Proposed changes to the boundaries of Parliamentary constituencies may significantly affect areas with large Jewish populations.
The Boundary Commission for England published its boundary recommendations this morning. The proposals, due to take effect in 2018, include suggestions to create new constituencies, abolish others, and redraw the borders of many more.
Under the proposed plans, Mike Freer’s Finchley and Golders Green seat would be divided.
The Golders Green and Finchley Church End wards would be brought into Matthew Offord’s Hendon constituency, while a new Finchley and Southgate MP would cover East and West Finchley.
The Hampstead Garden Suburb and Childs Hill wards would be included in another new constituency, Hampstead and Golders Green. IT would include much of Tulip Siddiq’s current Hampstead and Kilburn seat.
Harrow East and Harrow West also look set to be redrawn, with areas incorporated into three new seats – Kenton, Wembley and Harrow on the Hill, and Harrow and Stanmore.
Ruth Smeeth, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, is one Jewish politician who faces a fight to keep her job. The town's three seats are to be amalgamated.
Mike Gapes’ Ilford South seat is in line to be scrapped, with parts taken into Wes Streeting’s Ilford North constituency.
In Manchester, the constituency of Blackley and Broughton, which has a large Jewish community, would remain unchanged, but a new Prestwich and Middleton seat would be formed, taking five wards from Ivan Lewis’s Bury South and a further five from Heywood and Middleton.
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, would see his Islington North seat abolished. A newly created seat of Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington includes the Hackney Ward of Stamford Hill West in Hackney, in which almost 40 per cent of residents are Jewish.
The planned changes are in their initial stage. The Boundary Commission has said it will “welcome comments on our initial proposals”.
When a similar set of proposals were made in 2006 and 2007, more than 60 per cent of the changes were subsequently abandoned.
