There are three facts that should be dominating political discourse at present.
The first is that both our leading political parties have collapsed into factionalism. The Tories are, despite already expelling significant numbers of their Remain MPs, still engaged in massive faction fighting, which looks unlikely to cease for some time to come. Labour has expelled hundreds of thousands of members, and some MPs, to remove from its ranks anyone who might be described as anything very much left of centre. Instead of being broad churches, both parties are now intent on being very narrowly focused, and express indifference to anyone of another opinion to whom they might have once appealed.
Second, neither party seems to think there is anything very odd about this. The idea that these parties should now be narrowly factional in their concern - and largely introspective to achieve that aim - seems to all those engaged in promoting those factions within both parties to be entirely appropriate. Their chosen modus operandi is to operate on the basis of the exclusion of oppositions, contrary ideas and even the desire for discussion. If there is one thing that both parties now share in common, it is their dedication to a singular view. The only difference between them is that Labour is, at present, proving itself better at imposing this seemingly totalitarian approach to party management.
Third, and this is what really matters, is the fact that this approach to politics might suit those who are engaged in it, but it is wholly unsuited to the needs of a United Kingdom where there have always been two major party politics and an electoral system suited to that fact but where, if large numbers of people are to be excluded from the two leading parties, those people are denied an electoral voice as a consequence.
You can have as many singularly focused parties as you like within a proportional representation (PR) system, and electors can choose between them.
You can also expel factions, knowing that they are likely to form new parties if you do so when PR is in operation and not deliberately deny voters choice.
But if you operate in a two-party system, the reform of which you refuse to contemplate, and still want to lead a party with a very narrow focus of interests, which very obviously refuses to consider any alternative ideas, and demand that it alone be one of the two options on the ballot paper that most electors must choose between, then what you are actually saying is that you no longer believe in choice, democracy, or the significance of the ballot box in determining political outcomes. Instead, you think that the ruthless pursuit of power within your party is the right way to determine national fortunes.
I appropriately describe Labour. I also appropriately describe what most in the Tories would love to see happen, except for the fact that they have not as yet worked out how to be rid of most of those that they do not agree with.
This is the sorry state of the politicos we are now presented with by the Tories and Labour. It is not democratic. It is not representative. It is not broad-minded. It is instead narrow, insular and suited only to those able to play the rules that apply to internal party management, which ability provides no indication at all of any ability to actually manage a country, council or anything else.
The solution is very obviously radical electoral reform so that we might become a proper democracy.
But that is the last thing either Labour or the Tories want.
We are in trouble.
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Absolutely.
I have supported #MakeVotesMatter for a number of years to that end.
The other massive reform required, is how Parties / MPs are funded. While funded by ‘donations’ from people/companies/foreign interests, bias and corruption will always naturally arise and rule in the favour of the few.
Thanks for your efforts Richard.
It is not the electoral system, Its who stands and who gets elected!
Currently, The political world is so toxic only crazy people stand.
We elect the party who makes the most credible, but impossible, promises, and then suffer 5 years of them being unable to fulfill their promises.
Would the electorate vote for an honest politician? Only if commentators such as yourself and all the others who criticise government give them coverage. When do you see coverage of Green Party, Reform, WOTE or any of the other parties that seek to transform?
People don’t vote for these other parties because under the current system, they have virtually no chance of winning. A vote for one of them is essentially a wasted vote, until we have a system where every vote can count, instead of 70% of votes counting for nothing because they go either to someone who has already won, or to one of the losing candidates.
Might it be that this unstated exclusion policy also weakens democracy by increasing the need for money from the wealthy as exclusionism reduces the number of members and, consequently, their financial input?
Might this contribute to.a general political movement to the right?
Not if we oppose it
My view is that this is correct – this is how we got BREXIT as far as I can see – it was millionaire’s pet project or dalliance as well as maybe the odd rouble or two coming from you know where.
Exactly. Iirc the stats showed a 10% increase in leave votes in areas most affected by austerity. These disaffected voters were captured by this oligarch class causing the wholly unnecessary Brexit.
Whatever voting and funding system we have, it should not be chosen by politicians.
I entirely agree, but we had a referendum offering the option of PR and the electorate rejected the idea. Do you think the result would be different now or in the near future?
I’m afraid I’m not convinced it would.
