This was posted on Twitter yesterday:
Don't tell me that first-past-the-post does not undermine democracy when that data makes it so clear that it very obviously does.
And no wonder the Greens are angry about this. They have every right to be.
Labour Party members know this and support proportional representation anyway. They did so at its party conference.
Starmer is ignoring them. He is no friend of democracy.
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I persist in my view that Starmer and his Faux-Labour Party are a “clear and present danger” to democracy, decency and the rule of law.
ALL progressives & progressive forces must do all they can to prevent this vile tinpot would-be dictator and his vile Faux-Labour, Party, from getting ANYWHERE near power. He/they wld be a disaster!
Rafael Behr – the fake intellectual token Tory at the Guardian – is full of this bulls**t that Starmer is being clever but also says that voters are wary of ‘big promises’ now.
So, the Tories – by lying – have poisoned politics and Stymied has no intention of changing that so the Tories win again.
So politics becomes a holding position for mediocrity and cowardice all based on lies about taxation and sovereign money.
You ain’t getting my vote Keir.
Fascinating result and one that rather neatly highlights not only just how truly awful the FPTP system is but also the significant defecit in how representative STV is as compared to party-based PR. Yes, STV is definitely less terrible than FPTP but it is not the best (by which I mean most representative of elector’s intentions) electoral system – the open list party-based form of PR would reflect the figures above most accurately.
To put the above data into actual seats, under “normal voting intention” the Green Party would receive 6% of popular support and just 1 seat in the HoC using the FPTP system; under “if all parties could win” that 19% of popular support would equate to 123 seats (its actually 123.5 but let’s not go all King Solomon on MPs) out of the 650 (if I recall correctly) to be contested in the next GE.
I’m not sure you understand STV. It typically produces results that are just as proportional as party list systems. Of course it depends on the size of the constituencies and the number of representatives that are elected from each – multi member constituencies are the key. Under STV it’s normal for over 75% of voters to see someone they voted for elected. And for me, its main benefit is that voters choose who gets elected rather than the party apparatchiks who choose the order of candidates on party PR lists.
That would matter if people voted for the individual. In most cases peole vote for the party anyway.
Party manages the list in de Hont to promote those the Party want elected. The Party can’t manage STV so easily; hence the voter maintains a real element of control over the Party selection process with STV. The proof is Westminster used de Hondt for Holyrood, but will not touch STV with a bargepole.
I find it amazing that 8% would be voting for the Reform party. Two thirds of the Lib Dem vote and on some polls almost even.
In the recent by-elections they only got a few percent. In a general election their support could go to the Tories. If a Try melt down looked certain, it might bandwagon a protest vote.
A PR system gives people a chance to vote for what they believe.
Apologies for putting this up twice:
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” Emma Goldman, US political activist, anarchist and writer (1869-1940).
“If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it” – Mark Twain (1835-1910).
vile-libore stick with FPT because of the above. Nu-Liebore & B.Liar were very happy with a liebore party run by a clique & working for the rich. Ditto Sir Kid Starver & his bunch. If PR in some form was pulled in, this would lead to unpredictable change (& we can’t have that). Likewise, a broad based Liebore party (e.g. Labour under Corby) is likewise a threat since it would start to reflect the desires of UK citizens. As is, the vile-liebore party can not only ignore the needs/desires of UK serfs, it can ignore liebore serfs (i.e. liebore members).
Somehow, vile-liebore needs to be stopped from winning a majority. It needs to be forced into coalition – with a “signed-in-blood” commitment to strong PR. In & of itself, PR will not be a panacea (there are many many problems in, for example, Belgium or NL with PR & stasis) but at least it will stop executive dictatorship.
I presume you are all putting links to this on all social media that you are on.
I find it so hard to persuade people that would never vote tory and don’t want to vote labour that voting for the Green Party is the only thing to do. They’d rather not vote, which is handing it back to the tories.
There are socialist groups who are saying that they will not vote labour unless Starver agrees to PR, but he doesn’t care. He has actually said he doesn’t mind if people call him conservative.
I have retweeted the original tweet
I have previously made comments regarding PR. It would be a game changer. The data illustrates how unfair the current system is. It makes me angry. The Tory party has lost support due to its spectacular incompetence. It is in chronic decline due to changes in age related voting patterns and PR would ensure that we would not have a Tory led government in the foreseeable future. A progressive alliance becomes possible notwithstanding current Labour policy positions. Our flawed democracy needs urgent reform including a greatly reduced and elected upper house and an elected head of state.
