As the Guardian noted yesterday:
British democracy is being “warped” by an unfair system for drawing constituency boundaries that ignores millions of “missing voters” and hugely benefits the Tories, according to a new study of official data.
The suggestion is a simple one. It is that parliamentary seats have been created not on the basis of the number of people living in an area, but on the basis of the number of registered electors in a place.
The result is obvious. Places with low numbers of registered electors, whether that be because there are large numbers of children, or significant numbers of mobile people living in an area for short periods, or because there is poverty, which is often associated with low voter registration levels, are being under-represented in parliament.
The Guardian makes clear that this is most unusual. Most countries do not do what we are doing. They create constituencies based on population figures.
So why might we be using a different basis? Might it be because it heavily favours the Tories?
Because Labour MPs tend to represent those with lower voter registration figures, each Labour MP requires 114,0000 people to be elected. A Tory, under this system, requires 97,000.
The result is obvious. The system biases the Tories. It is estimated that they will gain 22 seats they do not deserve as a result.
This is gerrymandering. Tory corruption reaches far and wide.
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The real problem is surely the widespread lack of engagement with our broken political system.
Although it would make sense to even up the populations of the constituencies, those not registered to vote will still, by definition, not be represented.
Our Govt. and opposition parties should be working hard to fix this dysfunctional “democracy”, rather than manipulating it for their own ends.
You are wrong. Of course “engagement” is a major problem; but the democratic system should not be pre-selected to bias toward the engaged; and that is what you are defending.
Democracy is fundamentally an issue of entitlement to vote, and that the vote counts equally to all other votes (as near as can practically be achieved). The issue of engagement is important, but secondary. People are entitled to be disengaged, but the system is not entitled to erode their entitlement to equal treatment simply because they are disengaged (for whatever reason).
I disagree John S Warren. I don’t believe our current FPTP system is very democratic, but I can’t see how people can be represented in any electoral system if they don’t express their preference by voting?
I did not mean to imply that the system is “entitled to erode their entitlement to equal treatment”, but it is difficult to represent people if they’re preferences have not been expressed.
In the system we have, it should be the responsibility of those that want to be elected to make politics relevant to the electorate, such that they know what they are voting for and can make an informed choice.
I think I have made my position on the unsatisfactory nature of FPTP often enough here, not to be accused of supporting it; when nothing I have said leads to that conclusion. A system that is biased exclusively toward those who vote encourages the promotion of FPTP by political parties. The combination of FPTP and voter only bias is completely undemocratic.
You do not give any consideration to the reasons people do not vote. It is this combination of constituencies biased to voters, and FPTP which is especially pernicious, and encourages people to give up voting – because their vote will never count. People may also not vote because they are not prepared to back any of the political parties offered (I lived in the South of England for over ten years (1990s-2000s). I do not trust either the Conservative Party or Labour, while the Liberals are frankly supine.
I went to Court in England to have my name removed from the electoral register as a protest; it failed – you cannot do it without penalties – but I articulated my case clear in Court, myself). This should not mean non-voters are not entitled to be taken into account in the electoral system. I shall not go on to discuss those who have fared badly in society, or feel alienated, and do not believe their vote would ever produce anything for them or who support a Party that will never send an MP arm that constituency (they are effectively disenfranchised from political effect as long as they live there); or those who simply believe the whole political system is corrupt (who could blame them?). Your answer is to exclude them all because they don’t vote.
The fact is the proportion of the electorate that actually votes in elections has declined. Nobody believes anything a politician says. They voter, almost exclusively viscerally in consequence – this is where the voter only bias in the end leads us. In spite of protests to the contrary the major Parties love the present system, because they can rely on a long lived backward-looking, regressive gerontocracy to keep them in power – forever.
You can call your argument whatever you like. It isn’t democracy. It is rigged to perpetuate the status quo of deeply suspect and unreliable political parties which only have a single agenda; survival in power, at any price.
@uninvited guest “I don’t believe our current FPTP system is very democratic, but I can’t see how people can be represented in any electoral system if they don’t express their preference by voting”
I think you are equivocating over the meaning of “represented”. In one sense I am represented if I have, as a matter of fact, taken part in the election of a representative. In another sense I am represented if I have equal opportunity to participate in and my vote counts the same as anyone else who is participating in such an election.
