Boundary Commission, begin again with better and fairer rules
The final recommendations for new constituency boundaries in Britain were published yesterday by the Boundary Commission for England, and the list of constituencies can be found here: http://bce-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/consultation-documents/1536567023_Final%20recommendations%20constituency%20list%20%28with%20wards%29%20%281%29.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJG2X7BQ35X2H7LAA&Expires=1536695229&Signature=Dd3wJBEc1xjGsgsPKOHDvvQ0X3w%3D
Whilst many of the more incoherent proposals lacking in common sense, such as "Mid Kent & Ticehurst", were removed from the list of finalised constituencies, the laws the Boundary Commission were constrained by, especially the 5% variance limit, forced them to keep constituencies that under older and more relaxed rules would never have been approved. They generally refused to split wards even when it was in practice necessary to produce coherent constituencies.
Considerable numbers of these revised constituencies can be more accurately described as gerrymanders than anything else. The former Cornish constituency map should have been used as a template instead, for example, rather than designing arbitrary and poorly linked constituencies like "Bodmin & St Austell" and "Truro and Newquay" when a modified version of the old Bodmin and Truro constituencies could have been used instead, with only the Bude area of Cornwall, nothing else, becoming part of the inevitable (under the rules the BCE. The redistribution in the Cheadle/Hazel Grove area clearly amounts to a gerrymander as well; Marple and Hyde and Bramhall and Wilmslow have next-to-no common ties. It could have been avoided by splitting just one ward in Stockport. The splitting of Great Grimsby must also be noted; from 1983 to 1997 the town of Colchester was similarly split into two half-rural half-urban constituencies (Colchester North, mainly taking in rural hinterland to the east of Colchester itself, and Colchester South & Maldon) without good cause and the same has happened again. The less said about most of the final recommendations in West Yorkshire, the better. The renaming of Wiltshire constituencies was unnecessary either: "for example, Devizes & East Wiltshire" and "Devizes" are one and the same and Devizes is still the dominant part of that constituency.
The overly strict rules the Boundary Commission was forced to work under, combined with the lack of protection of constituencies on account of special geographic considerations, mean that the review should be voted down by Parliament, the amendment to the 2011 Parliamentary Constituencies allowing for 650 seats and a less strict variance passed, and for the Boundary Commission to begin again with more flexible rules.
Of course, proportional representation will be the only way to have truly fair elections in the United Kingdom; no amount of regular reviewing of parliamentary constituencies can alter this fact.
Whilst many of the more incoherent proposals lacking in common sense, such as "Mid Kent & Ticehurst", were removed from the list of finalised constituencies, the laws the Boundary Commission were constrained by, especially the 5% variance limit, forced them to keep constituencies that under older and more relaxed rules would never have been approved. They generally refused to split wards even when it was in practice necessary to produce coherent constituencies.
Considerable numbers of these revised constituencies can be more accurately described as gerrymanders than anything else. The former Cornish constituency map should have been used as a template instead, for example, rather than designing arbitrary and poorly linked constituencies like "Bodmin & St Austell" and "Truro and Newquay" when a modified version of the old Bodmin and Truro constituencies could have been used instead, with only the Bude area of Cornwall, nothing else, becoming part of the inevitable (under the rules the BCE. The redistribution in the Cheadle/Hazel Grove area clearly amounts to a gerrymander as well; Marple and Hyde and Bramhall and Wilmslow have next-to-no common ties. It could have been avoided by splitting just one ward in Stockport. The splitting of Great Grimsby must also be noted; from 1983 to 1997 the town of Colchester was similarly split into two half-rural half-urban constituencies (Colchester North, mainly taking in rural hinterland to the east of Colchester itself, and Colchester South & Maldon) without good cause and the same has happened again. The less said about most of the final recommendations in West Yorkshire, the better. The renaming of Wiltshire constituencies was unnecessary either: "for example, Devizes & East Wiltshire" and "Devizes" are one and the same and Devizes is still the dominant part of that constituency.
The overly strict rules the Boundary Commission was forced to work under, combined with the lack of protection of constituencies on account of special geographic considerations, mean that the review should be voted down by Parliament, the amendment to the 2011 Parliamentary Constituencies allowing for 650 seats and a less strict variance passed, and for the Boundary Commission to begin again with more flexible rules.
Of course, proportional representation will be the only way to have truly fair elections in the United Kingdom; no amount of regular reviewing of parliamentary constituencies can alter this fact.
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