I will only vote Labour to get the Tories out and even then it will depend on whether there is any chance of beating the Tory where I live as it is one of the safest FPTP seats they have. If it clearly looks like the Tory will hold the seat than I will not vote at all as I’m not interested in my vote just making up the numbers, or being used to justify FPTP (i.e the Tory view will be if people are still voting then there isn’t much wrong with FPTP).
Now, like others I find Starmer leaves much to be desired. His version of Labour needs to understand that simply holding the fort and playing Tory lite until the inevitable return of the real Tories can and will only lead to a further shift to the right. If and when those Tories get back in, you can say goodbye to the NHS, state schooling, the public sector in general, it will be finished. What Labour created after 1945 will be laid to rest if the Tories ever get back in.
The fact is though, only a Labour government can ultimately change us from the undemocratic FPTP to PR. Lib Dems are not going to win outright and neither are the Greens. I hope that if and when they win, Labour will not sweep under the carpet the fact that the wider party is now in favour of PR. I think the wider Labour party understands that PR effectively destroys the Tories, after all, who would want to work with them? The DUP and Reform and that’s it.
Here are four things that would enhance our democracy and really get up the nose of the Tories.
1 PR
2 Reduce the voting age to 16
3 Mandatory voting with a “none of the above” option on the ballot paper
4 Allow those that have settled in the UK from the EU to vote.
5 Abolish the House of Lords and have a reformed democratically elected second chamber
If we ever had PR I would most likely vote Green, although I would also like to think that Lab and Lib Dems would finally be genuinely progressive once freed from being neo liberal yes men and women under FPTP. All my life I have lived in seats where it has been pointless to vote for what I really wanted, because of FPTP. My vote would have been a “wasted vote”, just making up the numbers. I would like to be able to vote knowing that it actually counts and has meaning.
Thanks
I’ve just noticed that I can’t count. I wrote four changes when I meant five. Not being able to count, I could probably get a job at the Treasury.
🙂
Providing, of course, that we could still have Prem Sikka in the reformed Lords. Assuming that he wants to be in and doesn’t think he’s done his job by then.
there are quite a few people I’d like to remain in the Lords at the moment. The Lords is about the only element of parliament that are doing a reasonable job of holding the government to account at the moment.
I’d prefer a partially elected Lords, with people with expertise in their fields directly appointed. Get rid of the hereditaries and bishops and the political honours in the gift of the PM.
Set a minimum age limit and a requirement to attend a minimum number of sessions…
The problem I feel with a fully elected second house is that of the fact that the present chaos in the commons is partially due to really poor selection of MPs, who then get elected on the strength of campaigning skills rather than ability to do the job, amateurism and a very hazy idea of how parliamentary democracy is meant to work. A fully elected second house could just land us with more of the same.
(this isn’t fully thought out. Just ideas off the top of my head)
Thanks
A Second Chamber would benefit from an element of ex-officio membership; which is what it was originally (and the old unicameral Scottish Parliament); not as a modern anachronism, but to flush out the powerful institutions/Lobbies that actually manage and manipulate our lives. Easier said than achieved, but it is crucial these institutions are obliged to answer and account to the people, and they prefer to lurk, with intent, quietly manipulating government from deep in the shadows.
Your last paragraph describes my situation exactly MarP. And seeing the figures produced by Stats for lefties is both fascinating, and enraging. Much as we sometimes attack some of the electorate for apparently endlessly (in England, anyway) voting for the appalling English right, thes figures show that as things stand now, given a fair voting system, the Greens would get only 2% less share of the votes than the tories.
In other words, people DO care about global heating, and most aren’t mindlesly right wing. And yet, we’re stuck with FPTP and the consequences of 14 years of increasingly awful right wing government. Labour’s collaboration with the tories in preserving this state of affairs is a disgrace; how can it even be regarded as a progressive party if it refuses to change to PR, and refuses to be in coalition with other parties, something that is commonplace in many other countries?
Blair dropped the promise of voting reform the moment he got in 1997 due to the size of his majority, and that was an absolute disaster, as it led to the current rabble holding onto power through FPTP. And Starmer seems keen to emulate him. I’m not going to bullied by labour’s wretched argument that voting green is a wasted vote anymore, I’m voting green unless something drastically changes befroe the next GE. I’ve tried tactical voting here, and it didn’t work anyway.
@ sickiftaxdodgers
Thank you for your comment on Blair’s shameful, pusillanimous and unconstitutional behaviour over the Jenkins’ Report.
I resigned from the Labour Party after the 2001 GE over Blair’s behaviour as a matter of conscience, and only came back when Blair was gone.
In 2001 I’d been a member of the Labour Party since 1988, had split a Tory Ward to put Labour in power in L.B.Barnet for 8 years, from 1994, and had only been beaten by 3 votes on the 3rd ballot to become PPC for Hendon.
