Undemocratic system (From The Oxford Times)

Undemocratic system

6:50am Thursday 4th February 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

Sir – In your report of the poor quality of mobile phone reception in Oxfordshire (Report, January 28) you state that James Elles is the European MEP who has special responsibility for Oxfordshire.

Quite where he gained that special responsibility is open to question. MEPs are elected on a regional basis, not on a county basis. Mr Elles is one of the ten MEPs elected to represent the South East region of England, of which only four MEPs are members of his party: the Conservatives. The other six represent four other parties.

I write this because the one thing the Party List System, (which is used in European Elections), does is to elect parties, not constituency representatives!

I am aware that MEPs are trying to pretend that they do represent narrowly defined constituencies, but the reality is they do not. I have taken issue with the local radio station over this matter when they refer to the one Green MEP for the South East Region as the green MEP for Oxfordshire. That party received 11 per cent of the vote in the last election on a turnout of 37 per cent, which means that the Green Party has the support of less than five per cent of the electorate in the South East Region. I write this because having studied and taught electoral systems, the party list system is profoundly undemocratic, which most MEPs know to be true, but try to dress it up by inventing terms for themselves, like special representative which is a self-bestowed title and has no democratic legitimacy.

John Power, Oxford