LETTERSFrom Edward Moore, Ventnor:
I OBVIOUSLY don’t work hard enough at university, as I have the time to check the CP website periodically, and have followed with growing incredulity both from my place of study and now, on summer holiday, from home, the OneWight movement and its spectacularly ill-thought-out campaign to 'keep the Island undivided’.
I would like to add my voice to those found on the letters pages of last week’s CP — J. Gibbons and B. Dennis — who appear to be some of the only voices of sanity opposing the OneWight campaign.
It seems to me to be absolutely incredible that anyone residing on the IW could oppose a measure that would result in greater representation.
There are plenty of arguments in opposition to having two MPs on the OneWight website and most of them hinge on the claim that the Island is somehow "different" to the mainland, and that a new MP wouldn’t understand how it works. I’m afraid this is utter rubbish: geographically, of course, the IW is separate, but this nostalgic and blinkered view of our home as being somehow better than the mainland, and the laughable claim that it is "close-knit and cohesive" fails to recognise the significant problems the IW has — read the CP every week, if you don’t believe me.
I love coming home to the IW from university but I do not believe having two MPs will cause the Island to feel divided any more than it already is; areas of Newport and Ryde are worlds apart from places like Seaview, or Brighstone, for example.
OneWight’s claim that the plan for having two MPs is "poorly thought out, will damage democracy and is against the interests of the Island and Islanders" is, frankly, wrong.
Please, IW, it’s time to stop clinging to the conventions of the past and realise that not all change is bad — the government’s plan will benefit you, not disenfranchise you.