THE Boundary Commission has released its provisional recommendations to redraw UK constituencies into 600 equal-sized constituencies for 2018.
Under these instructions from the Conservative government, this review has removed five seats from London. As part of that restructuring, Islington North is to be lost and the seat parcelled out between three neighbouring seats covering Camden, Haringey and the south of Islington.
Islington Green Party opposes these proposals since they effectively disenfranchise thousands of residents. The Boundary Review is working from an out-of-date electoral roll, from before the EU referendum drove thousands more to register, and overall its calculations ignore the location of two million new voters.
In Islington alone, there are currently 47,707 more voters eligible to vote in the general election than the 99,686 voters the Boundary Commission is making its decisions on – an enormous discrepancy.
In addition, there are another 88,262 residents of voting age (either not registered to vote or EU citizens) who are not being considered in the redrawing of constituencies’ borders.
We’re very concerned that Islington is losing one of its parliamentary constituencies. We’re a growing borough and this selective redrawing of constituency boundaries threatens to reduce the representation of Islington residents in Westminster, as well as significantly devaluing all of our votes.
By choosing to redraw boundaries based on out-of-date data, the government is disregarding nearly a third of Islington voters.
By counting only registered voters, the government also risks ignoring the many private renters who move frequently and are therefore less likely to be registered to vote. This group disproportionately includes young people and city dwellers who are more likely to be from black and minority ethnic communities.
London MPs will face a massive caseload as they will have many more people living in their constituency than appear on the electoral roll.
This boundary review is undemocratic. We need a wholesale refresh of our parliamentary democracy and proportional representation instead of gerrymandered constituency boundaries.
As Greens we will continue to campaign to ensure the voices of Islington residents are heard and that we get the parliamentary representation we are entitled to.
This letter was originally published on 23/09/2016 in the Islington Tribune here