This comment comes from Peter McColl, Common Weal Director of Policy. Common Weal is, of course, based in Scotland. I met Peter recently:
This might be the last election where a majority government could even be contemplated. Whether it's through a change to the voting system or other parties winning those STV seats, Westminster won't be the same for long.
Once the distortions of the Westminster consensus and the dodgy electoral system are gone, we will see the progressive majority in the UK reassert itself. It may have to do so as a coalition, but given how badly the left has been failed by the Labour Party's triangulation to the right, that is a massive opportunity.
Peter is far from alone in thinking coalition may be no bad thing. I know many who would agree.
He seems to be confident that Scotland will stay in the union, although I know he was in the Yes campaign.
It's his belief that STV might happen that I found interesting. Electoral reform isn't on the agenda at this election and it has to be questioned why that is not the case.
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Because we already decided against it?
I am bemused why asking the wrong question might stop us asking the right question
The only question asked was should the “alternative vote” system be used instead.
“Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the “alternative vote” system instead of the current “first past the post” system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?”
Yes or No
Equating the rejection of AV with the people not wanting electoral reform, is a false dichotomy, only two choices were presented yet more existed, we simply were not allowed to have more choice by design.
I want Electoral reform as I did then, but I did not want AV. I want a system based on proportional representation. I wasn’t asked about that, by design.
Guy, we DIDN’T decide against REAL PR, and CERTAINLY not against STV. Instead, we (others, actually, as I voted FOR AV) voted against a VERY poor non-proportional systyem, called AV, which only ensures anyone winning an election has to get 50% of all the votes cast – except that the votes DON’T have equal worth, in terms of selection (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc choices), but DO have nearly equal worth in terms of effect, since all the 2nd choices of the lowest achiever are reallocated, then the 3rd, exhaustively, until someone gets the 50%.
This can lead to the person with the most 1st choices ending up being beaten by the person with the most 3rd choices (I speak from experience, as this happened to me when I tried to become Labour PPC for my constituency – I led on the 1st and second ballots, but lost on the 3rd choices)
Now this is fine for a single election – and despite being beaten in my own attempt, I accept the validity of the fact that, on balance, my opponent won more support than I did (though I still wish I’d won, as I might have been an MP). HOwever, it is USELESS at addressing the REAL proprtionality requirement – that there are numerous Labour voters in the South East of England that have no chance, in most cases, of electing an MP, and the same is true of Tory voters in Scotland (something addressed in the PROPER proportionality voting for the Scottish Parliament, allowing Tory voters there to have Tory MSP’s, as is quite proper)
As I’ve said before, I resigned from the Labour Party in 2001 over Blair’s pusillanimity in rejecting the Jenkins AV+ proposals, which would have seen 500 MP’s voted on AV, and 125 selected from Party Lists on a proportional basis.
That both preserved the constituency link AND provided some proportionaslity, and Blair could EASILY have won a referendum to bring that in for the 2001 General Election, but he bottled it. I only rejoined Labour when GOrdon Brown took over, as, amongst other things, he had a more favourable view of PR.
Now I’ve had enough – let’;s have PROPER PR via STV, and allow the TRUED political pluralism that is out there to flourish. The old behemoths enabled the neo-con/neo-libertal/neo-feudalists to play the system, and squeeze out all views, except for a narrow range of essentially unimportant issues (deficit/debt being the current classic, rather than growth and an economy that serves the people, or immigration ).
Real PR would allow those wider questions to come to the fore. Let’s go for it – “Let a thousand blossoms bloom”
Agreed
I totally agree with this as it allows for the real complexity in voter choice & sentiment which is not currently met by the present system.
Currently things are too black and white and one shade of grey (more like yellow). Well there are lots of shades of grey. And green.
However, the most powerful potential here is the effect it may have on the quality of policy. We might be able to see more balanced policies to do with a whole range of issues – balanced because they will be better informed by wider voter/party influence as they pass through Parliament.
