I have already mentioned that I did an event for West Country Voices last night. The biggest question asked was ‘what can I do?'
I have a suggestion that elaborates on what I did last night. It is that those who support democracy have to act to deliver it, working in cooperation to do so. They should demand from their politicians:
- Active political alliance to deliver electoral and legal reforms to deliver a proper democracy, embody it in society and to provide the institutions to protect it;
- Agreement to work in cooperation if ever these structures are challenged in the future;
- Active agreement to support these structures within the Union and if any country decides to leave it, beyond the Union so that the protection of democracy becomes an issue where support can be asked for and supplied, including by providing extra-jurisdiction judicial support if needed;
- An agreement on a new economic settlement - that we will promote full employment, the meeting of need and the delivery a climate transition within a framework designed to deliver that goal;
- Agreement to enhance accountability so that never again can a party, a person or a government hold the country to ransom to support the interests of a few at cost to the many;
- Agreement to uphold freedom of the individual, the right to free expression without being abusive and of a diverse media that can support the structures of democracy and protect against challenges to it;
- Agreement to support the independence of the judiciary and the right to access the law
Do all that and then there has to be right to disagree thereafter, precisely because that will then be possible.
Why is it so hard to get democratic politicians to agree on this? To get them to do so is vital now if democracy is to survive.
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Excellent list Richard. In point 4, I presume ‘resigned’ should be ‘designed ‘ – not quite the same thing!
Corrected
Thanks
“Active political alliance to deliver electoral and legal reforms to deliver a proper democracy, embody it in society and to provide the institutions to protect it”
We have a proper democracy, and it is protected.
What you really mean is you want to change the voting system because it doesn’t give you the result you want, then make sure the voting system is managed to make sure it keeps your people in power and the party you don’t like out permanently.
So what you really want is to destroy proper democracy and make sure the institutions prevent it.
Which is far more fascist than anything the Tories have ever done.
We have a government elected by a minoroity
They are seeking to reduce the right to vote for millions
And are redrawing boundaries to suit themselves
They ignore the rights of people in Wales and Scotland
And even the right to an election n is down to prime m inisterial whiim
Politely, do not be silly
Your claims are ludicrous
Richard, flatly you are talking self-serving nonsense.
It is just hypocrisy to make all the claims about the government you do then turn around and want to make even more dramatic changes to the political system which solely designed to benefit your side of the political debate.
Literally all the points you make in your original blog past are either outright designed to promote the left or the way you would apply them would be to do so.
Between that, the general authoritarian nature of both you and much of the hard left in general, and the treatment of anyone who disagrees with the left these days, it’s pretty clear that it’s not the current Conservative government we need to be worried about when it comes to fascism and democracy.
It’s people like you and your fellow travellers.
So let’s be clear what you are saying
First, you are saying I am not promote ideas you do not agree with
Nor can I suggest matters that very obviously advance the ideas of all people equally
I may not support the due processes of law
Nor economic policy in the interests of all
Come to that, I must not seek to save the planet
I get your authoritarianism in that case
But let’s be quite clear that if you wish to promote such claims you are no democrat
Indeed, you would seem to be part of the problem I suggest needs addressing
Yes Richard, let’s be very clear on what you are saying. And being clear, you have the right to say them – however authoritarian, fascist and undemocratic they are.
First, you want to change the democratic process to benefit your side, because you don’t consider the current process a “proper democracy”. Probably because it doesn’t give you the result you want, because the Conservatives won.
Instead you want to create a left wing hegemony.
Then you want to legislate (i.e. use the power of the state) to maintain that hegemony.
You also want to create a left wing economic settlement, and force than into law, regardless of any democratic consent from the electorate.
Looking at the language you then use when talking about accountability, you then claim that the left represent “the many” when in fact, they don’t. So basically what you are saying is democracy only matters when it produces the result you want. Otherwise, when the many vote for a government you don’t like, it is somehow illegitimate.
When you talk about freedom of expression in a diverse media, again your language gives you away. What you really mean is freedom of expression if you agree with the consensus of the left. Otherwise I’m more than sure you’d be happy to prevent people expressing any dissenting views – this blog is well known for blocking anyone who dares to disagree with you or point out your many errors.
