Sinn Féin MP Francie Molloy has welcomed the scrapping of the boundary commission proposals on changes to electoral constituencies and said that any proposed changes to the system must be based on democracy. 

The Mid Ulster MP said: 

“These boundary commission proposals to change general election constituencies had caused deep anger in the nationalist community in the North.

“If these proposals had of been implemented, it would have been an affront to democracy and resulted in thousands of citizens in the North being effectively disenfranchised.

“Confirmation that the present boundary commission proposals have now been scrapped is to be welcome, however the retention in ‘Rule 7’ in future proposals for the North is absolutely unacceptable.

“The use of Rule 7, the so called ‘gerrymander rule’, would allow the British Government to go under or above the average electoral quota. 

“This is extremely concerning and would effectively mean that not all votes carry the same weight.

“Rule 7 is a wholly undemocratic electoral rule that exclusively applies to the North. 

“This rule must be excluded from any proposals and consigned to the dustbin of history. 

 “We cannot go back to the dark days of gerrymandering and the disenfranchisement of large swathes of the community.”