Highlands Federation

The party holds that the highland sub-regions bear costs that the rest of the Republic does not, and that equality of provision therefore requires unequal allocation of resources. It takes Article 168, which entitles every resident to the same standard of provision wherever they live, as the ground of that claim.

It is a territorial party. It sits cross-bench and has supported measures from every list in the chamber. Its environmental position is older than its regionalism and comes from the same source: the clearing of the uplands in the 1920s.

The party supported the draft and proposes no amendment.

Its calculation for the first Assembly is that a list confined to three sub-regions has a ceiling, and that the articles on allocation between territories are national questions which happen to answer a highland grievance. It has widened its programme accordingly.

Equalisation owed as of right

Article 181 gives poorer and harder territories additional resources as of right, without the permission of any authority, and Article 180 requires the formula to be public, computed openly, and departed from only on a stated justification by named officers. The formula is due within eighteen months of commencement.

The party wants it published early and wants four highland cost factors written into it: distance, gradient, winter access and the dispersal of settlement.

"The same standard of provision costs more per person at eight hundred metres than at sea level. That is arithmetic, not a grievance. Put it in the formula and we will stop raising it."

Highlands Federation, Programme for the first Assembly, section 1

Article 180Article 181Article 331(7)

General competence taken seriously

Article 167 lets communes act on anything not expressly given to a higher level and resolves doubt in favour of the commune, and Article 171 gives them housing, water, waste, local roads, schools, clinics, libraries and local ecology.

The party states that most of the transitional measures adopted since commencement were prepared by central bodies. It proposes that each remaining transitional deadline be met by the commune in every case where Article 332 permits a communal decision.

Article 167Article 171Article 332

The replanting schedule

The clearing of the western uplands is the oldest question in the party's programme. It holds the same position as Environment and Justice, which is that the schedule be funded within the plan and stated in physical units.

Article 30Article 20

The southern frontier

Article 296 makes the removal of barriers to human movement a standing objective and requires the Republic to seek an opening agreement with any state upon reciprocity. The southern frontier has not been reopened in eighty-seven years. The party wants the Republic to make a formal approach to the southern neighbour and to publish both the approach and the answer received.

Article 296Article 297

The party seeks no affiliation with any European party family, holding that a state outside the Union has no business in the party politics of the Union. It supports Ukraine, opposes the parties of the far right in Europe, and takes no position favourable to Russia.

Within Vandorum, Kelvaqui and Aspreduson, 51 per cent of respondents describe the party favourably, the highest figure any list records in any territory. Across the Republic, 9 per cent say they would consider voting for it.

The projection holds its share almost unchanged and gives it eight seats, the gain coming from the size of the chamber. Its widened programme is recorded by 22 per cent of respondents outside the three sub-regions, which the projection treats as too small a figure to move its national share this time.