University constituency

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University constituencies were a distinctive feature of UK House of Commons elections. University graduates had their own constituencies , which did not form a geographical unit, but were supposed to represent the graduates. In university constituencies, eligible voters could not only vote in this, but also in their home constituency, giving them two votes in lower house elections. Some university constituencies were multi-person constituencies , in which voting was not carried out according to the current first-past-the-post principle , but rather according to the proportional representation system using instant run-off voting, which is otherwise unusual in the United Kingdom .

The first university constituencies were introduced in the Kingdom of England in 1603 . With the Representation of the People Act 1948 , the last university constituencies for the general election in 1950 were abolished.

history

Introduction and role in the Unreformed House

The history of the university constituencies goes back to the 16th century. From 1570 until the end of Elizabeth I's reign , there were six requests from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford , in which university representatives asked for the establishment of such constituencies to represent the universities in the lower house. Edward Coke , who himself had studied at Cambridge and had been elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1593 , was one of the best known advocates of the establishment of university constituencies and advised his alma mater on holding first elections. With the Royal Charter of 1603, James I granted both universities the right to vote. Both universities each sent two representatives to the House of Commons. From 1613 the University of Dublin also had two representatives in the Irish House of Commons , with the unification of Ireland and Great Britain under the Act of Union 1800 , the University of Dublin had a representative in the British House of Commons from 1801. Political life in the university constituencies was compared to the borough constituencies (geographical constituencies of the districts fairly noiseless). There were hardly any arguments about the validity of elections.

Until after the revolution of 1688/89, university graduates made hardly any use of their privileged right to vote. Only in the 18th century did the interest in elections increase significantly. In Cambridge in 1826, for example, there were four days of voting, as 1293 voters cast their votes - 99 years earlier, only 377 eligible voters had voted in the same constituency.

Representatives of the university constituencies had special privileges: they did not have to pay for elections with personal assets and were not forced to meet the land and property qualifications introduced in 1710. Only those who had obtained a degree from the university for whose constituency they were running were eligible to vote, while residents in geographical constituencies in other areas could also be elected. During the election process, candidates at Oxford were also prohibited from approaching the university there within ten miles.

Roll from 1832

With the Reform Act 1832 , the constituencies for parliament were fundamentally redesigned. The university constituencies remained largely unaffected by this reform, only the constituency of the University of Dublin received an additional representative. Six of the 658 lower house deputies thus represented universities. Requests from representatives of Scottish universities for representation in parliament were not answered. The introduction of separate constituencies for universities in Scotland was initially not supported by a majority within the Scottish parliamentary delegation. From 1864 it was possible to vote for the constituencies by postal vote .

The establishment of new universities such as the secular University College London and a change of opinion among the Scottish MPs made the Reform Acts 1867 (England and Wales) and 1868 (Scotland) necessary, in which the university constituencies were expanded. In addition to the University of London, the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh each received a representative from parliament. The total number of university representatives rose to nine. In the meantime, attempts by politicians of the Liberal Party , including Prime Minister John Russell , to equate the English bar associations to the universities in terms of electoral law, failed because of resistance from conservatives like Benjamin Disraeli . Further constituency reforms in the 1880s did not affect the university constituencies.

Peak of importance

Due to the establishment of further universities (e.g. University of Wales , Victoria University of Manchester , University of Sheffield ) at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, representatives of the “traditional” universities spoke out in favor of establishing new constituencies that should include these universities, out - especially as a backlash to growing criticism of the established university constituencies. During his tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer , later Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George called university constituencies "the greatest farce in the UK Constitution". 1913 failed a law in parliament that multiple select (plural voting) to general election ban and university constituencies de facto should abolish.

