Wales Green Party responds to the Boundary Commission for Wales: 2018 Review of UK Parliament constituencies in Wales which reduces the number of constituencies from 40 to 29.
Leader, Alice Hooker-Stroud said:
"The aim of this Government is clear and consistent: to disenfranchise more and more of the electorate for their own political gain: by changing the rules on registering to vote and allowing 800,000 people to fall off the electoral register; and to then completely disregard these people when changing electoral boundaries.
We are being sold the line of cutting costs, and making our democracy fairer. The first of which is completely unnecessary, and the latter completely untrue. These proposed boundary changes make marginalised communities and peoples even more so - those in rural areas, young people, and poorer communities. Wales' voice will be heard less under these changes than other devolved nations, despite the fact that more of our powers remain in Westminster. It is unacceptable and disrespectful.
Its not the boundaries that need changing, its the electoral system: the first-past-the-post system in Westminster that allows a Government to be elected to make all these changes with the backing of less than a quarter of our population."