I know this is only a projection with lots of caveats in it, but just imagine....
Current polling projected onto the Provisional 2023 Boundaries*
LAB: 296 (+101)
CON: 259 (-119)
SNP: 55 (+7)
LDM: 17 (+9)
PLC: 4 (+2)
GRN: 1 (=)Changes w/ notional 2019 result.
*subject to several reviews and changes yet hence why they're not used in my regular projections pic.twitter.com/2FxIvjdIg6
— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) December 30, 2021
And in case of doubt, this is the map in full:
Two non-SNP seats in Scotland.
The red wall almost rebuilt.
And Labour back in the south-east and west.
But crucially, no overall control.
Then what?
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I’ve made my point about just such an event several times – an anti-Tory pact or alliance to boot-out this bunch of mobsters followed by the adoption of open party list PR: proportional representation is often discussed as if there were only the one form of it in existence, so it pays to be specific about just which one is desired.
After that, I’m pretty open; either have another election before the full term has expired in order to have a much more democratically elected body in place asap or allow the coalition to serve out its full term. With this kind of electoral reform in place, smaller parties (particularly the Greens and I should well imagine a separate socialist party) will have considerably more clout in the HoC while the Tories are going to be polishing the backbenches for some time to come.
I absolutely agree that we need to have some idea about what sort of PR we would want but – although it would certainly be better than FPTP – I hope to god it isn’t a party list system.
STV with multi-member constituencies; not quite as proportional but much more democratic – puts power in voters’ hands not parties’ and retains a level of local accountability (which we actually need to rebuild after it has been so abused by parties parachuting in favoured SpAds with no roots)
just my 2p’s worth
if we don’t have some agreement though before the election we’ll waste the whole time arguing about what way to go when we should be getting the legislation through Parliament!
I’m with you Edward.
STV all the way.
Aaah! Therein lies the problem. STV frequently exhibits strong bias towards so-called ‘centrist’ parties, making it no real improvement over FPTP. All tiered preference systems are deeply flawed because of this – when an electoral system favours the least objectionable candidates and parties we usher-in an endless wave of mediocrity while guaranteeing the political status quo (often a dissatisfying experience for most people), even when radical change (such as now with climate change) is required to meet a direct existential threat.
However, no system is perfect or is going to be perfect so my central tenet is the maximum removal of bias. The party system is popular among the Scandinavian countries, and while they all have their concerns and issues (once again, we all have out problems), these are amongst the most democratic, functional and happy nations on our planet. The people of New Zealand seem to be prospering with the mixed member format.
However – 100% agree with you Edward about the need for fully resolving and ratifying such an agreement before an election and any subsequent coalition: the prospect of another five years of governmental stagnation, public turmoil and political inaction must be avoided.
I agree too.
Guys, what is STV exactly?
Try this:
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/single-transferable-vote/
Has any plan for the necessary constituency boundaries change under STV been proposed?
Would the number of MPs in the Commons remain the same?
Would it necessitate moving to a round chamber, or would members seats be allocated to ensure big parties have MPs on both sides of the chamber. (An anti yah-boo measure!)
I will be devastated if there is not a referendum on Scottish Independence before the next General Election is due. In that case, I would expect SNP MPs to be in Parliament for negototiations and votes on the Independence (divorce) settlement and not much else. Our 55 would no doubt scratch Labour’s back in a quid pro quo.
The Tories can go to Hell, but only metaphorically; as an atheist I want their leaders prosecuted on earth so that I have proof that it has been done.
Under that scenario, Labour has overall control in England and Wales but Tory+SNP have blocking power UK-wide.
A S.30 vote for indyref2 in Scotland is unavoidable, Labour will have to concede it.
Depends on whether it happens before or after a Labour change of policy towards PR – now a matter of when not if, given Unite’s change of heart.
Strong incentive for Labour to adopt PR to defend progressive majority in England anyway but there remains some opposition – esp from Unison & GMB I think – which will be strengthened by the realisation that they can win an overall majority in rUK under FPTP even without Scotland. A better LibDem showing would help the arithmetic – a bit more targeted tactical voting perhaps?