However, the First World War tipped the mood in favor of strengthening the university constituencies. The role of universities in the World War as important national institutions and the universities joining forces in research and financial matters were considered to be decisive for a recommendation by the Speakers' Conference of 1917 to expand the parliamentary representation of universities. The Representation of the People Act 1918 increased the number of university parliamentarians to 15: the Scottish universities were combined into one constituency (Combined Scottish Universities) with three representatives, the National University of Ireland , Queen's University Belfast and the University of Wales received one MP each in the House of Commons, the remaining universities in England formed the constituency of Combined English Universities . In addition, women who had studied for over 30 years were eligible to vote from now on. The privilege of plural voting has been in place for 68,000 graduates since Act 1918 was passed, in addition to 159,000 business people who were allowed to vote twice. University constituencies were the only way for British foreign students to find political representation in the House of Commons.

The multi-person constituencies in Scotland and England allowed proportional voting . Since the general election in 1918 , the Scottish university constituency has been elected by instant runoff voting . Exceptions were by-elections , in which first-past-the-post voting law continued to apply. The continuation of the university constituencies after 1918 can be seen as a compromise between conservative and progressive elements: While the continued possibility of plural voting for the educated elite prevented a transition to a full democracy with equality of all votes, which was viewed critically by the conservatives, university constituencies were seen as " most tempting “option to test the proportional representation system preferred by liberals.

With the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 and Irish independence with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, the three university constituencies located on the territory of the Republic of Ireland no longer existed.

abolition

Only a short time after the expansion of the university electoral law in 1918, the existence of the university electoral district was increasingly questioned. In 1928 the Combined English Universities constituency was expanded to include the University of Reading , despite opposition from many Labor Party members . In 1931 the House of Commons voted with a narrow majority of 246 to 242 MPs against Labor's proposed abolition of university constituencies.

A non-partisan conference on suffrage in 1944, led by the Speaker of the House of Commons, did not originally envisage any change in university constituencies. The compromise that had been worked out provided for the university constituencies to continue to exist, but the Labor Party was able to enforce its demand for an alignment of the electoral law for local and parliamentary elections. The compromise passed the House of Commons with 152 to 16 votes. After the general election in 1945 , in which Labor achieved a landslide victory, there was a political majority for the abolition of the graduate constituencies. With the 1948 Representation of the People Act , plural voting and thus the university constituencies were finally abolished for general election, but only with votes from Labor and against opposition from the conservatives, who benefited most from the special suffrage. The Tories promised in their election programs for the elections in 1950 and 1951 the reintroduction of university constituencies, their promise after the extremely tight election victory in 1951 but did not sit around and swept the requirement to the general election in 1955 from its program.

University constituencies continued to exist when the Northern Irish Parliament was elected in 1921 . Belfast University had four MPs in the 52-seat lower house. With the abolition of the Belfast university constituency in the Northern Ireland elections in 1969, the more than 350-year history of university graduates' separate status in the United Kingdom's electoral law ended.

Overview of the constituencies

An overview of the number of university constituencies for general election in the United Kingdom
1603-
1613 		1613
1800 		1801-
1832 		1832-
1867 		1868-
1917 		1918-
1921 		1922-
1950 		1950–
today
University of Oxford 2 -
University of Cambridge 2
University of Dublin - 2 1 2 -
University College London - - - 1
University of Edinburgh and

University of St Andrews

1 3

(Scottish universities together)

University of Glasgow and

University of Aberdeen

1
English universities together - 2
University of Wales 1
Queen's University Belfast 1
National University of Ireland 1 -
Total number of ex. University constituencies 4th 6th 5 6th 9 15th 12 0
Total number of ex. Lower house constituencies k. A. k. A. 658 658 658 707 615 625
Percentage of university constituencies k. A. k. A. 0.8 0.9 1.4 2.1 2.0 0.0
  1. ↑ a b Constituency dissolved due to the independence of Ireland
  2. ↑ from 1928 including the University of Reading
  3. ↑ at the time of the constitution of the first parliament without lower house constituencies (1950)

Prominent MPs (selection)

Most of the MPs elected in university constituencies were politically conservative and unionist, and more rarely liberal. The Labor Party only managed to win a seat in a university constituency once. In addition, independent independents were able to obtain a mandate more frequently, which rarely happened after the abolition of the university electoral district. The following list is a selection of prominent politicians elected through university constituencies:

