Media coverage of the Boundary Commission’s proposals for parliamentary constituency boundary charges in 2018 have focused on the fact that had the boundaries existed at the last general election, the Tories would have won a further 30 seats or so. The changes will at least remove the worst of the disparities in registered number voters per constituency, which gives far more democratic power to voters in constituencies with small voter numbers than voters in constituencies with large voter numbers.
Last December there were 105,448 registered voters in the Isle of Wight (currently one constituency, to be changed to two in 2018). Conversely, the Western Isles (one seat) had only 20,887 registered voters.
The BBC guide to the impact of the changes is here, and we’ll be carefully considering changes we might need to make to our 2020 general election strategy.
MPs will vote on the proposed changes in due course. Needless to say Jeremy Corbyn and his people are already calling the proposed changes ‘unfair’, a weasel word too often used by those on the Left.