Mind you – it could still go the other way – but more ‘blossoms’ means less mono-culture policy wise.
Two points:
1. The whole concept of PR (i.e. proportional representation) DOES NOT, and CAN NOT, apply to a ‘sub-constituency’ of a political regime (e.g. such as my Westminster ‘constituency’ of Bristol North West, or my Bristol City Council ‘ward’ of Henleaze). The concept of PR can apply ONLY to a ‘full-constituency’ (e.g. such as ‘the UK’ or ‘Bristol’). PR is not possible at ‘sub-constituency’ level (regardless of FPTP, AV, STV, or whatever). There are simply not enough ‘seats/representatives’ at sub-constituency level (even with multi-member sub-constituencies and STV).
2. STV IS NOT proportional, even at full-constituency level. In Scotland local authorities in 2012, it was an average of 9.7% short of full-PR; not sufficiently better than FPTP (or AV) to be worthy of a campaign for reform. PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE, let’s not have another AV fiasco! See my other entry for details and evidence.
All systems are compromise and approximations Tim
I think we have to recognise that
The art is finding the best compromise
it has to be questioned why that is not the case
It’s too soon. Constitutional politics generally moves relatively slowly: it took the Scots nearly two decades after the 1979 referendum to come to the devolution referendum, and the same to get to the independence referendum. The ATV vote three years ago ensured (as the existing political cabal wanted) that voting reform would stay off the agenda for the moment.
And for real electoral reform you actually need the Guy Fawkes solution – blow up the house. Not, I hasten to add, while it’s sitting – but MPs need to be forced to think outside the convention of “us vs them” that the present layout enforces.
The only thing I exercise on Election Day is my legs, as I walk to and from the polling station to cast a vote that simple does not count, and never will, as I live in a Conservative safe seat, and I don’t vote for them, they have just parachuted in a candidate all the way from London to “Stand for election”, and this person will be the MP for my area. My vote simply does not count in the grand scheme of our “democracy”.
But it’s the same for a Conservative voter living in a Labour safe seat or a Liberal democrat living in a Conservative safe seat, millions of votes that end up being nothing more than statistical talking points in election specials on the television news but having no impact on the outcome.
Of course, tactical voting may mean my vote will count for something, but where I am that will require me to vote for a candidate from a party I also don’t want to vote for, the lesser of the two evils I guess. Tactical voting seems the new talking point bellowing from the mainstream media, lords, ex MP’s, current party candidates and a whole host of party political minions, NOT the fact our electoral system is broken.
So my dilemma is simple I can vote for the party I want and whose ideology and policies are more in sync with mine where my vote is as worthless before its cast as it is after, or I can vote tactically for a party whose ideology and policies I don’t like but are not as bad the as the party’s whose safe seat it is to try and stop them getting enough seats to form the next UK Government.
The problem will always be that the very parties that get to form the Government benefit massively from the current system and are the very people that have to orchestrate the changes needed.
This is why we need STV in multi seat constituencies
But STV is NOT Proportional. It is NOWHERE NEAR proportional. It is just a spuriously-complicated variation on AV (and not much better).
Advocates of STV (including the Electoral Reform Sociaty) cite the Scottish local election processes as a ‘SUCCESFUL’ implementation of STV. However, see the Electoral Reform Society’s own definitive review of the 2007 and 2012 Scotish local authority elections:
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/sites/default/files/publication/file/file512f4e5ae047f.pdf
In particular, see ‘Proportionality and Power’ on page 20 (and the table on page 21). STV in the 2012 Scotish local authority elections was an AVERAGE of 9.7% short of full proportionality. That is not sufficiently better than FPTP (or AV) for it to be put forward as a worthwhile improvement on FPTP.
Also, there are many other reservations about other aspects of STV; sufficient to sabotage any and every campaign for reform based on STV. See ‘Conclusion’ on page 26 of the above document.