It strikes me that an electoral system should be so designed that, as far as possible, everyone in the electorate is represented in the second sense.
John S Warren I think we are arguing in different directions. I do not defend the FPTP system, I am not even convinced by the idea of “representative” democracy. I agree that the system is rigged to perpetuate the status quo, and true representation is rarely, if ever, observed.
My point was one of logic. How can people be represented if their desires are not expressed? The people you describe, that are cynical about, or have rejected the system (count me among them), cannot be surprised that it doesn’t represent them, nor are they likely to expect it to.
I apologise if I have raised your ire unnecessarily.
P.S. John S Warren – I did not mean to imply that you supported FPTP, I was expressing my own doubts about it.
No offence was taken. My issue is with the case you made. I think Mr Hurley crisply and elegantly dissects your argument; with an economy my argument lacked.
Our democracy has been taken over wholly by political parties. We play their game; and their game is wholly about them, not the voter. Nevertheless, they do not own democracy and we must never forget it. Your position entails the implicit acceptance that they do own democracy, de facto. Every single person who is entitled to a vote is entitled to equal representation (a system that puts them first, not a political party’s interest first). Either we place people at the centre of our system, or we do not. We have the system we have solely because our system does not put people at its centre; but places Party at its heart. It is a tainted system in consequence.
100% agree. A recent tweet by the brilliant @ByDonkeys says it all…
“Our broken electoral system has delivered a disproportionate number of Conservative party victories, even though they haven’t won a majority of the popular vote in any election since 1935.”
The resulting Tory corruption, sewage in rivers, an over-powerful financial sector, over-powerful press billionaires etc. etc. are all just symptoms.
The disease is FPTP.
It is indeed Stephen. And which so-called progressive party has encouraged and aided this, and enabled the appalling tories to nearly always be in power by refusing to change FPTP on those occasions it’s been in power, and refusing to ever work in coalition with other parties to overcome FPTP’s massive bias to the tories?
And which has a leader, who, incredibly, despite the vast majority of his party now wanting FPTP replaced by some form of PR, still refuses to contemplate changing it?
Labour, of course. The tories’ best ally in the destruction of (what’s left) Britain and British democracy.
Absolutely sickoftaxdodgers, I would never vote Labour for that very reason.
Labour have been (and very much still are) complicit in every disaster the Tories have wrought in the UK.
This has been going on since at least the Attlee government (if not before) who was denied a second term because even though he got most of the popular vote, the boundary system meant Real Labour got less seats.
I don’t know what has been going on with the Boundary Commission or how it works. Would I be fair in saying that it likes to keep out of the limelight?
There are quite a few lawyers serving on the BC at the moment. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? And appointees are appointed by the Lord Chancellor no less – whoever that is at the time. Hmmm…………
The Speaker of the House should lead on the Commission’s work, but actually does not get involved (!!!) (according to their website) and this is left to the Commission’s Deputy Chair (who at the moment is an ex-judge).
The three leading commissioners all have declared land and property interests in their respective areas (this could be their own homes of course, but a little more detail would be welcome).
18 assistant commissioners were appointed by the SoS for 2023 review. A SoS of one of the most corrupt governments ever.
You can read their minutes etc., on line, FWIW. It all looks normal and legit to me Too normal and legit to me. If I had the money and the time I’d start by digging into these ‘worthies’ who populate the Gerrymandering Commission.
Thanks
Sadly, I’m only surprised that gerrymandering is ONLY 15 to 20%.
If the Conservatives are voted in again (unlikely I hope) then I assume they will go the way of Republicans in the US and increase gerrymandering. Indeed they are already doing so with the recently introduced requirements for voter ID. This is unnecessary, because there is very little electoral fraud (and there are better ways of countering it), but it does favour Conservatives.
The worry is that we are reaching a tipping point where it is no longer possible to have a fair election. I hope I’m wrong.
Elections lately are cosmetic in that no matter which of the major parties you vote for you get Neoliberal. In that sense, fair elections are long gone already.
The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt MP has just stated categorically on BBC Laua Kuenssberg that he will spend whatever it takes to fix the RAAC school problem and guarantee that all children potentially affected are not faced with any health and safety problem.
Think about that. Nothing about ‘there is no money’. Nothing about budgets. Nothing about unsustainable debt. He admits he doesn’t know the cost. He doesn’t know the cost of the guarantee. He gives the guarantee. He doesn’t know how much he will have to pay.
