Teignbridge Matters: Making your vote count

Read Anne Marie’s views in her weekly column; an advertisement sponsored by Conservative supporters.

Making your vote count

The subject of MPs and our democracy has barely been out of the news in recent months. Many feel that their votes are worthless and that when it comes to some issues, they simply don’t have a say. Worse still, it’s sometimes not the elected representatives who have the power, but the unelected ones.

We need radical change to restore public trust in politics and increase public engagement in the decision-making process. We need to restore the integrity of the ballot box by introducing individual voter registration. As things stand you don’t have to produce any identification at the polling station to be allowed to vote.

We also need to address the differing sizes of constituency populations – some constituencies have 70,000 electors whilst others have only 50,000. This can’t be fair. In 2001 Labour was nine per cent ahead which gave them a majority of 165 seats – but the Conservatives would have to be ten per cent ahead just to have a majority of one seat.

This government’s devolution settlement has caused some resentment in England. We need to address the West Lothian question and give English MPs a decisive say on laws that affect only England.

Reforming Westminster

We need to move to a more transparent and open system at Westminster. I wanted to know what you thought we could do to change things for the better and received an overwhelmingly consistent response to my recent survey.

More than 80 per cent of respondents favoured the introduction of a primary system whereby the whole of the community can participate in the selection of a party’s candidate. Proposals for a ‘recall’ power, to allow local people to force a by-election when they are unhappy with the performance of their MP was also strongly supported.

The strongest support, over 90 per cent, was for a proposal to be able to require the House of Commons to debate certain topics or proposals if enough signatures are collected asking them to do so and a proposal to replace the Human Rights Act, which has undermined the government’s ability to deal with crime and terrorism, with a British Bill of Rights.

There was also strong agreement that Parliament should be required to approve any plans to commit British troops to combat, although this was not an overwhelming view. And there was broad agreement with the proposal to cut the cost of politics by reducing the number of MPs, something which Conservatives have committed to delivering.

The Europe Factor

Much to my disappointment and that of many of you, the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified and is now law - without anyone being given a say – except Mr Brown. This is a situation which has been brought about by the Labour Party (aided by the Lib Dems), who could have instigated a referendum at any time before the Treaty’s ratification. We need a relationship which brings peace and supports trade – not a federalist state. I would also like to see Europe clean up its act with robust scrutiny of transparency in its spending.

David Cameron is asking for a mandate to introduce a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, similar to the German ‘Basic Law’ which will ensure that our law remains supreme to that of the EU. For me that is a very important step. He also wants a mandate to restore national control over those parts of social and employment legislation which have proved most damaging to the British economy. More than that, we will enshrine in legislation a ban on any future governments handing over more powers to the EU or adopting the Euro as our currency without a referendum of the British people.

Next time… 2009 in review

Getting in touch

Please do feel free to get in touch at annemarie@annemariemorris.co.uk or 01626 368277. You can text me on 07712 004733 and follow what I am doing on my website: www.annemariemorris.co.uk. I would love to meet you at our next event– see www.newtonabbotconservatives.org.uk