The regions need their voices heard this May

In the run-up to this year's general election, it has been noted that historic regions are not being given fair hearings regarding electoral broadcasts. Specifically, regional party Yorkshire First stated that it is unable to get a political broadcast because 89 candidates nationally are needed for any party (except for parties exclusively standing in Scotland or Wales) to obtain one, but there are only 50 constituencies in all Yorkshire's ridings (the other four in the Yorkshire and Humber Region, Brigg & Goole, Cleethorpes, Great Grimsby, and Scunthorpe, lie historically within Lincolnshire). Other regional parties, such as the North East Party and particularly Mebyon Kernow, are also unfairly affected by this normally fair sounding regulation, which should only be used for parties intending to stand nationally rather than in just a particular historic region.

I am of course a Green Party member, supporter and activist, but I believe in fairness and better choice for the people of Britain, and I also believe this general election can be a good chance for Britain to move away from centralisation (by the way, we should have regional assemblies in England, not an 'English parliament' or 'English votes on English laws', as I have said earlier), and realise we are, and in a way always have been, a federation of many different cultures and societies, in the same way many other nations in Europe are.

Localism is important not only for representation but also to protect and cherish local culture and local environments, and to help resist globalisation. More importantly, it needs to be bottom-up and involve the voices of local people-not just council leaders who could potentially have vested interests in forwarding a 'devolution' plan which could end up being rather undemocratic in practice (e.g. in Greater Manchester) or in expropriating or damaging natural resources/habitats in that local area.

On a final light note, I believe that in Britain we should fly those local flags again (e.g. the Wyvern flag of what was once Wessex) in addition to the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish flags.

Alan.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism. Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and P
Read more