Ideally: constitutional reform Act with multiparty support including SNP introducing STV for the Commons, recognising self-determination for the constituent nations and regions of the Union, reforming party finances, extending the franchise to all residents aged 16+, mandating far greater actual transparency and accountability….
I really do. not see the SNP ever siding with the Tories
You can safely rule that out
Just as much as you have to rule in a referendum
Agreed Richard.
It’s Labour who will never cooperate with SNP thereby ensuring continued Tory rule and losing us to independence. A progressive alliance with devo max would be the only possibility to retain the union (though that may be too late) and kick out the Tories.
Let’s see
I’d also argue that many people looking through the pros and cons of the various PR forms would realise that STV is a less democratic option than the open party lists or the mixed member varieties. STV is far more likely to return more Blairs, Browns and Majors – a superficial improvement in the short-term (compared with Johnson, that is a phenominally low bar to set) but awful in the medium and long terms as this system effectively favours centrists. True democracy requires politics to be spoken in many (if not all) tongues; so a voting system with an active positive bias towards one section of the political spectrum is not only going to fail in improving and enlarging democracy to any discernable magnitude, it is also laying the foundations for yet more potential social polarisation in the not-too-distant future.
Electoral bias must not only be minimised, it must also be seen and be understood to have been minimised. Millions of people in the UK remained in poverty and felt their voices attenuated while private interests took-over from formerly publicly owned resources all during our nation’s membership of the EU, while others reaped major rewards in wealth and influence. This inequality – or bias, made the task of the Brexiters so much easier, exploiting this very real injustice in the most mendacious terms that has allowed a serial liar to hoodwink so many into supporting him in the last GE and into the appalling self-harm of Brexit.
If we’re to learn lessons from this and (hopefully) prove ourselves not entirely hopeless (and perhaps even reverse some of the atomisation of society) we must strive to ensure that favour or bias towards anyone in a proposed replacement system for FPTP, is reduced as far is possible.
If Chesham and N Shropshire are anything to go by the LibDems could well do a lot better than this prediction. Big question is will the polls prior to election show enough support for LibDems to get Labour to agree anything on PR before the election? If not, sadly, nothing will change.
Any post election agreement would be bogged down in arguments about which system to use (and the LIbDems may well cave again as Clegg did to Cameron). I would bet a lot that Labour would favour party lists and try their damnedest to stymie anything beneficial to smaller parties, or – you know – actual representation of the people.
There really is no love lost at all between Labour and the SNP. It’s almost the only thing that unites every wing of the Labour party… I agree that it is vanishingly unlikely that the SNP would ever deal with the Tories, but … stranger things have happened … Whatever, in the predicted scenario the SNP really would hold all the cards…
But if neither cooperate with the SNP they have to with each other to suppress Scotland
Is that likely?
Or sustainable?
Fascinating arithmetic – even if second guessing what would happen is as speculative as getting that result in the first place.
My guess is that the SNP wouldn’t support either main party, but use the leverage to allow Labour to form a government as long as they agreed to a referendum within (say) two years. They wouldn’t need to have any sort of coalition, merely agree to abstain strategically to ensure a Labour majority. The potential for PR would be completely passed over, a missed opportunity.
And in that scenario it is almost inevitable that a Scottish referendum would lead to the result Labour would campaign against, creating in effect “Brexit Mark 2” but this time Labour’s fault and allowing the Tories back for another 15 years.
(By the way, what happened to Northern Irish votes?)
What is the SNP stance on PR in the UK as a whole? FPTP does them great favours in Westminster.
They want out of the U.K.
That is their sole negotiating aim
The Scottish Government has worked under PR since Devolution. The SNP has required to work in Government without an overall majority, with one exception (2011-2016), working in some form of modus operandi, with minority parties for most of its period of office. It works, in the way politics has to work, by compromise; better if across parties than solely within a Party; as in Westminster, because that can mean too much power for the PM, or the rise to unoffical power of a faction of MPs within the Party faction.