So Labour was very important to me. But Blair’s handling of Jenkins’s flawed proposal was UTTERLY shameful.
Pusillanimous, because PR IS the only way forward from the dead hand of pseudo-advesarial politics that is in fact oligarchical politics within Chomsky’s VERY narrow band of permitted difference, with everything outside of that band deemed deviant and/or extreme
(a judgement that ignores just HOW deviant and extreme that narrow band has become – just consider Sunak and Starmer, both of whom are extreme reactionaries)
Unconstitutional, because once such a proposal was in the public domain ONLY the British people could decide the way forward – or at the VERY least, a TRULY free Commons vote.
But I believe only a Referendum would have sufficed, which Blair, at the height of his then reasonably benign powers (not having yet then become the malign force he became and continues to be – yuk!!). No one Party, and certainly no one man, even if PM, had the right to kick the proposal into the long grass, as Blair did.
AV+ had a lot wrong with it, but it would have been a start, that I believe could have morphed into a more fully PR system such as Ireland’s STV, and could have been improved in several way such as:
Fractionalising the AV element.
It’s always seemed wrong to me that a 2nd choice equates to a 1st. So I’d award ½ a vote to a 2nd choice, a ⅓ of a vote to a 3rd choice, ¼ of a vote to a 4th choice etc.
If this made it hard for anyone to reach the 50% required by AV, fine. Just run the election again, but between the top 2 contenders.
Gender Equality
With 650 constituencies, it would be simple to join together 2 constituencies into one, producing 325 constituencies, in which there would be an all-male list, and an all-female list, guaranteeing that EVERY constituency would have both a male, and a female MP.
(There might also be mileage in allowing a Deputy MP to be elected to the Speaker’s constituency, to ensure the needs of rhe Speaker’s constituents were met. Such a Deputy would vote as instructed by the Speaker, when the Speaker actually votes. The Deputy would follow the wishes of the Deputy Speaker or The Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee on such occasions as they were in rhe Speaker’s Chair, but expected to vote – a rare occurrence, I believe).
Thanks
Your 5 things to improve democracy in Westminster sound remarkably like Holyrood with the exception of #3 – mandatory voting. It’s proved to be fairly popular with the Scottish electorate since we get a government which approximately reflects the voting of the people – I say approximately as the d’Hondt PR system is designed to prevent any one party gaining a majority (although marginal majorities can and do happen occasionally). The Tories don’t like it as their chances of ever forming a government here are slim and indeed the SNP are unhappy that their percentage of seats is generally lower than their share of votes. On the other hand d’Hondt ensures that we get the politics of concensus, which many think is a welcome contrast to the baying adversarial behaviour in Westminster. From the voter’s perspective what’s not to like about the government having to discuss and agree/negotiate its proposed legislation before it can become law. Compare and contrast with Westminster where a government that got 43% of the votes cast can get 56% of the seats in the Commons.
I agree – the point of PR is that it forces consensus style decision making geared to solving problems going forward to the future rather than asserting the power of identity groups harking backward to the past. It is an entirely different way of doing business – one might say a different culture – and it comes with a difficult transition. But I would say it’s our only hope of avoiding what will become a global conflict due to climate change.
Ken, as an Englishman who’s utterly sick of the Westminster braying rabble adversarial mess, and who’s been disenfranchised his entire life by FPTP, I couldn’t agree more. I’ll give Blair some credit for getting devolution off the ground in Scotland; pity his idoit party couldn’t reform Westminster properly at the same time.
Me Mathieson, de Hondt was used to preserve the power of Party over the public in Holyrood. Devolution via de Hondt was a totally cynical Party manoeuvre. STV is a form of PR that ensures power stays in the hands of voters and dishes Party (which only ever serves its own interest). Here is reality. There is an argument being propelled by our toxic, manipulated media that referendums are bad news. They stoke only division. This is a Party plant in the media; as always. Party IS division. It is all they do. It is the system. Here is how it works. Remember Dominic Cummings? The outsider won the Brexit argument. Became Chief of Staff. 10, Downing Street with Boris Johnson as the Front of House Braxit gopher and PM. Where are they now? Nowhere. Gone. Who is running Brexit and the Government as usual? The Conservative Party. And as they are so toxic they fall over, there is Labour to run Brexit (and the Union); because Brexit and the Union is the only way the Party duopoly can stay in power. Division? There is none between Conservative and Labour on Brexit and the Union (the elephants in the room). They make up divisions between themselves to keep the Party system show on the road; like the Jeremy Corbyn punch-bag routine, or who will mismanage the household budget with greater incompetence. Party Is division. It has nothing else to offer
In reply to John S Warren’s post at 12:30pm on the 14th, I fully understand that d’Hondt was selected by Labour precisely to prevent the SNP ever gaining a majority in Holyrood, but it still trumps the FPTP alternative. It’s somewhat telling that, given their commanding position in Scottish politics at the time, Labour was prepared to accept coalition minority government rather than risk an SNP landslide victory under FPTP or a more representative PR option. I’m not a member of any political party, but I suspect the SNP would welcome a switch from d’Hondt to a PR system which better represents the actual voting pattern.
