One Man, One Vote

For John, BLUF:  Ensuring one man, one vote is not always easy.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

PressEurop provides a precis of articles they judge to be the best of the European Press, including the UK.  This item is from the British newspaper The Independent and is titled "English revolution in House of Commons".

This is a little complicated, so some background.  The British House of Commons, sometimes referred to as Westminster (after the palace where they meet), is composed of Members from England itself, and also from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which, all together, compose the United Kingdom.  The thing is, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also have their own parliaments and certain authorities have "devolved" to those local parliaments.  It would be like Massachusetts having the General Court, but also some counties having their own authority over important matters, which are theirs alone to decide, while the State Reps from those Counties get to vote on how all the rest of the citizens of Massachusetts deal with the same issues.  For example, say the counties of Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Norfolk, Plymouth (and throw in Nantucket) get to set their own liquor laws, including taxes on booze, and, because it impacts selling, what are holidays.  They also get to set their own minimum wage laws and their own MCAS standards.  They do this free and independent from the say-so of the General Court, but yet the State Reps from those counties get to participate in making those same decisions for the residents of the other eight counties.♠

Frankly, the English, as opposed to the British, are miffed that Scots and Irish and Welsh tell them what to do, but they have no say the other way.

The British government wants to give English MPs the power to strike down laws that do not relate to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, writes The Independent.  Under the proposed constitutional reforms, which will be presented to Parliament in autumn,

English MPs would be able to reject legislation on devolved issues such as education, the NHS, transport and the environment, even if it had been passed by a majority of all MPs in the House of Commons.

The move would dramatically rebalance power in Parliament – and could result in a future Labour government being unable to pass significant legislation without the support of other parties [because a significant number of Labour MPs are Welsh and Scottish].

Today, all MPs in the UK parliament can vote on legislation affecting England, but English MPs do not have similar sway on matters voted by the national devolved parliaments and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

What is fair?

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  At this point we call upon Professor George Anthes to explain to us the US Constitution and the "one man, one vote" rule and how it applies in this case, which seems an awful lot like the GLTHS Imbroglio.