A Federalist United Kingdom

This is a map I originally intended to upload following the election back in May, but life got in the way so here it is 2 months late.
The basis of this map is my attempt to address what I see as this country's broken and horrifically outdated political system, and to improve on a previous map I made on this same issue. The UK's political woes were made all the more evident in the wake of the 2015 general election, where the Conservatives won a majority with support only really from the south and east of the country. Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Northern England, London, and most of the UK's largest cities all voted overwhelmingly for parties other than the Conservatives, something perhaps most evident in Scotland where the Conservatives won just one seat by less than 800 votes. It seems ludicrous to me (as I'm sure many Conservative voters would have said during Blair's years - and I agree) that such a massive part of the UK should have policies forced upon that it voted overwhelmingly against. By continuing to govern the United Kingdom as a unitary state and treating devolution as the solution to these problems, the government ignores the massive divides that exist in this country, not just politically, but economically and culturally also, and continues to widen these divides.

Aside from the policy issues, the 2015 election was one of the least representative elections ever. The Conservative party won a majority in parliament with support from just 24.4% of the population. That is not a majority. That's not even half of a majority. Almost 64% of those who voted did so for parties other than the Conservatives, and yet they command more than 50% of the seats in parliament. Whilst I dislike UKIP immensely, it is wholly unfair that they are the 3rd largest party by popular vote, but won only one seat. Similarly, the Green Party, which secured more than 1 million votes, still has only one MP to represent the views of its voters. This is a result of the absurd, undemocratic, and outdated first-past-the-post electoral system we have in the UK, the inadequacy of which is demonstrated aptly by us being one of very few countries that still use it.

Furthermore, the fact that almost 44% of the electorate did not even bother casting a ballot is indicative of a much bigger problem with politics in this country. A huge portion of the country is incredibly disillusioned with the political system as a whole, finding it far too removed, and feeling that it doesn't represent them well enough. In a modern, democratic society, it is appalling that almost half of the electorate thinks their vote is unimportant.

What I propose is a radical reform of the British political system to address many of these issues. Firstly, federalism would not only account for the differing political positions in this country, but by delegating the majority of powers currently held by Westminster to the state level, this could prevent policies being implemented on areas where they have minimal support. This would also go a long way to resolving the disillusionment issue by bringing government closer to the people and making it more accountable, giving more people the opportunity to be involved and identify with the democratic process. Federalism would also address a number of constitutional issues: the West Lothian question, the 'English votes for English laws' movement, calls for Cornish devolution, the Irish peace process, and secessionist movements in both Wales and Scotland.

Additionally, in order to address the complete lack of a representative parliament, I propose the UK move to a Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMPR) electoral system, combined with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). Under such a system, the electorate gets two votes: a single-member constituency vote, and a party vote. Though, as a rule, I dislike party politics, one cannot deny the strength of party allegiances or the historic importance of the party system in the UK, and similarly the constituency-based system is a useful way of ensuring direct representation at the national government level. Such a system would allow for the election of MPs to represent specific regions (constituencies) and, through using IRV, ensure that these MPs are elected by a majority of their constituents, something FPTP does not allow for. MMPR also allows for the election of MPs from a party list, thus allowing constituents to vote tactically in their constituency, whilst still allowing for them to vote for the party they actually agree with at a national level. This means that every vote counts, not just those for the party that wins the constituency, as is the case with FPTP. The party list MPs could also prove useful, as they owe their allegiance to no particular geographic area, thus allowing them to act in the national interest. MPs from the party list are then added to the constituency MPs, 'topping up' the constituency seats until the percentage of MPs overall matches the percentage of votes the party received nationally, thus providing proportional representation. The constituency MPs should be afforded to each state in proportion to its population, with the number of constituencies reduced so as to allow for the party list MPs without there being too great an increase in the overall number of MPs. I propose a total number of 800 MPs (50 more than at present), with 450 constituency MPs and 350 party list MPs.

Furthermore, replacing the unelected House of Lords with an elected senate, where every state has the same number of representatives (I propose 2), would provide an effective upper house, that is democratically accountable to the people of each state. By electing these representatives through Single Transferable Vote, one can ensure that the greatest number of people have their views represented at this level.

Finally, it may also be necessary to have some sort of 'state council' comprising the head of government of each state and the Prime Minister of the UK as a whole in order to ensure the greatest cooperation and communication between the various federal entities.

In this map, I propose splitting the United Kingdom into 25 states. 18 of these would come from the present United Kingdom (include 6 of the UK's largest cities and London as independent city states), based roughly on the current 'regions' of the UK, with the additional 7 being made up of overseas territories (Gibraltar, Bermuda, Atlantic Islands (comprising St Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Ascension, the Falklands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands), and the Caribbean Islands (comprising the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands)), and the 3 crown dependencies (the Isle of Mann, Jersey, and Guernsey). I have excluded British Indian Ocean Territory, British Antarctic Territory, the Pitcairns, and Akrotiri and Dhekelia from the federation due to the lack of population in the first two, the very small population of the Pitcairns (which may well soon be depopulated) and the unique nature of the latter.

Hopefully I've explained my thought processes behind this map well enough for you to understand, and even if you don't agree with my proposal, you can see that the British political system is in dire need of reform! You can see an infographic I made of how the structure of the current parliament would differ under the electoral systems I have proposed HERE. See the following links for more information on the voting systems mentioned: MMPR IRV STV