Only ‘Full-List’ or ‘Full-AMS’ (Additional Member System) are ‘fit for the purpose’ of facilitating a democratic regime in which it would be worth voting, and which could realistically facilitate full democracy.
If you want to cite existing examples of ‘near-proportionality, cite the London Assembly, the Northern Irish Assembly, the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament, the European Parliament, and the recommendations of the 1998 Jenkins report on potential reform of the House of Commons (all of which looked at and rejected STV, and adopted versions of AMS).
Please don’t sabotage the (worthy) campaign for constitutional reform by presenting STV as the ‘best’ 9or even the only) ‘solution’.
See also the campaign hosted by (but not endorsed by) 38 Degrees:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/rvs-register-vote-spoil
Electoral reform is of course in the Green Party manifesto. But the ever impartial and balanced (huh) BBC prefer to pick out minor policies e.g. about caged animals. They are frequently guilty, in my opinion, of pro Tory and UKIP selective reporting which amounts to spin.
I suspect it will take another election after this one to put electoral reform properly on the agenda. There was a degree of conventional wisdom amongst many scholars of British politics that it would take two hung parliaments in a row to force a change but because the Lib Dems made a hash of reform with the AV referendum the clock was probably reset.
I also think it will take time for the parties to reassess the electoral system. Labour for instance might start to see the electoral system in a different light particularly in Scotland. Many of their MPs here are amongst the most reactionary anti-reform ones (witness Tom Harris in 2010 saying he would rather have a Tory Government with FPTP than a Labour one with any kind of reform) but in the first instance people like him will likely be out of parliament but secondly the opinion polls show Scottish labour losing vast amounts of seats, but their loss of votes while not great either is nowhere near as bad. That kind of thing tends to focus minds.
Incidentally I would be of the opinion that STV would be the worst of all proportional systems (though still better than FPTP), when it comes to electoral systems the more proportional the better and it is the least proportional of the entire proportional “family”. There is a reason it is hardly used.
With our lousy current voting processes, there is an overwhelming imperative for ‘natural’ Parties to merge into a total of precisely-two ‘worthwhile’ ‘covert coalition’ Parties. In the UK, the current Conservative Party is a ‘covert coalition’ of a Europhobe Conservative Party and a Europhile Conservative Party, and the current Labour Party is a ‘covert coalition’ of an Old Labour Party and a New Labour Party. These two ‘covert coalition’ Parties both present themselves (rightly) as the only Parties which stand any chance of forming, leading and dominating a government, and (wrongly) as all (mutually-exclusive) things to all (diverse) ‘floating’ electors. But how can the Conservative Party expect to be taken seriously as ‘Europhile Conservative’ and ‘Europhobe Conservative’? How would potential electors know what they were voting for if they voted Conservative? How would potential electors ensure they got what they thought they voted for if they voted Conservative? And how can the Labour Party expect to be taken seriously as ‘Old Labour’ and ‘New Labour’? How would potential electors know what they were voting for if they voted Labour? How would potential electors ensure they got what they thought they voted for if they voted Labour? How could those who care but feel impotent vote ‘Europhile Conservative’, ‘Europhobe Conservative’ ‘Old Labour’ or ‘New Labour’ if those options are never on offer?
With Full-PR (Fully-Proportional Representation), the current massive imperative for ‘natural’ Parties to merge into a total of precisely-two ‘worthwhile’ ‘covert coalition’ Parties would dissolve, and we would have a real democratic choice from a wider range of substantial but non-dominant ‘natural’ Partys.
