The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Changes would see Fife lose MP
Anger at proposals to reduce number of MPs in Scotland
Fife will lose an MP under plans unveiled today to redraw Scotland’s election boundaries.
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, held for years by ex-prime minister Gordon Brown and now occupied by the SNP’s Roger Mullin, will be axed and split in two if the plans are approved.
Half would be absorbed into Perthshire with a Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath constituency created, with the rest forming a Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy seat.
Fife will lose an MP and Angus split in two under new boundary proposals branded a “disgrace to democracy”.
If the plans go ahead, they create the prospect of titanic battles within the SNP as prominent politicians, including former depute leader Stewart Hosie, battle to keep their jobs.
A new seat of Angus Glens and Dundee East merges most of constituencies belonging to the party’s chief whip Angus MP Mike Weir and Dundee East representative Mr Hosie.
Most of Dundee West, held by Chris Law, is in a new ‘Dundee Burgh’.
Nationalist Treasury spokesman Roger Mullin would have to see off either high-profile trade and investment spokeswoman Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh or ex-Fife Council leader Peter Grant if he wanted to stay an MP after 2020.
His constituency, ex-PM Gordon Brown’s former seat of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, is being abolished and absorbed into his current colleagues’ respective boundaries of Ochil and South Perthshire and Glenrothes.
The plans, unveiled yesterday, reduce the number of elected representatives north of the border from 59 to 53.
Initial proposals published by the Boundary Commission for Scotland see just three seats completely unchanged: the two protected islands constituencies and East Lothian.
A furious Angus Robertson, the SNP’s Westminster leader, called the plans “unacceptable”.
He said: “At a time when Scotland already faces a deep and growing democratic deficit, with a Tory government that we didn’t vote for imposing increasingly right-wing policies against our will, it is vital that the Scottish people have strong elected representation at Westminster to stand up for Scotland’s interests and hold the UK Government to account.”
Mr Hosie said: “The proposed boundary changes are illogical. To reduce the number of Scottish MPs while maintaining the bloated House of Lords is a disgrace to democracy.”
Similar plans have already been outlined in England, where Labour has claimed they amount to “gerrymandering”. The party’s anger grew north of the border after it emerged the seat of its sole MP, Ian Murray, would disappear.
His Edinburgh South constituency has effectively been abolished and he faces the prospect of fighting in a new constituency containing SNP strongholds. He said the proposals are “unfair, undemocratic and unacceptable”.
Chris Skidmore the UK’s Constitution Minister commented: “The independent Boundary Commission for Scotland is proposing measures to achieve equalsized constituencies that will ensure an equal say for each voter.
“At the same time it’s important to take this opportunity to cut the cost of politics, saving £66 million over the course of a Parliament by reducing the number of MPs.”
The commission was told to ensure each constituency has a voter population within 5% of the 74,769 UK average, although there are exceptions for larger and island constituencies.
Commissioners will make their final recommendations on new boundaries in September 2018 and ahead of the 2020 general election.
A consultation has started and will run until January 11, with a public meeting in Dundee on November 29.
One thing is for certain – these constituency changes will not meet with universal approval.
Not when MPs’ jobs and the very existence of some parties’ representation at Westminster is at stake.
And that’s before you look at issues of local identity.
Those charged with the boundary changes told journalists yesterday they faced a difficult trade-off between making constituencies broadly even in terms of voter numbers and keeping true to local ties and characteristics.
Some constituencies have gone from self-contained areas which are fairly kindred in terms of geography and population make-up, to a more haphazard fusing of disparate regions.
Perhaps nowhere is that more obvious than merging the urban fringes of Dundee with rural Angus and lumping Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath together.
Isabel Drummond-Murray, secretary to the Boundary Commission for Scotland, said they had “limited room for manoeuvre” in these areas, given the size of the electorate in most constituencies must now be between 71,031 and 78,507.
Her commissioner colleague Paula Sharp said: “We were hamstrung with the numbers to some extent, but we tried to ensure the new constituencies fitted together as much as we could.”
The commissioners had looked at splitting Angus down the middle, to create a Dundee West and Angus West and a matching constituency for the east, but ruled that out.
There was also a plan on the table to carve Perth in two, but there was a reluctance to divide cities.
In North-East Fife Ms Sharp said they were wary of pushing the new boundary too far into Glenrothes in case it would be unpalatable for St Andrews residents.
There were clashes of opinion even before publication, as commissioners thrashed out a common approach for the proposals.
Today they sound the klaxon for all of Scotland to get involved.
Expect internal wrangling within the SNP as incumbent MPs fight to contest a dwindling number of seats.
One Nationalist source last night warned it might get “pretty bloody”.
Ian Murray, Labour’s only MP in Scotland, is spitting feathers at his constituency effectively being wiped off the map.
Now it is your turn to enter the fray.