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The Constitution

Amendments to the proposed constitution for a Commonwealth of Britain proposed by a supporter of republican democracy.

Election to the Senate

The constitution states that the Senate represents regions according to population. Isn't that, in reality, a replication of the representation in the National Assembly/House of Representatives? As in the USA and Australia, the Senate should represent each region equally. Thus there should be an equal number of Senators for each region.

There are 12 regions in the Union: the 3 nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus the 9 English regions of North West, North East, Yorkshire and Humberside, West Midlands, East Midlands, Eastern England, South West, South East and London. If each region had 8 Senators, then the Senate would have 96 members, and then every 2 years only 4 regions would have to go to the polls to elect their Senators, thus all the Senators for a particular region are elected at one time.

If 1/3 of Senators for each region are to be elected every 2 years, however, then each region should have 9 Senators, making a Senate of 108 members, with 3 Senators per region being elected every 2 years.

However if the model stated in the Constitution is preferred, the easiest way to implement this is to use the European Parliamentary Areas (the Union having 87 Euro MPs across the 12 regions), which correspond to the regions, and add an extra seat in each region. This would then give 99 Senators:

North East, 5   East Midlands, 7  Eastern England, 9

North West, 11  London, 11  South East, 12

West Midlands, 9  Scotland, 9  South West, 8

Yorkshire and Humberside, 8  Wales, 6  Northern Ireland, 4

The number of Senators in each column adds up to 33, hence each region only has to elect its senators every 6 year cycle.

Continued

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