proposed that each of the 99 areas having a Lord Lieutenant, areas that are conveniently called different things in each of the four parts of the United Kingdom, would elect five MPs, with each of us voting for one candidate, and with the five highest scorers elected.

In addition, the sixth highest scorer would also be elected in the 40 most populous areas, the seventh in the 30 most populous, the eighth in the 20 most populous, and the ninth in the 10 most populous.

There would be 595 MPs in total.

In place of the House of Lords, each of those areas would elect six Senators at the same time and by the same means: each of us would vote for one candidate, with the six highest scorers elected.

There would be 594 Senators in total.

Money Bills would continue to be the sole province of the House of Commons, where they would require a three-fifths majority.

Constitutional Bills, which are already identifiable for procedural purposes, would require a two-thirds majority in each House, or a three-quarters majority in the Commons.

Beyond that, the powers of the two Houses would be as at present, except that, while Ministers would be required to appear before the Senate, they would not be drawn from it; thus, all Ministers would be required so to appear.

Committees of each House would reflect the political composition of that House.

Senators’ remuneration would be fixed at that of MPs, and Senate candidates would be required to live in their areas, although candidates for the Commons would not be, as they never have been. At least, not by law. Individual parties would be free to make their own additional arrangements.

Vacancies would be filled by nomination of the party for which an MP or Senator had been elected, or by a First Past The Post by-election in the case of an Independent.

The ordinary nomination and deposit system would be waived where a party had submitted its internally determined shortlist of two to a binding, independently administered ballot of all registered electors.

These could all be held on the same day, Super Thursday.

Labour needs to insist that the electorate be presented with this radical alternative, to chose between it and a crude gerrymander that was, as much as anything else, contrary to the principles of Burkean Toryism.