{"id":7897,"date":"2016-02-26T15:35:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T15:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=7897"},"modified":"2016-02-29T16:12:21","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T16:12:21","slug":"insidious-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=7897","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Insidious\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 move"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If there were any remaining doubts that the Tory government is aiming to lock in its grip on power for generations, this week they were laid to rest.<\/p>\n

 
\nNew details were published<\/a> on Wednesday (February 24) revealing how constituency boundaries will be redrawn as the government seeks to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600.<\/p>\n

 
\nThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done so under the guise of \u00e2\u20ac\u015breducing the cost of politics\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 but as they slash the number of elected representatives, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve packed the unelected House of Lords with 12 new Tory peers, including Google executive Joanna Shields, Marks and Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose and jewel tycoon Ranbir Suri.<\/p>\n

 
\nThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also upped the number of special advisers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c spin doctors and political aides \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to nearly 100. This has cost the taxpayer more than \u00c2\u014110m last year alone.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut the proposed constituency boundaries, instead of reducing the cost of politics, could, more than anything, drastically reduce the power of the Labour party.<\/p>\n

 
\nOf the 50 seats to be slashed, a Times analysis<\/a> found that 24 of these seats will likely be lost by Labour, with the Tories losing only 14, the Lib Dems losing seven and other parties losing four.<\/p>\n

 
\nSome areas are set to lose more political representation than others \u00e2\u20ac\u201c regions with higher levels of deprivation such as the north of England will lose many more seats than regions in the more affluent, and largely Tory, south.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe North West and North East regions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c among the most deprived areas in the country, and also more likely to vote Labour \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are set to lose 11 seats in total. Of these 11 seats, the Times analysis found, 7 are likely to be Labour seats, while only one Tory seat will be lost, and one Tory seat will be gained.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Isle of Wight, a Tory stronghold, will be split in two, giving the Conservative party another additional seat.<\/p>\n

 
\nWales, a Labour stronghold that also has the highest proportion of people living in poverty outside of London, will be hit the hardest \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s set to lose a full quarter of its MPs, with more than half from solid Labour seats.<\/p>\n

 
\nAfter the 50-seat slash, redrawn boundaries will also mean that many once safe Labour seats will become marginals.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe complex boundary changes currently underway will be complete just before the next general election \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Commission must report in September and their final proposals will be put forward to be agreed on in 2018.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe boundary review will seek to create constituencies that are roughly equal in size, but these will not be based on population. Rather, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be based on the number of people who were registered to vote in December 2015.<\/p>\n

 
\nElectoral register<\/strong><\/em>
\nAs UniteLive has previously reported<\/a>, the register from December is the first one since the new registration system, Individual Electoral Registration (IER), was introduced. Because IER was rushed through a year ahead of schedule, hundreds of thousands of people who were registered to vote in the last general election fell off the electoral register.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Office of National Statistics (ONS) estimated this week that the drop-off amounted to more than 600,000 people, adding to the millions of people not currently registered to vote.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite political director Jennie Formby argued that the boundary review being carried out by the Tories \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a review that was actually rejected by the Lib Dems under the previous coalition government \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is nothing short of a threat to democracy.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe upcoming boundary review is only the latest in a long list of examples of the Tory government seeking to rule over what it considers its dominion instead governing a democracy,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bTaken together with its attacks on trade unions, on Labour Party funding and on freedom of information, we can only conclude that this may be one of the most dangerous governments in history.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorst of all, the new boundaries will be based on a drastically incomplete electoral register \u00e2\u20ac\u201c more than half a million people dropped off the register after the government deliberately rushed through individual electoral registration, which was added to the estimated 7.5m people who are not registered to vote.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis means that those who will lose representation most will be those who already feel so marginalised by the system that they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel moved to participate,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Formby argued.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese insidious boundary changes are more than just about Tory or Labour,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re about concentrating political power into the hands of a tiny minority \u00e2\u20ac\u201c mostly affluent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who have vested interests in maintaining the status quo.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe good news is that while our democracy may be at risk, we still have power in numbers. If we continue in our campaign to get the vote out, to get more people into the ballot box and out on the streets demonstrating against this government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s policies, then we can make a difference.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there were any remaining doubts that the Tory government is aiming to lock in its grip on power for generations, this week they were laid to rest.   New details were published on Wednesday (February 24) revealing how constituency boundaries will be redrawn as the government seeks to reduce the number of MPs from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[434,171,433],"wps_subtitle":"Boundary changes are bad for democracy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7898,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7897\/revisions\/7898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}