You cover it in saying that you want to advance the ideas of all people equally – but you don’t. This is a flagrant lie. What you mean is promote the ideas of people like minded to yourself. You say that you want to promote economic policy in the interests of all etc, but once again, that simply isn’t true. Not least because you aren’t interested in any policy which isn’t derived from the left, the state and it’s power. You have no interest in democracy when in doesn’t suit your goals and when it doesn’t put the people you want in power. You even promote the lie that the current system is somehow biased against the left – when the facts clearly show the opposite. It takes far more voters to elect a Conservative MP than a Labour one thanks to massively outdated boundaries.
At the end of the day, you are not a democrat. You are an authoritarian proton-fascist.
All you are missing is a brown shirt.
I am amused to note that you have appeared here with at least four precious identities
A true democrat and accountable approach to representation if ever I saw one…
Hey “Peter”
I don’t normally pick on spelling mistakes but your “proton-fascist” is pretty funny. I wonder what that might be, an ultra-nationalist with a sub-atomic brain perhaps, or neo-nazi driving a Malaysian car?
Behind all that arbitrary, ad-hominem rubbish of yours is a troll who knows full well that Proportional Representation is neutron, sorry, I mean neutral. It is quite rare to find anyone in the western world who would seriously try to claim that it is particle… I mean, partisan, and I suspect that the thing you fear most is a government elected by the majority in a free and fair electron.
🙂
Marco Fante, is it a top-spin or a bottom-spin you are taking on Peter’s comment?
Leg spin, Bernard.
Pete’s a wrong’un.
‘…proper democracy…’?
Democracy, ‘proper’ or not, means rule by the people; in the strictest sense, all of them. Since having tens of millions of people arguing over every issue is wholly impractical, the alternative is representative democracy; which the UK does not have.
A majority (56.4%) of voters didn’t cast their ballots for this government, yet their (43.6%) minority is laughably translated as ‘majority’ in parliament.
We have an unelected upper chamber. It still has hereditary peers and CoE bishops, as well as members who, quite literally, bought their seats. Not to mention chums appointed for favours past and future.
Unenforceable convention is no substitute for a constitution; as this government have demonstrated often, see Richard’s reply for starters.
So please tell us how calling for parliament to more representative, therefore more likely to be held to account, is in any way fascist?
Thanks for making my point for me Drew.
We have a constituency based parliamentary democracy. Each constituency elects an MP to parliament.
Now that it isn’t working for the left, suddenly the left want PR because they claim falsely that a “majority” of people didn’t vote for this government makes this government somehow illegitimate. Forgetting that democracy works on the basis of who gets the MOST votes, not a majority. And pretending that all other parties are somehow allied to form the 56.4%
But let’s not forget this. When Labour was in power no complaints were heard about FPTP from that side. No calls for PR. In fact, Labour were more than happy to gerrymander by failing to update constituency boundaries to their advantage – one which still exists to this day. It just shows how ridiculous Richard’s claims are when evening the size of constituencies back to equal, fair sizes is claimed to be against democracy, just because it hurts Labour – who allowed and promoted this nudemocratic advantage in the first place.
You might as well just be honest and say that you want the voting system changed because you think it will help Labour win.
I am not a member of the Labour party and never have been
I am a democrat
What are you?
It was Thatcher (quoting Attlee) who said that referenda are the device of demagogues and dictators. With all the language of ‘will of the people’. Both as used by this government, and a number of notorious fascists.
Belorus is the only other country in ‘Europe’ to use FPTP voting. Not much of role model.
Proportional representation tends to weed out governments of the extremes – authoritarians of both right and left. Our Peter clearly has not a clue how it works in practice.
And if he wants to see latent fascism, there are a number of check lists of fascist characteristics, which demonstrate how far down that road Johnson’s government has got.
‘Thanks for making my point for me Drew…’
I didn’t.
‘…We have a constituency based parliamentary democracy…’
No, we have a constituency based parliamentary system.
‘…the left want PR because they claim falsely that a “majority” of people didn’t vote for this government makes this government somehow illegitimate. Forgetting that democracy works on the basis of who gets the MOST votes, not a majority…’
Not just the left and the majority of people not voting this government is a fact. Democratic systems come in many forms, some are better than others; ours is democracy in name only.
