For the next (expected 2020) UK election, the assembly size will be reduced from 650 to 600, and the balance in the number of constituencies across the UK’s component units (including English regions) will be shifted. Ron Johnston, at the LSE blog, has a rundown of the changes.
Imagine the research-design opportunities for analyzing personal-vote behavior:
Some current MPs will see their current seat dismembered, and may worry whether they will be selected for another; David Cameron has promised all current Conservative MPs that they will have a seat to fight in 2020, but it may well be very different from the one they currently represent. And so much change will break the bonds between MPs and both their constituents and their party organisations – some of them of long standing – that will have to be rebuilt before the 2020 contest. Many MPs may spend a lot of time building support in their new constituencies rather than serving their existing ones – let alone debating and decision-making in Westminster.
The partisan effects also could be substantial: “The Conservative lead over Labour will probably be widened with the new seats,” says Johnston. However, the extent of this impact is unclear as, given the LibDem collapse and the rise of UKIP and Greens in 2015, “there are fewer marginal seats than at any time since 1945.” Conservatives, especially, have many very safe seats. Still their path to a majority in the House of Commons looks better for 2020 under the constituency revisions than was the case in 2015, when the manufacturing of their majority by the FPTP system was a close call.