I also understand your dislike of parties controlling politics, but how would politics function on a practical level if every elected representative has his/her own personal stance on any given topic? How would coherent policy decisions be arrived at without collective governance along party lines? Like you, I wish Scotland to become independent to fully realise its considerable potential, but can’t see how the essential negotiations to secede from the Union could be conducted without a party approach. Like them or not, the SNP is the only party capable of fulfilling this role at present and we can’t risk widespread splintering before independence is gained, so it’s a case of holding one’s nose when voting. Once independence is gained, the first election will provide an interesting debate when all political views have a chance of competing to form a government.
I understand the Party problem. I do not pretend to an answer; but that is why a PR system that doesn’t serve Party first is crucial. Our politics depends on Party more than anything. That makes Party toxic and dangerous. The problem is our approach as voters to Party is tribal, and that is catastrophic for the system. The only way to make a party system work for the voter is for the voter to use them, but never, ever trust them: and can rely on a PR system that keeps the voter in power. The tribal Party system is not democracy. First rule of politics – never, ever trust a Party or a politician.
Ken asks “how would politics function on a practical level if every elected representative has his/her own personal stance on any given topic?”
This goes to the essence of politics, which is a society’s attempt to arrive at an acceptable compromise among the multitude of opinions, needs and desires of a population. Clearly not all views are opposed to all others, so where there is alignment, a common approach is possible. This leads to the formation of parties.
But not all views align on all topics. I may agree with 70% of yours, be prepared to go along with another 15%, but violently disagree with 10%. Parties constrain their members and particularly those elected as representatives to complete uniformity on all topics. If representatives were free to have and express their own opinions, of course politics would work,but it would need representatives to work harder to achieve the goals their constituents elected them for. No bad thing.
It would also be a good idea to make it easier to vote. Such as:
Voting over several days with at least one of those days being a public holiday.
Workplace voting especially for emergency workers who may not be able to get to a polling station.
Voting in hospitals or care homes for patients who cannot leave the institution to vote.
I realise some of this would be difficult to implement but it is important that everyone has an opportunity to vote, especially if voting is made compulsory.
FPTP is exclusively in the interest of the Conservative and Labour Parties. Nothing else matters to them. They will never, ever willingly change the system. What really counts in the British system is not actually democracy; but Party. We have a system that is in its essentials an adversarial system that has only one way of resolving anything; Party and absolute majority
An idea:
Commons – 300 MPs by PR every four years [party has to get minimum of 1m votes to qualify for seats]
Lords – 600 Consituency MPs by STV. 150 stand for [re-]election each year.
– Commons MPs have to live near parliament or stay overnight in an [outsourced] travelodge. 2 days in the chamber, 3 days on committees/ministries.
– Lords MPs conduct governing business via remote logins 2 days a week. Focus on constituency work 3 days a week.
– If the governing party in the Commons change leader, a new election is called.
– MPs are paid average wage while sitting, getting the rest of their pay at the end of each parliamentary season [4 years].
Advantages – separation of governance and constituency work; better hours for MPs [probably]; chamber unlikely to be as empty as it is most of the time; no more second homes; governing party get a proper punishment for dumping a bad leader, leading to better choices of leader [I can hope]; people’s votes actually matter; more likelihood of independents being elected to parliament [Lords]; fewer politicians.
I think reform of the HoL could be the opportunity for some really creative thought. I don’t have a template but think I would like to see a variety of routes in, and perhaps varied lengths of tenure (eg: direct election/ election by electoral colleges for particular kinds of representation / perhaps some ex officio). With/without party endorsement and – for the particular kinds of representation and ex officio – subject to periodic review. No hereditary. Unless someone can come up with any kind of argument that I’ve never yet come across.
@ Nicola Gunn
You remind me of an essay on Parliamentary (actually, effectively, political) reform, in which the expertise contained within the HoL would be captured by directly democratic means.
I MUST finish it, and expose it to the light of day, to be shot to pieces and then refashioned by the intelligence of critics to meet the need, but what you say touches on, and resonates with, what I have in mind
An elected second chamber – be careful what you wish for.