‘…When Labour was in power no complaints were heard about FPTP from that side. No calls for PR. In fact, Labour were more than happy to gerrymander by failing to update constituency boundaries to their advantage – one which still exists to this day. It just shows how ridiculous Richard’s claims are when evening the size of constituencies back to equal, fair sizes is claimed to be against democracy, just because it hurts Labour – who allowed and promoted this nudemocratic advantage in the first place…’
Whether Labour are in favour of FPTP or not, is neither here nor there. It doesn’t change my view that our system isn’t fit for purpose.
‘…You might as well just be honest and say that you want the voting system changed because you think it will help Labour win.’
I’ve never voted Labour in my life, so I’m not enthusiastic about Labour winning an outright majority on a minority vote either. Labour and the Tories are twa cheeks o’ the same bahookie when it comes to electoral reform.
I’d like stable, if perhaps dull, consensus politics where solutions are reached through compromise; not dogma (left or right) and endemic sleaze.
We do not have a proper democracy, and as the actions of the Johnson regime indicate, democracy in this country is not protected. For a start, my vote has never got anyone elected in thr UK, either as a councillor or MP. Why? Because FPTP means my vote, even if I vote tactically, gets swamped by Tory voters. That’s been true for 40 years.
Richard, and myself, want a proper voting system (i.e PR) that means that a person’s vote actually gets them representation. You’re opposed because you can’t stand the thought that the Tories won’t be in power, or if they are, they would have to share power, and compromise. As in Germany now where the government is a 3 party coalition between greens, social democrats, and a right wing party.
As for protected…are you making a joke? Johnson tried to close down Parliament, the government is legislatin to make peaceful protest illegal, and is also going to bring in voter suppression measures designed, as they know perfectly well, to stop people they know won’t vote for them actually cast a vote. And there are more such measures in the pipeline.
All these pushed through Parliament by a party elected on 43% of those who actually voted, i.e ~29% of the electorate. Some democracy. But yoiur happy with that because as far as you’re concerned ONLY the Tories are entitled to have power. So you are the fascist.
Peter
First of all, thank you for turning up. If you hadn’t just proven that such ignorant and misled people exist, then we would have had to make you up. Except that we wouldn’t of course – because we’re not fascists like your Prime Minister and his MPs.
Either that, or maybe you’re a member of some Right wing group, or member of the establishment keeping an eye what is going on here, maybe a member MI5 with some spare time on his hands – who knows these days eh, in our ‘wonderful’ democracy.
Tell me: have you seen the film ‘Inception’? It’s the story of where a society exists that can implant false memories and dreams in people’s brains.
You and many like you are like the characters in that film. Implanted in you is the false idea that the ‘Left’ in this country is some sort of monstrous entity that threatens our existence. Listening to you and your mates, you’d think you’d lived in a United Kingdom ran along the lines of former Soviet union.
I mean come on Peter – it’s a joke. This has never been a stridently Left wing country – not Marxist or Trotskyist or anything like that. I’d say the most it ever got was to be mildly socialist – and in doing so it gave us the NHS, public housing, education, employment and social security to name a few. Oh – it also gave us a lot stability. Anyhow.
Let’s call that time ‘BT’ shall we – ‘Before Thatcher’.
BT was time where life expectancy went up; income went up, employment conditions improved, the nations’ health improved, people were being housed and companies employed people in their own country and where even in the 1970s wages went up?
Now – what have we had since Thatcher – 1979 and all that?
An endless stream of stock market crashes; declining wages; the beginnings of a huge gap in wealth between the top income and lower income brackets (inequality); a shrinking manufacturing base; centralisation of local government (very communist I must say!) to name but a few.
Sure – there was break of sorts from all this in 1997 when New Labour got in and they did some good things but also kept to Tory right wing policies such as reducing the pensions of public sector workers and keeping to Tory pledges on Government spending and putting ‘superb’ Tory ideas like PFI to use as a crafty way of keeping investment off the Government’s books/PSBR which the Tories got everyone het up about.
And then there was another stock market crash in the unstable stock market – the same stock market enabled by right wing Margaret Thatcher and then in 2010, the Right Wing (not Left Peter!) Tories got in and what happened:
Austerity – budgets cuts over night – millions of pounds of public investment wasted.
The NHS made to use the same level of budget from 2010 to now basically (underfunded).
Tenants made to pay for any spare room they might have in their Council house by cutting their benefits even though there is not enough smaller housing to move down to.
