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Labour Party on Constitutional Reform

As questions have emerged as to the relevance, practicality, and suitability of the UK political system in the 21st century, so too has the topic of constitutional reform. The current system of simple plurality voting has been called into question as has the democratic nature of an unelected second chamber. Issues revolve around the number of MPs sitting in the House of Commons, whether to reform the nature of the government itself, the continued viability of the existing voting system, and the appropriate form the House of Lords should take.

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The issues

Labour Party is neutral on reforming the electoral system from its current ‘first-past the post’ format

"Gordon Brown is to introduce a law to guarantee that a re-elected Labour government would hold a referendum within two years on abolishing Britain's first-past-the-post system for elections to the Westminster parliament. Electoral reformers hailed the move to abolish the winner takes all system which gave Labour 55% of the seats in the House of Commons in 2005 on an overall share of just 35.3% of the vote."

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Labour Party supports a completely elected House of Lords

From a Labour Government White Paper: "One of the key reforms proposed in this White Paper is the introduction of elections to the second chamber.... The elections in thirds would take place at the same time as general elections for the House of Commons. To mitigate the risk of members serving very short terms, where a general election occurred less than three years after the previous one, it would not be accompanied by elections to the second chamber. The Government would welcome views on the appropriate size for a reformed second chamber."

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Labour Party opposes a reduction in the number of MPs sitting in the House of Commons

"Despite losing a large proportion of their work to the EU, our leaders have never considered cutting their numbers to match their greatly reduced workload."

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Labour Party supports the right of a constituency to recall an MP during a five year parliamentary term

\"Jack Straw stole the Tory chief\'s thunder by saying voters could get power to throw out MPs on the fiddle…. Mr Straw said adopting the system \'should be looked at\'.\"

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