Politics

Michelle O'Neill: Boundary changes would deny nationalist voters representation

Michelle O'Neill
Michelle O'Neill Michelle O'Neill

Fifty years on from ‘One Man-One Vote’ the nationalist community again faces an appalling denial of equal representation under proposals to redraw electoral boundaries.

The new boundaries will disfigure and distort the electoral map. Representation will be denied to thousands of nationalist voters and leave several constituencies without any nationalist representative at an Assembly level.

The proposals have emanated from a Boundary Commission review established in 2016 to reduce the number of constituencies from 18 to 17 in a fair and equitable way.

The commission initially produced a plan which achieved these objectives, but they were heavily criticised by the DUP because it stood to lose out electorally.

The DUP submitted how it would like the new boundary map to look. This DUP proposal sought to maximise the number of DUP elected representatives and minimise the number of nationalists by manipulating electoral boundaries.

Then the DUP entered a pact to keep Theresa May’s government in power. Just six months after that deal was signed, the Boundary Commission produced new proposals.

Sinn Féin warned the DUP would attempt to insert this issue into their negotiations with the Tories. It came as little surprise – the new proposals were virtually indistinguishable from the DUP’s.

The Boundary Commission denies any deliberate gerrymander at the behest of the DUP and stress their independence.

Nevertheless, they do admit to radically altering their plan, as well as applying the controversial Rule 7. This rule is only available in the north and gives the Commission scope to go beyond the usual electorate quotas in any constituency.

The Boundary Commission originally ruled out its use, but changed this approach after the DUP argued for its implementation.

The Commission’s revised report overturned every key decision which underpinned their original proposals, without offering any reasonable explanation why.

These changes are unjustifiable and must be overturned.

Votes should be equal. Political representation should reflect the population in any given constituency. Instead these proposals effectively deny representation to thousands of nationalist voters.

The use of Rule 7, the ‘gerrymander rule’, has allowed this to happen.

When the northern state was created, it was deliberately gerrymandered to try and guarantee a perpetual unionist majority.

The last Assembly election finally ended unionism’s majority status for the first time since 1921.

Demographic changes also indicate a nationalist voting majority by 2022, the year these boundary changes take effect.

It seems the DUP would prefer to re-gerrymander constituencies to hold onto unionist control as long as they can.

That is what their submission sought to achieve. The Boundary Commission’s revised proposals effectively produce the same result.

It is not too late to change this. The Commission is consulting on the revised proposals until March 26th. Sinn Féin is urging people to register their objections to a plan which will have such an anti-democratic impact. Do so by logging onto www.bcni2018.uk or emailing, review@boundarycommission.org.uk.

My party has also made a detailed submission setting out a number of proposals which represent a fair and equitable approach to boundary reform.

If, as the Commission stresses, they have not been unduly influenced by any malign intention from the DUP, then we expect our proposals to be reflected in their final revised boundaries.