Universal Credit – a system so mean, that pays benefits like wages so that claimants have to take out personal expensive loans before they get their actual money paid, plunging people into debt.
PIP payments and assessments to the disabled – leading to deaths and suicides as claimants are told that there is nothing wrong with them.
Stringent cuts in local Government grants meaning cut backs to social services, social care, housing, policing, environmental protection, food standards, legal services and courts bedevilled by delays.
A reduced life expectancy by one year for men and women for the first time in ages.
A cost of living crisis because amongst other things the Tory Government cancelled gas storage facilities; because it got BREXIT done and screwed up supply chains and the economies of scale provided by EU membership; a failure to deal with the first Covid epidemic. And more deaths. DEATHS Peter! Are you listening?
Stagnant wages and zero hours contracts and record levels of child poverty.
None of this Peter ever fucking happened under a Left wing Government (not that we ever had one) in this country. Is that clear, ‘Peter’.
Yet despite all of this, you seem OK with peddling the myth of the Left as some sort of ‘bogeyman’, when it is the Tory right who has lain waste to these lands.
In the end I don’t know whether I should pity you or despise you because of the way in which you and your ilk enable scum bags like the Tory party and UKIP to ruin this country and its people.
But I suppose it’s not your fault and I’ll reserve my harshest condemnation for those who made you – the Sun perhaps, or the Daily Mail or Telegraph maybe or was it on Youtube – on ads paid for by the Tories or UKIP? Forgive me but there are so many of them these days?
But I will tell you what I think you might be.
You’re a sucker Peter – that’s what you are. Too full of programmed, inveterate hate of an imagined enemy to really understand what is really going on or see that it is the people who made you, you should be having nightmares about.
More fool you.
And woe to the rest of us.
Nice job mate – keep up the good work and don’t let facts get in the way eh?
Sucker. Did you hear me? Yes you Peter! SUCKER!
Absolutely correct PSR. Peter/Paul, either a member of the appalling Tory party, or a complete mug. And your claim that more votes are required to get a Tory MO than a Labour one is totally wrong. Analysis by the electoral Reform Society shows:
It took:
864,743 to elect the lone Green MP
642,303 votes for zero Brexit Party MPs
334,122 to elect each Liberal Democrat
50,817 to elect each Labour MP
38,300 votes to elect each Conservative MP
Care to comment? Or were you just lying?
I suggest you try reading “Against Elections” by David van Reybrouck, it contains very useful descriptions of what we have at the moment. It ain’t “democracy”. The book contains some very useful pointers to deliver greater citizen participation. I’m working on the basis that you would like to see citizens take greater part in government? (or maybe not?)
At the last general election, the electorate has already passed a verdict on the electoral system as one third did not vote at all which was a more votes than the Tories recieved.
“Requiem for the American Dream” by Noam Chomsky is well worth reading.
Might facets of fascism include an increasing centralisation of wealth and power combined with increasing difficulty in having effective contact with those in power?
I am writing from a US perspective in which corporation dictate politics (in the literal sense of dictate as well the metaphorical sense). Those who support democracy should found an organisation that holds corporations accountable to their mission statements and values. Since corporations are so powerful, as an employee I can only influence corporate power by “voting with my feet”, that is, by choosing my employer carefully according to my values. But while it is easy to find information about what corporations say about their values, it is much more difficult to obtain information about how they live up to these values. The purpose of this proposed organisation, run largely but maybe not exclusively by employees, would be to ask questions to the corporations (eg about how a certain contract with a human rights violating subcontracter is compatible with the ethical values promoted by the company) and publish there answers, with a commentary on the factual situation. The organisation could be crowd funded by employees who support democracy (and climate action and human rights, etc).
I have to say Alexander that from what I’ve seen of the U.S ,corporatism is out of control – whether its huge pig farms polluting localities and communities with effluent or the Sackler family and the opioid epidemic, American society (that also has this Left-wing bogeyman mentality like Peter above) seems to be play ground for corporate irresponsibility.
Mind you, they don’t always get away with it and I’d recommend folks watch the film ‘Dark Waters’ about how Dupont polluted the town where it made Teflon and got found out. Real victims of this crime appear in the film as well – a superb and novel idea, keeping things real.
