Next UK General Election thread

[jimrtex]

Does the review of the parliamentary constituencies still have to be approved by Parliament, and if so, will the results of this election prevent that from happening?

[jimrtex]

Does the review of the parliamentary constituencies still have to be approved by Parliament, and if so, will the results of this election prevent that from happening?

The Boundary Commissions are due to put forward proposals in September 2018. Before the new boundaries can be put into law, Parliament will have to approve them. If the changes are rejected, then the existing boundaries will continue in force.

Given that only the Conservative Party is reasonably happy with a 600 seat House of Commons, it must be quite possible but not certain that the results of the boundary review will be rejected.

This was the key fact that I was considering. Going from 651 to 600 means with certainty that 51 incumbents will be out of a job, without taking into account any changes in boundaries.

Britain would be better off going to continuous redistribution like in Australia. Seats could be formally apportioned to the regions in England, and possibly in Scotland, so that the change of one seat in 500 (0.2%) does not trigger an England-wide review. If the number of seats for a region changes, do a new review for that area.

If a constituency is more than 10% from the mean for a region, then adjust that constituency and other as necessary. If a significant share of constituencies in a region are more than 5% from the mean for a region, then do a region-wide redistribution.

Wasn't there an issue with how voter registration was being changed (from household to individual) before. Has that settled out?

[jimrtex]

Well it's no doubt changed a little since I joined 6-7 years ago but you just go to the website and apply online. They then send you out a pack, with a membership card, and keep you posted if there's any elections/materials produced (and royally spam your email). It's about £50 p/y direct debit, but I think it's halved for those not in employment (you can choose what you like, I guess, but I can't imagine many people would bother signing up in the first place if they weren't prepared to pay £50 towards the party).

You know, 50.8 million dollars/year isn't that bad of an income. It's a shame that US parties don't really charge token membership fees like that. It would be difficult to introduce, and would require significant reforms to outreach, voting, and even the character of what parties precisely are in the United States. But I wonder if cultivating this sort of a committed, grassroots core of people isn't a thing worth looking into.

In the US, because of government recognition of party members and government-run primaries, any sort of fee begins to look an awful lot like a poll tax.