Boundary changes could create the most Jewish constituency ever

The most Jewish constituency ever is being proposed by the Boundary Commission this week, with one MP to cover Edgware, Hendon, Mill Hill and Golders Green.

The new seat, based on an extended version of the Hendon seat currently occupied by Tory Matthew Offord, was put forward on Tuesday by a cross-party team tinkering with the existing boundaries, in order to reduce by 50 the number of MPs.

As now, it will stretch from its northernmost tip near Elstree through Edgware, Burnt Oak, Colindale, Hendon and West Hendon, including Mill Hill, but under the new plans, it will also incorporate Brent Cross, Golders Green and Staples Corner.

Among the seats due to disappear completely under the Commission’s proposals is the Finchley and Golders Green constituency currently held by Conservative MP Mike Freer, and once held by Margaret Thatcher.

Under the revised plans, it will be gobbled up by neighbouring constituencies, with Golders Green going to join the new ‘Jewish seat,’ while Childs Hill and Hampstead Garden Suburb get swallowed by an enlarged Hampstead outline.

East Finchley will now be taken on within a new constituency including Southgate and Cockfosters which stretches all the way up to the M25, beyond Hadley Wood.

Meanwhile North Finchley and Church End will join the current Chipping Barnet seat currently held by another Tory MP Theresa Villiers, who is former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Harrow East, which includes Stanmore and which is currently held by another Conservative MP, Bob Blackman, will no longer stretch down towards Edgware and Kenton, but will instead reach westwards to incorporate Harrow and Wealdstone, North Harrow and Rayners Lane.

Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, who has been highly critical of the proposed changes, will see her Hampstead and Kilburn seat scrapped. The Hampstead seat will now include the whole of Hampstead Heath, as well as Hampstead Garden Suburb up to East Finchley.

Elsewhere, in an intriguing twist, much of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington North seat shifts eastward to include areas with large Jewish populations, including Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill.

Last year, when actress Maureen Lipman raised the prospect of Corbyn’s seat being scrapped at a dinner for British Emunah, there was a large cheer from the audience.