Premium
‘Somewhat more disruptive than we had in mind’ 1 : The Boundary Commission for England's 2011 Proposed Redistribution of Parliamentary Constituencies
Author(s) -
JOHNSTON RON,
PATTIE CHARLES,
ROSSITER DAVID
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-923x.2012.02273.x
Subject(s) - house of commons , parliament , commission , redistribution (election) , boundary (topology) , politics , commons , public administration , select committee , political science , sociology , law , political economy , mathematics , mathematical analysis
In February 2011 the UK Parliament passed an Act that both reduced the number of MPs to be elected to the House of Commons and significantly altered the rules for the definition of Parliamentary constituencies. After six redistributions in which organic criteria—MPs representing places with a community of interest—dominated the redrawing of constituency boundaries, the new rules gave precedence to an arithmetic criterion: all constituencies must have electorates within 5 per cent of the national quota (average). Seven months later the Boundary Commission published its initial proposals for a new set of 502 constituencies implementing these new rules. This paper evaluates the amount of change to the country's electoral map that this involves, identifies the main features of the new constituency configurations, and assesses their likely impact on UK political life.