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Why Labour isn't thanking Clegg for killing the boundary changes

Clegg was for the boundary changes before he was against them.

By George Eaton Published 07 August 2012 8:59

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband. Photograph: Getty Images

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband attend a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Photograph: Getty Images

Given that he may have just handed the next election to Labour, you might ask why Nick Clegg isn't being hailed as a progressive hero by Ed Miliband's MPs this morning. The answer is that Labour still despises him for supporting the boundary changes in the first place. Clegg didn't merely accept the changes as a quid pro quo for the AV referendum (as the Deputy PM previously observed, they were never linked to House of Lords reform), he genuinely believed in them. In 2010, he told MPs:

There can be no justification for maintaining the current inequality between constituencies and voters across the country.

On another occasion, at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions, Clegg declared:

It is one of the founding principles of any democracy that votes should be valued in the same way, wherever they are cast. Over the years, all sorts of anomalies have developed, such that different people’s votes are simply not worth the same in elections to this place. That surely cannot be right, and it is worth reminding those Opposition Members who object to the rationale that it was one of the founding tenets of the Chartists-one of the predecessor movements to the Labour party-that all votes should be of equal value.

As shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan noted:

It was left to Labour to fight the arbitrary reduction in the number of MPs. Getting rid of 50 MPs hits Labour the most, and that’s why the Tory-led Government chose that figure. It was nothing to do with better politics, or about saving money – particularly as this Government has created an extra 117 unelected peers since May 2010.

The reason yesterday's events will do nothing to enhance Clegg's standing is that he chose to rebel over a matter of politics, rather than a matter of principle (such as the NHS reforms or welfare cuts). The Deputy Prime Minister's reputation as a turncoat and an opportunist is secure. Once again, he has united both the left and the right in loathing for him.

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Tags: Nick Clegg Boundary Changes Liberal Democrats Conservatives

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13 comments

Wed, 2012-08-08 14:51 — SammyW (not verified)

I think this is one of the few times I have agreed with George Eaton.

The fact that Clegg chose Lords Reform to kick up such an almighty fuss about is telling, yet he and his MPs and Lords voted with the government to destroy the NHS placing on the road to privatisation and for that he will never be forgiven not by Labour, or any Labour voter and not by his own Lib Dem supporters either, of which many found the Liberal Democrat stance on the NHS Health & Social Care reforms Bill (now an Act) to be "morally repugnant"! The way those reforms were rammed through parliament at breakneck speed is something that will come back to smack the Tories and the Lib Dems firmly between the eyes. I can only hope and pray that not too much damage will be done to the NHS and Labour can undo the damage without too many legal ramifications and challenges, which I doubt very much. Labour's only hope there will probably be to have a complete change of law to enable them to bring the NHS back into public ownership.

Personally, I am hoping that this is the beginning of the end for the Coalition and we can get them out before too much damage is done, thus making it easier to undo it.

Wed, 2012-08-08 13:35 — The Last registered LibDem (not verified)

Labour will never forgive Nick Clegg forming a coalition with the elected government and for being Nick Clegg. Nick Clegg makes a convenient whipping boy to attract attention away from Labour's lack of policy that is any different from the Tories, especially now that the Tories also want to spy on everyone using futuristic dystopian means as well, and is a good banner for all the self-righteous champagne-of-the-earth Labourites to rally behind and pretend the first decade of the 21st century never happened, it was all Nick Clegg's fault.

Wed, 2012-08-08 14:59 — SammyW (not verified)

Please feel free to tell us all what actual policies Lib Dems had 3 years out from an election. Not that it will make much difference if they have any as they broke them all in their haste to get into Government anyway.

Labour is the party of opposition, it's job is to oppose the Government as and when it thinks it is doing something wrong. The Labour opposition is not an alternative government, it is a party of opposition (something the Lib Dems used to be until they all veered sharply to the right). The time for Labour to put forth their policies will be when a General Election is called and then they will be the alternative.

Wed, 2012-08-08 11:32 — Briar (not verified)

The Coalition's execrable policies will, one hopes, lose the next election for Cameron. Boundary changes (not popular on the ground, in any case, since many will resent losing their old constituencies and the local links forged within them) are an abstraction compared to the privatisation of the NHS (supported by the LibDems), the concerted assault on the poor (supported by the LibDems too) and economic policies which have prolonged and entrenched the recession to justify the forementioned degradation of public services (also supported by the LibDems).

Wed, 2012-08-08 00:35 — RFM

Hang on, uniting both those on the left and the right in loathing him. Sure, but we in the centre loathe him every bit as much as those to the left and right, why are we excluded from the Anyone but Nick Clegg majority?

Tue, 2012-08-07 15:38 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

Given that since devolution, we have several hundred more politicans administrating on devolved matters that MPs elected to Westminster are not now allowed to the number of MPs in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales should be reduced by at least half and England by a third. The UK Parliament now as very little to do.

Nick Clegg should hang his head in shame, he's shown himself to be every bit as petulant as Vince Cable!

Tue, 2012-08-07 12:16 — Andrew Murray (not verified)

I don't know the context he said it, but the second quote is valid as a criticism of "first past the post", irrespective of the boundaries.

Tue, 2012-08-07 10:57 — Dave B (not verified)

Equal-sized constituencies is a good change to make. Labour's opposition to equal sized constituencies is every bit as unprincipled as Mr Clegg's.

electoralcalculus.co.uk/PVSCBill_analysis.html

Tue, 2012-08-07 19:00 — johnfwoods

The people who live in Labour constituencies are poorer and less healthy than the people who live in Tory constituencies. They also need more help with landlords, jobs, schools, etc. We should base our constituency size on the number of doctors and hospital beds in the area. If a Labour MP has the same number of constituents as a Tory MP s/he would have little time to spend in the House.

Tue, 2012-08-07 15:26 — Stephen Newton1

Equal sized constituencies is a good idea and fewer MPs might also be a good idea, just as reforming the voting system is a good idea. But proposed alternatives should be better than that the system they are to replace.

The proposed Lords reform were a confused mess. Creating elected lords to serve terms of 15 years, restricted to one term so that once elected they'd be unaccountable, was not a great idea. So perhaps its right that its been put back.

It is remarkable that we need so many lawmakers. Other democracies manage on far fewer. But the constituency boundaries were to contain so many registered voters, regardless of population. So areas where people are less likely to vote would be under-represented (MPs are supposed to represent everyone, including those who aren't on the electoral role).

In addition, we draw the executive from parliament, so when you make so many backbenchers redundant you effectively increase the proportion of ministers and tighten the government's grip on the commons.

Similarly, voters were right to reject alternative vote as it would have been less proportionate than first-past-the-post.

Tue, 2012-08-07 18:29 — postageincluded

Good points, though I voted for AV - vote/ seat proportionality isn't the be all and end all of representation - I can accept that AV is a dead letter in my lifetime.

But it is important to point out that equalising constituencies has nothing to do with fairness. If you were unscrupulous enough you could draw up boundaries that were much more equal than the proposed ones but were even more 'unfair' than the current ones: draw a line around concentrations of Tory votes and split up the rest of the country into constituecies that were fairly safe Labour. Equal seat size really does nothing to prevent this sort of gerrymandering.

Tue, 2012-08-07 09:26 — Sid Cumberland (not verified)

But Clegg isn't against the boundary changes. He's just against the mechanism for delivering them, just as Miliband was in favour of Lords reform but against the means of achieving it.