University constituencies in other states

  • Australia: A representative from the University of Sydney sat in the lower house of the New South Wales Parliament in Australia between 1876 and 1880 . The university constituency was introduced in 1858 and was only allowed to send a representative to the legislature when there were 100 enrollments, which was the case for the first time in 1876, while all other electoral districts for the legislative assembly accounted for approx. 4,000 voters per district. As part of a constituency reform, the constituency was abolished only four years after it first appointed a representative.
  • India: In India University constituencies were curiously introduced in 1948, the same year in which they were abolished in the UK. With the entry into force of the Indian constitution in 1950, the university constituencies were abolished again, but in some upper houses of the federal states they continue to exist as geographical constituencies without the possibility of plural voting .
  • Ireland: After Ireland gained independence , university constituencies existed for elections to Dáil Éireann until 1936 . With the abolition of the Free State Parliament, there have been six university constituencies for the Upper House, the Seanad Éireann , since 1937 . Both the Association of the National University of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin have three senators. Of a good 540,000 registered graduates (as of 2019) only 180,000 are registered as voters for the Seanad.
  • Rwanda: The 26-member Senate of Rwanda has two senators who are elected at universities. One senator represents the state universities, one the private ones.

literature

  • Joseph S. Meisel: The Parliamentary History Yearbook Trust 2011: The Parliamentary Representation of Universities in Britain and the Empire . Wiley-VCH Verlag , 4th edition, 2011. ISBN 9781444350203 .
  • Thomas Oppermann : University representation in the British House of Commons 1603–1950: At the same time a study on the structure of the English electoral system . In: Zeitschrift für die Allgemeine Staatswissenschaft / Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, Vol. 113, H. 2. (1957), pp. 314–323.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jessica Metheringham: 8 things you may not know about the right to vote . In: Quakers in Britain, February 6, 2018. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  2. ^ A b Millicent B. Rex: The University Constituencies in the Recent British Election . In: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 201-211 (1946). doi: 10.2307 / 2125896 .
  3. ^ A b David Klemperer: Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in the UK in Historical Perspective . In: The Constitution Society, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c d Edward Porritt: The unreformed House of commons; parliamentary representation before 1832 . University of Cambridge , 1st Edition, 1909, pp. 99-103.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Mike Ratcliffe: The history of university representation . In: Wonkhe, January 28, 2015. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  6. ↑ Meisel (2011), p. 42.
  7. ↑ Meisel (2011), p. 33.
  8. ^ A b Mordechai Feingold: History of Universities . University of Oxford , 23rd Edition, 2008, p. 120. ISBN 9780191561993 .
  9. ↑ Meisel (2011), p. 38.
  10. ^ A b c Ivor W. Jennings: The British System of Government: Guide and Source Book . Springer Verlag, 2nd edition, 2013, p. 75. ISBN 9783663021490 .
  11. ^ Greg Rosen: Electoral reform has been central to Labor's mission for 100 years . In: The Guardian , May 2, 2011. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  12. ↑ Meisel (2011), p. 45.
  13. ^ Brendan O'Leary, John McGarry: The Politics of Antagonism: Understanding Northern Ireland . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016, p. 122. ISBN 9781474287784 .
  14. ↑ Meisel (2011), p. 25.
  15. ^ Matt Cole: Political Parties in Britain . University of Edinburg, 2012, p. 208. ISBN 9780748669035 .
  16. ↑ Pranay Jha: Wentworth, Bennelong, USyd? . In: Honi Soit, October 3, 2019. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  17. ↑ Jon Elster, Roberto Gargarella, Vatsal Naresh, Bjørn Erik Rasch: Constituent Assemblies . University of Cambridge, 2018, p. 135. ISBN 9781108567787 .
  18. ^ Seanad - the University Constituency . In: Citizens Information, June 9, 2015. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  19. ↑ Deirdre Falvey: NUI and Trinity graduates Could storm some barricades If They register to vote - now . In: Irish Times , February 25, 2019. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  20. ↑ Eugène Kwibuka: Senatorial elections set for September . In: The New Times Rwanda, June 11, 2019. Retrieved November 19, 2019.