For some reason, defying all the evidence that landslide elections lead to bad governance, we are persuaded that a hung parliament is the worst thing that could happen and would lead instantly to the downfall of the British Empire. It suits too many wealthy vested interests to keep this silly delusion alive.
Incidentally if we’d had PR I don’t think we’d have had Brexit. The dynamics in the major parties would have been so different ……. we could have had a UKIP party instead of it infecting and hijacking the Tory party. Having UKIP in Parliament sounds like a bad thing, but would have been matched by similar numbers of Greens and arguments would have been aired properly…………..but that’s water under the bridge and now, as you say, we are in trouble.
Andy mentions the referendum on PR in 2011, but the choice offered to the electorate was FPTP or Alternative Vote (AV), which wasn’t much of a choice. I remember investigating AV and concluding that it didn’t offer much of an alternative. I suspect many of the electorate didn’t understand AV or, more to the point, weren’t aware that much better PR alternatives exist but weren’t on offer in the referendum. The result was a vote to continue with FPTP, just as Cameron had planned.
Andy also mentions the widespread belief “that a hung parliament is the worst thing that could happen”. Somehow the majority of the electorate are convinced that coalition governments must be avoided and yet they have been made to work in numerous countries around the world. Indeed elections in the UK’s devolved nations employ PR and their electorates seem largely happy with the outcomes. So why is it essential that the English must have a winner and the devolved nations, numerically deprived of a meaningful voice in Westminster elections, must put up with the FPTP outcome when they can see that the consensual politics of Holyrood and the Senadd better reflect their electorates’ views? This incongruity is ultimately likely to lead to the dissolution of the UK. I’ve deliberately not included N Ireland in this as it’s a total outlier where a single, intransigent party is able to disrupt and prevent democratic governance purely to protect its perceived “right to govern”. That the UK is prepared to tolerate this speaks volumes about its disinterest in democracy.
Your analysis seems spot on.
It is very worrying.
We do need radical electoral reform.
PR is a possible solution. There are lots of forms of PR. My anxiety about them is that they sever the link between constituencies and representatives.
I’d like to propose a radical alternative.
Instead of electing all MPs in a “big bang” every 5 years, we could elect them continuously.
One way would be to choose a dozen MPs a month, at random, perhaps by lottery, to face a “constituency election” (much like our current by-elections).
No MP would know how long they had before they next faced the electorate, which might curbs some of their excessively ideological ideas.
The make up of the government would slowly change over time. For example the current government has run out of (sensible) ideas and is very unpopular. At present, under the proposed system, it would be losing many MPs each month. It would not be long before the government changed.
And, perhaps it would reduce the polarisation of politics caused by our current general election system.
We clearly need radical electoral reform. Perhaps we should think more “out of the box”?
Jersey has something vaguely approximation to some of that
I am not completely convinced
I read the Electoral Reform Society page on Jersey (https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/jerseys-new-electoral-system-has-first-outing/), but couldn’t see anything about continuous elections. They seem to have periodic elections as elsewhere. But perhaps I’m missing something.
What did catch my eye was their adoption of “None of the above” in districts, where candidates who would otherwise be returned unopposed. If the none of the above gets more votes then the election would be re-run.
This seems similar in a way to the UK FPTP system. Here, because of the polarised political system, we can’t choose our first choice because that would let someone we didn’t want in. This a particular problem for people like me who definitely don’t want Conservatives, don’t want Labour (for the reasons you have eloquently espoused), and don’t want LibDems either (their policies seem to vary depending on the part of the country, and they can’t be trusted after their coalition with the Conservatives). Maybe I could vote Green – but then that would be a wasted vote.
So, a none of the above option, which would be a very simple change, might help to break this deadlock.
I’ve even considered standing as a None of the Above candidate, whose sole policy would be to resign if elected.
Whatever, we desperately need electoral reform, it can happen (as in Jersey), we should be open to new ideas and not give up hope or optimism.
My point is they never have general elections where all seats change at the same time
I am not convinced that is a good idea
There needs to be opprtu nity for debate and stability, each in their turn
I thought what could work was if we had an election every year, but you vote for a party rather than a candidate (who would still be defined before the election) individuals could only vote every five years (One way of managing this would be, in a country like the UK where the voting age is 18, you would vote if your age ended in 8 or 3- 18, 23, 28, 33 etc) and the actual final vote tally that defines who wins the seat would be the total count of the last five years’ worth of votes.
