THE Tories could be in government for another two or three generations, after plans to redraw constituencies in England and Wales look set to hurt Labour more than any other party.
Yesterday saw the first proposals from the independent Boundary Commission, which has been tasked with finding a way to reduce the total number of MPs from 650 to 600 before the next general election in 2020.
One of the restrictions on the commission is to make every constituency hold roughly about 74,000 constituents. Analysis of their first draft suggests Labour could lose up to 23 seats before a single vote has even been cast.
Labour, who are already sitting an average of 11 points behind the Tories, say they will oppose the Boundary Commission’s proposals, saying the body is politically motivated.
Scotland will lose six MPs, going from 59 to 53. The Boundary Commission for Scotland is set to release its first proposals next month.
Jeremy Corbyn, George Osborne and Boris Johnson will all will have their seats redrawn, with the Labour leader’s Islington North constituency disappearing completely.
Jon Ashworth, Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister, was furious. “This proposal is certainly about disadvantaging the Labour party in the next General Election,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “That’s why they’ve gone from 650 seats to 600 – by the way, at the same time stuffing the House of Lords with 260 unelected lords at a cost of £30 million, but they don’t tell us about that.”
The Labour MP said the Commission’s proposals were skewed as they were using data from December 2015, rather than from a few months later when an extra two million people registered to vote in the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.
“If the question is ‘should the constituencies be of equal numbers?’ then we are in favour of the principle of more equal constituencies,” Ashworth said. “But what this is doing is proceeding with a boundary review when there’s two million people missing from the electoral register. The effect of not using that register is to deny the voice of two million people.”
Denying accusations of political interference, the Boundary Commission’s Sam Hartley told Today: “We don’t take into account any effect on the political ramifications of our proposals. We are not the government and we are not parliament. Our role is to make sure we take an independent view on the boundary proposals.”
This is the first stage in the process. There are still another three rounds of consultation before the new constituencies are finalised.
One pro-Corbyn member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) said the new boundaries would be the perfect opportunity for the Labour Party to ditch MPs showing insufficient loyalty to the party’s beleaguered leader.
Darren Williams, a Cardiff councillor and Corbyn supporter who was elected to the NEC in July, said: “I think where MPs have consistently demonstrated their disloyalty to the party leader and to the views on which he was elected, then I think party members are within their rights to ask whether those MPs should continue to represent them.”
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