How does he do this? Because he knows ‘there is no money’ is never true for government. The government can always find the money. To fight a war. To save the financial system. To save the banks. Above all – to save the government.
Why is he giving the guarantee? Because he is trying to save the Government and Conservative Party. He will find the money if he has nowhere else to go to save his Party’s political skin.
It is all laid out before you in one piece of spin and crisis management by an unscrupulous and failed political party fighting for its survival; and to cover the disaster it has created. The biggest disaster was selling the ”household budget” idea to a gullible electorate.
Spot on John
I tweeted these points when I heard him say this.
I have given up on Twitter. I wondered if Musk had really decided he wanted, not Twitter, but the alphabetic letter ‘X’? Will I find if I use the letter ‘X’ carelessly, that I am open to a lawsuit for using a brand-name without permission?
Only twenty five letters to go and the billionaires can silence us forever.
🙂
Guardian now reporting that Treasury sources have slapped Hunt down. Any expenditure must come from existing budgets.
No books, kids! We need to fix the roof!
I might have a theme for a blog in the morning
19.37 Guardian psots
But hours later, Treasury sources briefed that any such funding will come from the Department for Education’s existing budget for buildings – and not from additional funds.
Whitehall sources said schools, academies and local authorities forced to bus their pupils to alternative sites will not be given extra cash either.
I see trouble ahead.
Austerity might finally hit public opinion head on….
We may now see the entertaining spectacle of the Chancellor at war with the Treasury. Wonder who’ll win? Meanwhile, the nation as a whole loses and that’s a situation which shows no sign of changing…
If I may underscore the utter incoherence of Hunt’s interview; Kuenssberg challenged him on the fall in spending on schools, and “not fixing the roof” from 2009, Hunt’s response was that the cuts were caused by the financial crash and Labour “running out of money”. He ran out of money with the National Debt <£1Trn. Now, with the National Debt £2.5Trn (+150%), he is giving a "whatever it takes guarantee" for a problem he has no idea what it will cost. To be clear, that cost could be in £Billions. He does not know how many public buildings in every area, are affected; for a suspect building material that was used 1950s-1980s. It stopped being used by structural engineers because " the strength of RAAC wasn't standing the test of time" (Sky News).
There has been 30+ years to handle this problem, yet Hunt is relying on the lack of evidence of immediate failure before acting. The problem here is that Austerity was applied in 2008 for ideological reasons, when the real answer was to save money by taking wise long-term decisions on building regulation and maintenance. Austerity destroyed both, and the costs and sufferings are worse for everyone, and worse financially because the deterioration is now our of control. We can begin to put this RAAC-austerity regulation, inspection and maintenance catastrophe together with Grenfell and cladding to see the horrendous cost of Hunt's neoliberal austerity that is inflicted on the country. The cost is social, human – and disastrous requirements to spend far, far more than austerity ever contributed to saving. We can add that to the cost of austerity to pandemic management and the billions wasted because Public Health had been starved of resources when the pandemic hit; and the same for the NHS. Watch Hunt through the Kuenssberg interview. It is incoherent. It is nonsense.
Agreed
It was dire
The Government has now backtracked on Hunt’s statetement. All repairs are to be funded out of existing budgets. Evil bast….
Today the Guadian has reported that, as Chancellor, Sunak was told that due to a critical risk to life 300 to 400 schools needed replacing. Sunak agreed to 100 and later cut the budget to 50. Not their fault?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/04/england-crumbling-schools-rishi-sunak-repairs-civil-servant
The sooner we get an electoral system that allows people to have a meaningful vote on policies rather than partys the better and more healthy our democracy will be.
Progress measured against manifesto commitments should be what determines future governments.
The Tories are redrawing constituency boundaries to suit themselves – Quelle Surprise! It’s hilarious that the Boundary Commission think they perform a worthwhile function. I can’t work out if they are just deliberate political stooges or just useful idiots.
This is also a symptom of our broken FPTP electoral system and is part of a wider strategy to induce voter apathy – the Tories also benefit from people not voting. How often in this country do you that voting is “a waste of time”, “changes nothing”, and “they are all the same”? The lowest turnout in 2019 was Kingston upon Hull at 49.3%. In local elections, it’s even worse. If everyone who didn’t vote, voted, it could change the political landscape. Yet, I don’t think I’ve seen any campaigns from the main voting reform pressure groups to improve voter participation more generally. It strikes me that if you really want to engineer political change in the UK, this is a huge missed opportunity.