There are perhaps questions to be asked about what happens if a candidate changes party affiliation either because they left or were kicked out and exactly how that can work for independents, but I do think you’d see seats change hands more often as parties’ popularity waxes and wanes, and would also enable people to vote for smaller parties without worrying they’re going to hand the seat to a party they’d rather not.
Jersey has had “everybody” elections since 2011 (2011, 2014, 2018, 2022).
Then I stand corrected
I’d add that the French system of having a second round of voting (if not candidate gets >50%) for the first and second place candidates.
Plus reform of donations.
The BBC would hate it. What would they do without the election night circus?
No way. Here’s Sean Danaher on Progressive Pulse, commenting on the disaster of Cameron’s outright win in 2015.
“Even in Ireland, with a best-in-class voting system (as judged by the Electoral Reform Society), Proportional Representation (PR) with a single transferable vote, some people feel disenfranchised”
(SEE https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/single-transferable-vote/)
We need to move over from FPTP to STV ASAP – preferably yesterday.
Jenkins tried to keep the simple 1 MP per constituency link with top-ups in his AV+ proposal.
It was a desperate, but ultimately flawed, attempt, though Blair’s scandalous, pusillanimous and unconstitutional (ONLY the British
could decide the way forward by Referendum) kicking of Jenkins into the long grass led me to resign from the Labour Party, and only come back when Blair was history (alas, Dracula has risen from the dead!)
The truth is that in MMS constituencies, you can CHOOSE which Member to approach, who will probably be the MP you actually voted for.
The 1-Member/constituency link is largely mythical, especially when you may strongly disapprove of your MP. And never forget Barbara Castle only got elected to Parliament because she was in a two-member seat, and seen as a useful extra!!
Two last points: first, I came back to Labour under Gordon Brown, as I felt more comfortable with him (Labour got the granita agreement the wrong way round, and Broen should have been Leadet and PM in 1997, IMO, with Blair being allowed to take over later – preferably MUCH later, as it turns out!!)
I also felt Brown was more ready to accept PR. Had he included PR in the 2010 Manifesto, I believe he could have won, perhaps only in coalition with Non-Orange Book Lib-Dems (pure headbangers, alas!), or maybe outright with the help of Lib-Dem voters anxious for PR.
Secondly, on Richard’s characterisation of the political duopoly, I no longer regard either Starmer’s Faux-Labour Party, not Sunak’s disorganised Faux-Tory Party as proper political Parties, but as both being virtually criminal conspiracies against the public, as having both been captured by malign corporate forces and finance, intent on governing in the interest of the 1%.
They EXACTLY fit Adam Smith’s comment
“LPeople of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices…. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary”
Both Faux-Parties have become such malign assemblies.
Prof Danaher’s analysis is spot on. And you are entirely right about multi-seat constituencies.
The notion, prevalent in the UK, of there being some kind of sacred, almost mystical, connection between a constituency and an MP is risible, self-interested can’t. As you point out, you can approach the representative you voted for. What are the chances of getting a question raised in parliament by govt MP on a matter that the govt didn’t want to know about? Near zero. Always having a choice is excellent.
Other advantages include being to vote as you wish, not simply to exclude the worst / least preferred / greater of two evils candidate; more civil, less extreme politics, as all candidates seek preference votes; and results that more closely match the views and votes of the electorate (no massive majority and cart blanche based on a minority of votes).
The argument against PR, that it leads to weak govt, claptrap, predicated on the idea that strong govt (commanding a, large majority) is necessarily better. It isn’t. A license to ride roughshod over others is never a good idea, and the ability to do so unaccountably is worse. FPTP simply produces coalitions within parties and they may not be any more stable or strong, and where they are resistant to compromise they typically represent minority tyranny.
The German version of PR (‘additional members’) preserves the concept of local MPs. Voters have two votes: one for their local candidates, and one for the party they support. There is no obligation for the two votes to match.
In brief, FPTP is used to select local MPs, then additional seats are allocated from national slates to balance the overall parliament to match the results of the party votes. That seems to be an excellent solution. New Zealand has a similar system. The results in both countries suggest that it works well.
Thanks Kim SJ for pointing that out. Sorry for having taken so long to respond.
The German/New Zealand systems do seem a big improvement over the UK FPTP system. I would be happy to adopt something similar here.