Both Peter and Paul assume that Richard’s proposed changes are for the benefit of the Left. I have to disagree. No one will be able to predict the outcome at this point if a PR voting system is adopted. The major beneficiaries are likely to be the smaller parties at the expense of both the Tories and Labour. I suspect the Tories may still be the largest party with a relatively hard core 30% voting support. The Labour Party would almost certainly split into a Left socialist Party and a Social Democrat Party which would probably merge with the Lib Dem’s. The Greens and Nationalist parties would probably gain the most benefit at the expense of Labour.
The Labour Party continues to support FPTP, although the vote at the 2021 Conference in favour of adopting PR was close; however, this was opposed by Starmer and was narrowly defeated; I believe the UNITE union has now changed its position and now supports PR which could be significant when it is next proposed.
As for the Labour Party being a “hard left” Party, one has to look at the evidence. With Starmer at the helm the Left have been purged ; Corbyn has Been suspended from the PLP; many of the Left have been expelled or have left in disgust at the way the Party is going, very fast to the Right to claim the middle ground. Starmer has abandoned all of his 10 pledges which he stood on for Leader, and Reeves has proclaimed Labour is the Party of Business, not the working classes, or trade unions. The loss of Left Wing members has left the Party close to bankruptcy.
A Progressive Alliance of parties to protect a democratic, accountable system is therefore unlikely to see a shift to the Hard Left, but I would welcome the adoption of Richard’s proposals.
Thanks
While the discussion on democracy is right to focus on it’s current national erosion by a party with a minority of the general election vote, whether an opposition party, aiming to replace it is in itself internally ‘democratic’ does not seem to be much discussed. Labour is currently making sure that it’s leadership not it’s membership should determine it’s policies as it sees party democracy as a hindrance. So should democracy be something that flows from the bottom to the top or aren’t political parties an essential element of it.
Yes, in a word
Our 19 century FPTP is so democratic Zimbabwe uses it but scarcely any Western democracy. Even the old Soviets now use PR. where ever vote counts not just in the marginals. With PR the tories would have 100 fewer seats and LD 87 more. That’s corruption
The frustration I face in today’s Britain, is how it must have felt in Weimar under the government of the Weimar republic. Whereas we of course do not suffer the same economic circumstances that they did, due to the pacts made after the first world war, but nevertheless we are constrained by the de-industriaisation of our economy in favour of its financialisation and lack of public investment, amounting to perpetual austerity by Neo-Liberal politicians that only serve corporate interests.
These ingredients ultimately lead to the same outcomes that eventually gave rise to Hitler promising work and bread to the starving. This of course is not rocket science and only requires a little amount of observation to understand our direction of travel.
Even in Germany today poverty is rising, as the old remedies of austerity have been used to transfer wealth and power to the already rich. None of the lessons learned from the 1920s and 30s have been used to save people from the excesses of the 1%, but have in contrast enabled them to rig the system even more rigidly in their favour. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/30/pove-d30.html
It is one thing to seek improvements to democratic accountability, but before you can even do that we need to take account of people’s mindset. The simple truth is we need people to understand what pressures are being brought to bear that affect all our lives. In case we think that Germany has escaped the trauma that Britain faces, because the are in a better financial state than we are, it should be obvious from the above report, that Neo-Liberal capitalists are exploiting the workers by maximising profits at their expense, cutting and privatising public services. Just as we are doing here, only without the financial constraints we suffer due to de-industrialisation. This historical graph also shows how even with a so called fairer voting system Germany has maintained a conservative majority throughout, and worryingly allowed the far right to gain instead of the radical left, due of course to the influx of immigrants used to bolster racism and prejudice in the minds of voters. The German system has a mixture of first passed the post and a form of PR .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Germany#/media/File:German_parliamentary_elections_diagram.svg
I’ve been watching Germany with interest over the years and I agree with you Mervyn.
I think a more subtle war against German democracy is taking place fought by the Neo-libs of course who even reside at the ECB. I think Germany’s history means that the Neo-lib democracy destroyers are going more carefully but still intend to have their way.
Even some of our French friends look at what Thatcher did to the UK in admiration and think the same thing needs to happen in France.
We are going to be living in world shaped by USA style corporatism despite all the horrors we face.
Speaking of horrors I watched a documentary the other night on Australia’s bush fire season of 2019 . I think that they lost 56,000 hectares of ancient forest that year. The Amazon lost 2.2 thousand hectares and California lost 4.4.