The Republicans have been doing this blatantly for years in the US. As ever, our right wingers learn from them. So far we are slightly more subtle in our methods, and rely on the canard that we are a fair and tolerant nation, historically the mother of parliaments etc. But what the Guardian has reported above is shocking.
The Guardian did a very detailed and quite clever analysis of the US situation here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/12/gerrymander-redistricting-map-republicans-democrats-visual
Every day the news brings us yet more information on the dismantling of our society. (The article in today’s Observer on the touting of driving test is another case in point.)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/03/an-absolute-mess-learner-drivers-forced-to-buy-tests-on-black-market-as-companies-block-book-slots
This last issue seems particularly absurd – why is the government allowing a black market to develop?
Blackmarket?
a) the impact is mostly on young people,
b) mostly, young people don’t vote vile-tory,
c) it’s an agency that runs the driving test – vile-tories can say it’s the agencies fault,
d) blackmarket? perhaps the vile-tories see it as free enterprise? & if it is a problem – then the agency needs to fix it (would be the vile-tory view).
A consequence of the vile-tory & mini-me vile-tory (Labour) plan for smaller gov, coupled to on-line booking allowing chancers & grifters to de-fraud ordinary people.
These infalted prices will, of course inflate GDP but not wellbeing.
Typoically Tory.
Because when it’s sufficiently developed it’ll have funds to share with the Tories who will keep underfunding the state system to keep the whole mutual backscratching circus up in the air. Underfunding state systems so a grateful private market can develop is the Tory M.O..
Absolutely. It’s clearly a problem that could be solved by adapting their online application software to control mass bookings. Why have they not done this? It’s a government agency, not an outsourced service (for the time being) and completely under the control of Department of Transport.
Cui bono?
Your question is the right one.
Bth my sons are trying to et tests right now – and it is a nightmare
It seems it is not just votes which gerrymandered.
I watched Hunt on Kuenssberg this morning and saw him claim that “we heard on Friday that our GDP was 0.6% higher than before the pandemic, which is better than France, Germany, Italy and Japan.” Then I checked and the BBC website showed a different picture.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66269947
inflation is higher and OECD we are with Germany the lowest. Germany has had to switch to more expensive liquified natural gas.
I appreciate different organisations measure things slightly differently and a politician is going to be selective but I just have this feeling he is lying to us.
If Hunt’s mouth was open at any point in the interview then you’re probably right.
Luckily, Kuenssberg was there to point out he was talking nonsense. I mean, I didn’t see the show, but I’m sure a journalist who was until recently the BBC’s Political Editor after a spell of being it’s chief political correspondent must have been on top of her brief enough to point out he wasn’t telling the truth?
She was more aggressive than usual today…..
The Right in many countries aim to rig the system to their advantage. They need to do that really as (in this country) the Tories are despised by large swathes of the population (see Phil Burton-Cartledge’s brilliant new book ‘The Party’s Over’ – buy it now!), especially by younger and working age people.
One of the (few) very smart and farsighted policy proposals from Labour is to expand the electorate – including 16 and 17 year olds and EU citizens. In fact, all legally resident persons in this country should be able – and encouraged – to vote.
I’m a big supporter of PR – which has the potential to transform politics, but (with the adverse demographic challenges the Tories face highlighted above) I hope to enjoy watching a Tory beating at the next election that they will never recover from.
I agree with these ideas
Votes for 16-year-olds olds already a thing for those living in Wales.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/16-and-17-year-olds-secure-the-right-to-vote-in-wales-today/
There have also been discussions about increasing voter participation above. One solution is to bring in compulsory or mandatory voting (They’ll fine you if you don’t vote in Australia).
https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-turnout/compulsory-voting
What would the Great British public make of that I wonder?
Sixteen year olds have the vote in Holyrood elections. Sixteen year olds voting establishes the voting habit early, and therefore is more likely to encourage more people to exercise the vote.