The problem in Scotland is the Unionist Parties are not at root committed to PR, and it is to be doubted how sincere the commitment of Unionism is to Devolution itself. The Scottish Conservatives pretend to a commitment to the devolution settlement only because electorally they know they dare not propose its demise; its elderly membership however would reduce Holyrood to exercising power over the equivalent of local authority ‘bin collection’ – in a heartbeat; and then devolve that responsibility to local authorities. Scottish Labour are happy to allow the SNP to require to negotiate with the Conservatives over Policy, because it taints the SNP with being closet ‘Tories’; and Labour can go on endlessly nursing their sense of entitlement to consider Devolution a sovereign right of Scottish Labout alone. They are nursing their rage to the edge of extinction. The Lib Dems are committed to Devolution, but their strength of will always bears the indelible imprint of the last Party who successfully sat on them and which ruins their aspirations to power the closer they approach it; and their well known weakness of will always demolishes their basic political credibility. They remain an electoral protest mechanism. This is the system we have.
As to the form of PR. Scotland has d’Hondt because it was all Unionist Parties would accept; because it gives the Party, rather than the electorate direct control. Party in Briain, is everything in politics. This has been convenient to the SNP, which is just a Political Party after all, with all the inevitable flaws. It is noticeable that in Scotland ‘List’ MSPs never have the popular prestige, reputation and respect gifted to directly elected MSPs.
STV would provide the electorate with more control over the elected; but that does not suit Political Parties. Here is a basic problem of Western democracy, that has built a model based essentially on the construction of moving,shifting, unstable factions.
The SNP is in favour of PR for the UK as a whole, as has been stated many times.
For example, this is from 2015, just 4 days before the general election when the polls were indicating an SNP landslide – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-snp-would-vote-to-introduce-proportional-representation-at-westminster-nicola-sturgeon-confirms-10223302.html
Of course it did not stop them (us) celebrating a great ‘victory’ in the 2015 election, from 6 MPs to 56 MPs. Leaving just one each for the Labour, Conservative and LibDem parties.
All I see is sea of blue in England which I think means that it somewhat justifies the oft repeated accusation that there are a lot of stupid people living in our country still voting for the Tories. It makes me appreciate that point of view for sure.
But, it also shows how effective Tory propaganda machine is alongside their rich funders and MSM supporters.
That just reflects the urban/rural divide. The red constituencies are smaller in area but more numerous.
Absolutely agree with you PSR on all accounts.
However, an unbiased (or as near as we can achieve) system of PR would still have an emphatic effect on our political representation. As Richard has pointed out in his OP, polling data is rarely accurate but this is a “Just suppose….” thread. The data from Election Maps UK currently shows popular support by political party as Labour on 38.5% (296), Conservatives 33% (259), LD 10.1% (17), Green 6.2% (1), Reform 4.7% (0) and SNP 4.5% (55), the numbers in parentheses are the projected seat numbers from Richard’s OP from the same source. Were the popular support to be converted directly into seats (the current total is 650) then the composition of parliament would look more like this: Labour 250, Conservatives 215, LD 65, Green 40, Reform 31, SNP 29. Such a direct conversion is not going to be a reality but it does give us a reasonably unbiased view of the number of seats that each party should actually have under a fair system with minimal inherent bias. There’s two take aways for me here: The Tories, Labour and SNP are massively over-represented while parties such as the LD and especially the Greens suffer gigantic negative bias. So even accounting for all of the reasons that you’ve listed, a Tory-led coalition would be a fairly uncommon event – they would have to beg and borrow support and votes from every political minnow from the right and centre to even squeak the smallest combined majority. The thought of having something around 40 Green Party MPs sat in parliament fills me with hope – although I’d like for that number to be higher still. I’d also expect the Labour Party and possibly even the Conservative party to split: a new left-wing party composed of socialists and some from the soft-left and perhaps a new right-wing party of more socially liberal, pro-EU type conservatives.
We’re also back in the situation where when asked “Who would make the best PM, Johnson or Starmer, the latter has a tiny edge over the current incumbent but both trail Don’t Know / Neither – a thoroughly miserable result and true testament to how impoverished our two-party political environment has become.
