This
is supposedly because Parliament can’t fit them all in and it’s too
administratively burdensome to cope with 650. The cost savings of cutting 50
MPs are also trumpeted. The public sector as a whole employs millions of
people, so unless MPs are paying themselves well over the odds, this won’t help
public finances much. The effect on democracy is more important.
But
all that is just spurious justification. The real reason is that the
Conservatives want an excuse to re-draw constituency boundaries. They want to
indulge in nationwide gerrymandering (a term borrowed from the US, which has
long recognized this issue). By controlling boundaries, they can ensure that
many constituencies have a small Conservative majority, and that Labour voters are
all contained in large constituencies with very big Labour majorities. This
will give the Conservatives more seats for the votes that they win and could
well ensure a one-party state for a generation.
It is
undeniable that our electoral system needs reform. Constituencies are based on
very old boundaries, and some have far more people than others, which is indeed
unfair. But the whole ‘first-past-the-post’ system is unfair, with the
Conservatives and Labour needing up to 100 times fewer voters for every seat
that they win. In the recent election, the Conservatives were best off from the
current system, but for many years Labour has benefitted more.
It is
disgusting that the Conservatives can find an important point of principle to
get upset about when it benefits them to do so, but they ignore far bigger and
more serious flaws in our system that work in their favour. It would also help
if this policy admitted that it was about rigging the electoral system, not
about reducing MP numbers.
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