ANKARA
The United Kingdom Independence Party, a right-wing minor opposition party, unveiled Monday a raft of proposals to improve Britain’s constitutional and democratic fabric.
The announcement was made by party leader Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell, UKIP MP for Clacton, where the announcement was made.
They proposed a “Citizen’s Initiative” to allow ordinary people to influence legislation.
The measure would see a national referendum every two years, and the most popular petition with over 2 million votes, would be included in the Queen’s Speech, where the government sets out its proposed legislative program for the year ahead.
The party also proposed introducing “real recall,” to allow people to sack their MP between general elections if enough signatures calling for a by-election are gained.
On the country’s voting system, UKIP said First Past the Post was “no longer relevant” to party politics of the 21st century.
The current system states that whoever earns the most votes in a given parliamentary constituency wins.
This disadvantages minority parties or those whose share of the vote is spread across the country as opposed to being focused in a particular region, as the votes for second-place candidates onwards do not count.
UKIP would replace this system with a more proportional one, where the number of votes cast nationally is reflected in the number of seats awarded to parties.
The party would also abolish the current postal voter register and force people to re-apply with more stringent requirements, saying on its website, “You must have a valid reason for needing a postal vote."
UKIP is a right-wing anti-EU, anti-immigrant British political party, and currently has two elected MPs in the 650-seat lower house of Britain’s parliament, the House of Commons.
The U.K. general election will take place on May 7, 2015.