I found Isabel Hardman’s “Why we get the wrong politicians” very convincing (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39968298-why-we-get-the-wrong-politicians)
Already we have one chamber where MPs are herded through the lobbies to vote for laws they have neither read nor understood. A second flock of sheep would be little improvement.
Can I float a suggestion?
For a member of the House of Lords to vote, they would have to give up membership of any political party. They could retain their beliefs, but there would be no effective sanction if they went against a party line.
Peers who wished to retain their party affiliation could keep their title and stand as MPs.
The system for selecting peers is awful, but I remember a peer some years ago saying, you had to remember that whenever you got up to speak in the Lords, there would always be another peer who knew far more about the subject than you did.
I would be interested to know what the effect of a fairer voting system would have on turnout. There must be quite a lot of people who don’t bother to vote under a FPTP system but would vote if there were some sort of PR.
I think that is true
I’m damn sure it has the effect of suppressing the turnout, especially for left wing voters. The tories must be delighted by labour’s abject stupidity and selfishness in clinging onto FPTP.
I prefer ranked ballot. In our polarized world we need to create a bias for respect for all the voters and opponents. In the past decade PR seems to have facilitated polarization.
Secondly ranked ballots reflect how most executive decisions are made – majorities are operative in legislatures, boards, executives, supreme courts. The notion that a vote does not count is misleading. If a supreme court judge votes on the losing side, the vote did not count. If a MP votes on the losing side, the vote does not count.
In Canada the NDP was in a great position in a minority government, but the leader chose measures that he hoped would benefit his influence. It backfired and the antithetical party won.
Ranked ballot gives more power to the people to set the agenda. PR gives ambitious egotistical leaders more power, and sometimes very fringe parties disproportionate power as per Israel. https://thewalrus.ca/fake-left-go-right/
I also think that all parties should be equally funded from the public purse. That way out side money does influence the election procedure, also media should be tighter controlled during an election for the same reasons.
Neither of the two main parties will accept a change to PR voting as it will very likely lead to a split in their parties. One Nation centre-right Tories will split from the far Right Brexit faction that dominates today. Much the same will happen on the Left Meanwhile both Greens and LibDems will gain votes. Parties will have to compete on their merits and policies. Like pretty much every other serious democracy, coalitions will be the norm which will force a greater degree of consensus.
Or we can carry on as is, like Belarus with more pageantry.
I like that
Belarus with more pageantry
Too right, Belarus with pageantry is not a bad description of the UK, only instead of being a client state of Putin we’re a client state for corrupt plutocrats who’ve plundered their own countries, and hard right ideologues and media magnates like Murdoch.
All enabled by the tory-labour Westminster duopoly.
While we are on the subject of reforming the voting system, I have never seen why convicted criminals should be denied the vote. Anecdotal evidence gleaned from having taught computing in a prison suggests that changing this would slightly favour the Tories. Ironically the Tories would be the most vociferous in opposing such a change. The main argument I would make in favour of allowing prisoners to vote is that in a democracy everyone should have a fair say, even those we most deplore. Added to this, if we are serious about rehabilitation of prisoners voting would a way of allowing prisoners to participate in the wider society.
To John S Warren on tribal parties.
I see no evidence that PR fixes that in countries with that tendency such as Israel. A ranked ballot requires a platform which will attract more people on the second vote. Like a leadership race, the rent balance lets the voters form the consensus on who should lead in any one riding.
You are right. Party defaults automatically to tribalism; and toxicity, and often corruption. That is really my central point: you can’t trust Party. Party corrupts – everything. Nevertheless, nobody has a substantive democratic alternative. Hence my recourse to fudges to make the whole wretched fake system work as best we can. PR and resistance to trusting the incipient scoundrelism of Party and it’s desire to tribalism is non-negotiable. It ain’t easy ….
Over the last 25 years or so both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have failed to take opportunities to reform the electoral system for the House of Commons.
The Labour Party’s 1997 election manifesto promised a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. They set up the Jenkins Commission but kicked its conclusions into the long grass and reneged on their manifesto commitment.
The Liberal Democrats should have refused to enter into the Coalition government with the Conservatives without a referendum on electoral reform based on some form of proportional representation. They settled for a referendum on the Alternative Vote, perhaps the only electoral system worse than first-past-the-post, and certainly not a form of proportional representation.
It is these failings which have enabled the Conservatives to hold power for so long, and to damage this country so badly, when there is a natural left of centre majority in this country.
Unfortunately I can now foresee a Labour government, under Keir Starmer, repeating these mistakes, and eventually letting the Tories, with their minority support, back in again.
I agree with your conclusion