However, I do have reservations about national slates. In New Zealand these are chosen by parties that are registered by the electoral commission. This has two problems. First it provides patronage to their party, often the party leader. In my view such patronage should be minimised in a democratic system. Secondly it militates against independent candidates. In my view a democratic system should encourage independent candidates to minimise the polarisation into political parties.
I propose that a better system would be, rather than draw the additional seats from a party slate, to select additional seats from the losers of the FPTP vote. For example, party “Alpha” would field candidates, some of which may win seats in the FPTP. The losing candidates for the Alpha party would then be ranked according to how many votes that won in the FPTP ballot. This ranked list of losing Alpha party candidates would constitute their party slate, and their additional seats, if any, would be allocated strictly in accordance with the number of votes they won. This, it seems to me, would limit party patronage and thereby increase democracy.
But what about independent candidates? I propose that all independent candidates be classed as the “Omega” party, even though they may have very different views and policies. If an independent candidate won in FPTP then they would obviously win a seat. But, even if none of the independents won a seat, there would still be the possibility of them gaining an additional seat. I think this would encourage independent candidates and thereby increase the diversity of representation in the parliament.
Other commenters are right to point to the funding issue. When the Tory party split over the Corn Laws – and was out of power for a generation – it was only superficially about policy – it was really driven by the divergence of interests in its power base (between landowners and ‘capitalist’ entrepreneurs). Similarly, once the franchise was sufficiently wide, it was inevitable that the old Whig coalition would collapse, and be replaced by Labour – coming directly out of and funded by the labour movement – because industrialisation had produced, essentially, only 2 great political powerbases: capital and labour.
Financialised, globalised capitalism has shuffled the funding deck again, exporting workplace-based exploitation around the world and bringing to bear exploitation by financial instruments (rent, debt, IPR, etc) in the asset-rich developed world. The Tory Party has therefore been captured by ‘investors’, not entrepreneurs, which is why it can say ‘Fuck Business’ – it’s back to its rent-seeking roots. The labour movement’s traditional organising around large workplaces and the local housing estates they needed no longer works – and its much harder to organise against exploitation that is personalised, behind-closed-doors – even if Thatcherism and mainstream media had not eviscerated the trade union movement.
There was a moment, under Corbyn, when it looked as if organising online might create a new funding coalition for Labour, centred on a mass-membership power base, but Starmer has now obviously turned back towards the US model – both main parties funded by and representing (different aspects of) big business. Is this sustainable? Given what’s happening in the US now, I’d say no.
Very true. The economist Michael Hudson has done lots of excellent work showing how this rent seeking is counter to capitalism and will lead to feudalism.
I think I’ve just read another compelling manifesto for Proportional Representation – a very good one.
Enjoy your coffee.
And yet Labour Party conference passed a motion to introduce PR at General elections. So it ‘should’ become policy. Of course what the membership want and what the leadership are prepared to deliver are often at odds. I suspect if Starmer gets his majority, it will be spun as tacit approval for the status quo and electoral reform will be kicked into the long grass. A hung parliament on the other hand, might facilitate electoral reform a bit quicker.
https://labourlist.org/2022/09/conference-passes-motion-urging-labour-to-introduce-pr-for-general-elections/
https://labourlist.org/2023/10/electoral-reform-proportional-representation-fptp-labour-conference-2023/
Whilst you are correct in your assesment of the lack of democracy in the UK, reform will not work until you have refomed the media. In the UK, and almost certainly, the west in general, the media has become a weapon of the very rich (the same people who control politics). It was used to good effect for Brexit, against Corbyn, and is being used to supress any dissent about Israel’s conduct in Palestine; and will be used against any reforms that might challenge the current political system.
To that end, until we get a truly independant press/media regulator, with powers any reforms will simply be thwarted.
The only time I have not cast a vote for Labour since the early 1970s, until last year, was when the Liberal manifesto proposed PR, so I am definitely in favour of PR. But why do so many advocates of PR spend so much time devising their own pet schemes to confound the voter with no evidence to show how or why these would result in a better outcome, when PR variations around the world are available to cite?
Whatever we end up with *IF* we get PR at any time, I do think it is worth considering compulsory voting (with fines attached to the compulsion, see Australia) with the the proviso of the vital choice of “None of the Above” on the ballot.
I agreew with your second para