These forest were not only old but even tropical, wet damp places. They were all dried to crisp and then just ignited.
That didn’t stop some Aussies who support coal production to say that arsonists started the fires and it had nothing to do with global warming.
Thank you Pilgrim, I absolutely agree with every word you say. The Weimar Republic couldn’t work its way out of it’s economic problems, because of the burdens placed on it primarily by France, although it might have been understandable given the climate of opinion after the war, it put Germany in an impossible situation using inappropriate Neo classical economics to solve it. Just as we are doing in Britain today.
I really do get a sense here in Britain, of what it might have been like living in those times, where people didn’t understand that there was always an alternative, and how the rich were getting even richer yet people were dying on the streets. With the hindsight of history we know that those supporting Neo-Liberal dogma today, know and understand what they are doing, which is why they are forced to lie and smear people brave enough to stand up to them, it’s their very last tool in an empty box.
The problem we face is the depth of penetration of Neo-Liberals, they have embedded themselves in every facet of our lives, and anyone that speaks out is shouted down or in the workplace lose their jobs. We have been told whether at work or by Neo-Liberal governments, that there is no alternative, that we have to accept whatever medicine that they prescribe and have to lump it, although ultimately it is destroying everything they say they are trying to preserve. A factual example of that is that after every conceivable change made to so say turn an already successful multi national company into a world class leader, with around 3000 plus workers in the 1980s to today with only around 250. They are still making huge profits but lost most of the workforce through downsizing not technology as most would believe.
As Naomi Klein made clear in her book “the shock doctrine”, nothing that is happening to us is happening by accident, and we see the same things repeated throughout the world for exactly the same reasons.
All we as individuals can do is highlight what is happening, and make absolutely certain that Neo-Liberals are recognised for what they are and not what they profess to be.
That wasn’t “some aussies”. It was the Murdoch press and no one else.
So, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves proudly asserts that Labour is now the party of business, Really? Silly me; I had thought Labour was the party of working people, but with a concern for the unemployed, the poor and the sick.
Reeves also told the FT that the Labour Party’s parlous financial state was “another inheritance from the former leadership”, when in fact Labour had £13.5m surplus at the end of Corbyn’s stint as leader; a rather worrying error from someone hoping to be in charge of the nation’s finances. She further indicated that she was delighted that the Labour Party has lost so many members (resignations, expulsions) in the last year or so (more than 200,000, according to some reports), seemingly implying that they were all antisemites. Of course, the loss of membership income means that Labour will become dependent on donations from the wealthy, which rarely come without strings.
I read that in an interview last week the same “rising Labour star” also stated as a fact that the EHRC report had found Labour under Corbyn to be institutionally anti-Semitic. This is completely untrue. The interviewer didn’t challenge the statement.
I look forward to seeing the back of the Tories, but now have few hopes for any great benefit to the UK population at large under this “New-New Labour” party. In economics, social policy and foreign policy there is little to distinguish them from the Tories, which of course is why the establishment might graciously allow them to have a turn in power. Starmer has already rowed back on the pledges he made to get himself elected as Leader.
“If some Tory can just effortlessly be absorbed into whatever Starmer’s Party is now, doesn’t that mean it’s basically the same thing?” was a pertinent comment on Twitter last week. A Tory is made welcome, while a socialist is denied the whip.
What the country needs, as has already been proposed at this blog, is for the non-Tory parties to agree in advance of the next general election to
– support the non-Tory candidate with the best chance to win, in every winnable constituency;
– pledge to bring in proportional representation when elected.
But also required will be a serious investment in media, to prevent being swamped by the hostile “propaganda blitz” that such a proposal will inevitably face.
PR offers a chance to restore some semblance of democratic choice; we would be likely to see a wider range of views for voters to support, or not, instead of having, as in the USA, two main parties, both largely representing the same set of interests.
But Starmer has not indicated that he is favour of PR, and a motion in its favour was narrowly lost at last year’s conference, despite evidence of broad support among constituency members (see for instance
https://labourlist.org/2021/09/conference-rejects-motion-committing-labour-to-proportional-representation/
and
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/30/keir-starmer-proportional-representation-progressive-alliance
So it seems that all we can do is to “keep on keeping on” about it, in whatever sphere each of us is able to operate.