One of the striking problems of low voter turnout is that only 24% of the registered electorate actually voting in the 2019 election produced an 80 seat majority for the Conservatives. Well, that’ll do the trick. Of course the Conservatives prefer that as few people vote as possible, or are in constituencies where they will never live to see a vote in which their choice of candidate ever represents them; and the country is represented by candidates chosen almost exclusively by a gerontocracy, living in the past (or at least ‘a’ past, that never actually existed). The conservatives thrive as turnout falls. The Conservatives would shed artificial tears and wring their hands in the TV studios if the GE turnout fell to 40%; and then, to quote Thatcher’s command to the British people: privately “rejoice”.
I have heard it suggested that in Oz you get a “None of the above” option so spoiling ballots is unnecessary – can anyone confirm or deny?
FAO Bill Kruse. No evidence of a “None of the Above” option in Oz elections, but plenty of examples around the world. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/None_of_the_above
Reading the UK section is quite revealing. There appear to be many organisations campaigning to make this a thing. Not really sure how this is going to make the world a better place but everyone has to have a hobby, I guess.
Democracy is not a hobby.
Potentially a “None of the above” could make a vast difference to politics especially a large number of voters chose it.
First it would have an effect on the moral status of any mandate a party claims to have.
Second since those who chose this option actually do vote it would motivate politicians to find out if and how they could motivate these people to vote for them.
Third it could stimulate pubic discussion of policies that no political party offers.
Agreed
I think when it comes to voting reform, the big prizes are: Changing the voting system to make it fairer and more representative, increasing voter participation, votes for 16-year-olds and repealing legislation around compulsory ID. I find it a little odd that people would devote so much time and energy to adding a None Of The Above option to ballot papers.
Having said that, It is arguably the easiest for our elected representatives to deliver. It is, after all, just adding another box to a ballot paper and recording the results.
I’m glad that Duncan has posted this because after reading ‘uninvited guest’s’ contribution I was wondering why they considered that UK residents who were not entitled to vote, such as the under 18s and legally resident EU citizens weren’t entitled to any representation.
Government is supposed to promote the wellbeing and interests of the whole population, not just registered voters.
I must admit that I’m quite taken with the idea of the Australian electoral system where voting is compulsory. The fact that they have ended up with governments as appalling as ours in recent years doesn’t necessarily indicate you’re likely to get a more representative government (I blame the malign influence of the Dirty Digger), but it would surely improve involvement which must surely be good?
Mariner, you neatly undermine your own case, all within one neat paragraph. Do you really think it is an advance for civilisation to compel people to spoil their ballot, or vote for some disreputable political party you wouldn’t trust as far as you could throw a refrigerator?
If you talk about forcing people to vote, the right will cry “dictatorship!” That’s the immediate soundbite you have to anticipate and counter.
Plus, forcing people seems the polar opposite of democracy, and advocates end up looking like hypocrits, which undermines their credibility. And implementing it also might help pave the way to more dictatorial policies, processes and/or behaviours.
If you talk about PR, the right will cry “Hitler!”. That’s the immediate soundbite you have to anticipate and counter.
Digital voting might help increase voter turnout. Yes there is a security concern, but it could be mitigated with multi-factor verification.
Reducing the voting age might help.
Not having constituencies might help, and/or removing the link to seats. Whichever party gets the most votes, wins. Rather than whichever gets the most seats.
I wonder if having a “revoke your vote” option might help with voter participation too. So you vote, but you can revoke it at a later date e.g. if the party or MP you voted for does something you disagree with.
If we could revoke our votes, it might help us feel like we have more skin in the game throughout the electoral term, rather than being restricted to ticking a box once every five years.
The criteria for being able to revoke your vote would need careful consideration but it might reduce the chance of lethargy and apathy building up, and empower people to take part more readily, and not feel stuck with the incumbent or status quo, which I think can enable voters to fall asleep at the wheel.
The politicians would of course hate it. At the moment they have a very cosy five-year job guarantee, unlike the rest of us in the working world. If they knew their voters could revoke their vote, it might encourage the MP to think much more about how to serve and protect their voters’ health and wellbeing.
There’s no 100% guarantee with any voting system with regard to it ensuring everyone votes and that all votes are equal and have equal impact.
All have flaws and risks and some are riskier than others. It just depends on what your values are and goal is. If you value fairness and equity, you’ll design a voting system to effect that. If you value bias, exclusion and inequity, you’ll stick with what we have.