I am not sure you take account of the fact that the SNP only stands in Scotland…
Any PR system would have to do so
Absolutely Richard – this is why I specified that the translation of popular support directly into seats would never happen – both district and party support require distribution. But I think that my points (and even the numbers to a fair degree) remain every bit as valid: adopting a PR system that has significant, avoidable bias is as bad as retaining FPTP for voter trust, public engagement and democratic fairness. Even should we subtract Scotland from the equation or even look at England in isolation, however we wish to examine the data the trends remain very much the same: the two main parties are vastly over-represented at the expense of other parties. Even the voting intentions reported will be distorted to some degree by members of the electorate intent on tactical voting (STV has distinctly recognisable echoes of this) – an absolutely wretched choice to be feel forced into. The specifics of the numbers was not the main thrust of my argument but the overall trend and how that affects the views and intentions of the electorate was.
To put my concerns into context, I was born and live in the heartlands of the so-called Red Wall and have spent considerable time both listening to and debating with people in my area about our electoral system. Some have told me that they vote for the party nearest to their own views that stand some chance of electoral success – but not the actual party they want to vote for. Many that either rarely vote or never vote (a pretty high number) have multiple reasons for their electoral indifference, one of the most often cited (to me) has been the disproportionate allocation of seats to either one or both of the main parties (how can the Tories – or Labour, have far more than half the seats in the HoC after gaining less than half the votes cast?); equally as often heard is the complaint of ‘safe seats’. After either one or both of these have been given as reasons for their absence from the voting booth, people mention wasted votes and how this reflects that their opinion (and vote) will never count for anything. This last issue, the feeling of being disempowered by our voting system and knowing that it is biased and unfair really rankles deeply with people across the full breadth of the political spectrum. Above all, most people want as much fairness in their voting system as possible. If we really do care about democracy and engagement we must pursue a voting system that minimises bias and this (as far as I can determine) should be the overriding factor in deciding what form of PR is pushed for. I hope that we can learn from the past and how the political class offering no new answers or few partisan differences for decades (the 00’s were an abomination) has played a huge role in creating the support for irrational casues and votes.
Oh, I’m all for PR most definitely but its potential is not what the ancient ‘divide and conquer’ politics of this land wants to enable to be realised I’m afraid.
It will be a brave politician that breaks that mould – but then again, the opposition to PR is only based on the desire to have exclusive right to policy and power.
It does not mean the end of politics – rather it heralds ‘real’ politics – the setting up and production of ‘win/wins’ and proper compromises. And any politician or political party introducing it can still be in the fray so to speak. It does not take away anything other than exclusive executive power.
I think that thinking about PR like this can only lead you to one conclusion: that it is shadowy vested interests probably linked to money and/or outdated notions of class warfare that have stopped PR being realised up to now.
Despite compelling arguments the 2021 Labour Party Conference rejected Proportional Representation.
And therein lies a major problem. Not about PR per se but about the underlying assumption being made here that should the Labour Party under its present management form any kind of Government there will be any pursuit of policies required to improve matters or which are in any way fundamentally different from the present Government.
We are talking here about a faction in the driving seat which not only deliberately sabotaged two General Elections to remove any possibility of a Labour Government pursuing the kind of policies which most people on this site would support and who are at present at the stage of purging en masse the wrong kind of voter and supporters from the Party but also who have already supported some of the worst policy excesses of this Government.
Moreover, the record of this faction of working with others to form a Government is not encouraging. The opportunity arose in 2010 to form a coalition with the Lib-Dems – who wanted PR. That was scuppered by people such as Peter Mandleson, among others, and there is no evidence to indicate anything has changed.
Quite the contrary. This faction are more than willing to be merely the second eleven continuity conservatives and to pursue damaging policies within the existing and narrow Overton Window.
Having alienated their own support base over four decades in the chase for Tory Votes, thinking people in those red wall seats had no alternative, the entity which presumes to be the Labour Party is set to further ruthlessly purge any candidates within its ranks who do not support the present status quo in the UK in the same way it continues to purge its own active support base.
As a consequence, any notion that there will be any meaningful and necessary change in policy, whether it is PR, tax, finance, defence, privatisation etc – from a Labour Government under the present management is unlikely to survive contact with the evidence.