With proportional representation in the UK Commons, we would perhaps expect to see the current Conservative ‘covert coalition’ Party (for that is what it is!) break into a ‘Europhile Conservative’ Party and a ‘Europhobe Conservative’ Party, and to see the current Labour ‘covert coalition’ Party (for that is what it is!) break into an ‘Old Labour’ Party and a ‘New Labour’ Party. When compared to maintaining their current incoherent ‘covert coalitions’, the resulting minor Parties would not only get more votes in total (as each such minor Party would pick up extra votes currently antagonised by the opposing influence), they would equally-certainly get more seats (and power and funding). Parties would emerge, split, merge and dissolve to ‘catch’ and represent evolving popular appeal. Aspiring politicians would seek to develop their political careers by developing their appeal to potential electors (rather than by climbing the greasy pole within one of the two dominant ‘covert’ coalition Parties), and would switch between Parties and/or set up new ones according to evolving fundamental values and policy convictions. Potential voters would expect to see the UK Commons populated by perhaps 10 or so well-differentiated, substantial, but ‘non-dominant’ Parties, and would switch freely between those Parties according to their own evolving fundamental values and policy convictions. That would constitute real democratic choice. That would constitute real democracy. That would be a democratic regime in which it was worth voting.
I am a bit confused as to why a vote has no validity in a constituency that has a certainty of returning a Labour or conservative mp. I’m happy I live in an area that has only ever returned a labour party mp and I don’t feel my vote has no point. I get the impression that some have an over inflated sense of themselves.Proportional representation, we all get what none of us trully want.
If I lived in an area that returned a conservative mp, my Labour vote still has validity, it just happened to be the majority differed from me, that’s democracy, that area would be represented by an mp that has the Most votes, regardless of whether it’s beyond half the overall vote.
But what does your Labour vote effect? the MP for that constituency will always be Conservative, thus always a seat that counts towards a Conservative Government, as much as your Labour vote won’t change the outcome in your constituency, it will not affect the political makeup of the House of Commons. Vote or don’t vote the outcomes the same. You mention democracy, so for example todays Guardian shows:
Voting intention:
UKIP: 13% – LibDems: 9% – Greens: 6%
So in a democracy obviously UKIP will have more seats in the next Parliament, right?
The number of seats which would be won by each party based on current polling:
UKIP: 4 – LibDems: 28 – Greens: 1
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/feb/27/guardian-poll-projection
so the question is, how do we best represent the electorate in Parliament. I would go much further than alternative voting systems and have a written constitution. This would define the uk in the modern age, and furthermore the people of Britain would Decide its content. The constitution would provide a political framework that could end the destructive politics of the far right and the far left And should leave us with an electorate believing they are better represented. other than that fptp is far from perfect but I do not see a better alternative
james s. says: “so the question is, how do we best represent the electorate in Parliament.”
Simple, by using a system based on proportional representation, where everyone’s votes matter.
There is much talk about voter apathy, many pundits comparing the Scottish referendum on independence and its massive turnout to the lower turnouts for General elections in England and Wales, not one of them seem to connect that maybe the difference was in that referendum everyone’s votes mattered, literally. The outcome of the referendum could hinge on a single vote, and the voters knew this.
FPTP is a “rigged game”, consecutive Governments have tweaked and gerrymandered the boundaries of the constituencies to afford them an advantage, and the incumbent Conservative led Government was the most recent to attempt this.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boundary-change-plans-lib-dems-1562728
james s. says: “other than that fptp is far from perfect but I do not see a better alternative”
There are several, this link may give you an idea about them and how they would have affected the outcome of the 2010 GE, but it is by no means complete or in-depth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8644480.stm
There is also this, for a lighter look at PR:
“A Party Political Broadcast from around 1987, featuring John Cleese talking about Proportional Representation, with a little bit of David Owen thrown in. Very funny and a good basic guide as to why PR is a good thing.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bDIxI8HV8g
Cleese was good in that one
Have a look at aufedersein pet, Barry and his mates using proportional representation to decide on what colour that should paint there but. It’s brilliant
Auf wiedersehen, that should say and hut not but, loose correlation to pr but funny
More like AV than PR, If memory serves, the decision was to paint the hut yellow, maybe that’s why the LibDems were not totally opposed to a referendum on what Nick Clegg called a ‘miserable little compromise’.