The New Constituencies

EXPLANATION OF IDEA

We live in an increasingly worldwide society of fragmented interests and aspirations, where living in the same area as someone else doesn’t guarantee any similarities in lifestyles or outlook. The New Constituencies aim to bring together people with similar interests to vote for an MP that will share those interests and properly represent them in parliament.

Instead of dividing voters purely by geographical area, a New Constituency would be based on a wider area, contain people of only one gender, within a given age group, who have achieved a certain level of education. An example of such a New Constituency is the East Anglian 20-35 years old females with a graduate degree. The geographical limit would only be in place to ensure that different constituencies include an almost equal number of people. In time, as people get used to this system, the criteria would be refined, with options such as income, number of dependants, and sexuality added, and the geographical borders could be adjusted to maintain the right number of constituents.

Communication with MPs would not be different from what it is now, it would still be largely through email and post, but the issues brought up would be relevant to more constituents. Having somewhat similar interests, it would be easier for the MP to contact the constituents, as they will be using the same media channels.

This system offers good party proportionality - giving small parties who represent a small fraction of the population the chance to have MPs elected - and still retains a close link between elected official and voters, combining the advantages of proportional representation and first-past-the-post, and favouring an equal number of male and female MPs of different ages.