As for the SNP, unfortunately, under its present regime the evidence, recently set out by Craig Murray as well as Campbell himself, is that Stuart Campbell’s money is the safest thing on the planet when it comes to the issue of that regime pursuing independence for Scotland. Indeed, most sane and rational people would not want independence under the present regime for some very obvious reasons. They will lose votes to Alba or non of the above in the coming period as more people suss them out.
I think you are wrong about most in the SNP
I also think the arguments about labour are getting boring right now
Shall we Look Up?
Unfortunately, whether the facts are boring or otherwise are of little relevance to any reality based analysis of where we are – as compared to where we might wish we were.
If we are to effectively ‘look up’ there is a requirement to deal with the complex realities which exist if we are going to adequately deal with whatever form of comet may be facing us.
I think you need to go and play elsewhere
I am interested in changing the world, not Labour in sniping
I think you are wrong about Labour. At conference, PR was supported by an overwhelming majority of constituency associations but prevented by union block votes. Since then there has been a significant change, the replacement of Len McLuskey by Sharon Graham at the head of Unite. Graham has said she will not be attempting to micromanage the Labour leadership and she is also in favour of PR herself. There are fewer and fewer dinosaurs in Labour, many of whom were against PR because it might involve having to do deals with the Liberals and are still bruised by the memory of David Steel’s 1979 betrayal of the Lib-Lab pact. It is only a matter of time before policy on PR changes. Support for it (and opposition to it) is fairly evenly spread across the party’s many factions: but I think there is an age divide, with younger activists being more supportive and the older ones, regardless of wing, being more opposed.
That Conference vote was not a one off. There are not many Conferences of the Labour Party in which the overwhelming vote of the Constituency delegates is defeated on a card vote by the Unions at least once.
Having experience of both Party and Union Conferences, from the floor, the Constituencies are not as well organised and experienced in the processes and procedures as the Unions are. As a result the Constituencies more often than not get outmanoeuvred. The Unions are more disciplined in their approach. Once a majority decision has been made collectively via their TUC caucus they tend to stick with it even if one larger Union might be in the minority.
If the top table had wanted PR it would have gone through this year. The fact a card vote was called, despite a majority of the floor supporting PR, tells you all you need to know. They did the same thing, for example, in 2018 with the reference back from the Constituencies on the cobbled together rule changes around the Democracy review.
Certainly, from some perspectives it might be considered to be a ‘boring’ detail. But we have to deal with the detailed facts which exist. Knowing the comet is there is only half the job. The other, more difficult task, is to how to properly deal with it. That requires recognition of and attention to the boring real world details.
It would help if you stopped taking in riddles
Like them or not, now is not the time to walk away from the SNP: Independence has never been more essential for Scotland and the SNP is the only pro-independence party realistically capable of managing the essential political negotiations to extricate Scotland from the UK in the aftermath of an independence referendum/plebiscite, which is itself essential to demonstrate the Scottish Peoples’ desire for independence. The only other pro-independence party of any consequence, Alba, is tiny by comparison, lacks any mandate or political heft and consists in the main of “yesterday’s men”.
All of this seems pretty obvious and I see no gain in withdrawing support for SNP to get us over these critical hurdles. On the contrary, it would blow Scotland’s chances of gaining the ultimate goal of independence for decades, perhaps for all time, which is not just madness: it’s also a gross betrayal of several generations of dedicated people who have fought against the odds. The time to vote for other parties comes at the first election after independence has been won and Scotland gets to choose its own Government for a welcome change.
Thanks
Of course PR favours centrists, in a British context. Unless a mass brainwashing converts a majority of the population to extremists, which unfortunately does have historical precedents elsewhere, and could just as easily happen to us, then the centre is where the average will fall. In my generation’s Britain, if you were to plot numbers of people against where they identified on the classic left-right political axis, I would expect something like a slightly dimpled bell curve, with twin peaks just left and right of centre, which would be indeed most democratically represented by a centrist government. And I think PR needs to have that centre oriented demographic to work. Try imagining it in America, where the widely separated bimodal distribution between “left” (centre-right to the rest of the world) and “conservative” (far-right elsewhere) allows little scope for coherent and popular compromise. It would do nothing to fix their political problems.
You are right…
Socially libveral
Economically cautious