Snapshot of _A few months ago, i wrote to my Labour MP regarding proportional representation. Here is the response:_ :
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I think the only real chance is a lib dem - labour coalition, labour by itself is a bit too comfortable being the *de facto* opposition to risk electoral shake-ups, although they sure would have my vote if they went for it
The Lib Dems wanted, and always wanted, STV.
AV was the middle-ground the Tory party forced them to accept as a referendum question. The Lib Dems achieved quite a bit but they had to concede some of their points to gain others.
They were never into AV. They barely campaigned for it knowing full well it wasn't a good system. But it's the only thing Cameron was willing to consider putting to referendum.
You could argue that Clegg should have put his foot down but they were the minority party in the coalition.
AV could have been a stepping stone to further reform. Sadly the Lib Dems were too distracted by making people poorer and eroding public services to realise this.
A fair point but the most recent and high profile example has been the Lib Dems. I guess Labour was smarter in only promising to look at electorial reform without making much of a commitment. But yeah, a plague on both houses imho.
I constantly see the same two defences of the FPTP system.
One is the link between MPs and their constituency. Sound enough in theory, but if an MP is threatened with having the whip removed for voting against party interests then I feel that MP ultimately represents their party, not their constituency.
The second is the "strong and stable" defence, which is literally no defence at all. It's an admission that the system gives more control to a minority party for a 'stability' born of not having to bother working towards a consensus with other parties.
Not only is this second point inherently undemocratic, it doesn't even provide the supposed stability they claim. One only has to glance at the volatile, self-sabotaging factions within the Conservative and Labour parties to determine as much.
It's simply past time for FPTP to be replaced with a system that's more representative and democratic.
The idea of coalitions being inherently bad is a weird one i dont understand.
Denmark uses a PR Party list method and has coalitions. It is hardly the chaotic nightmare these people claim.
It doesnt really stand up to scrutiny imo
It's doesn't seem like he's saying that coalitions are inherently bad, just that they're not inherently good either.
For what it's worth Howarth is also my MP and I think he's pretty crap.
To be fair at least this looks like an actual thought out response. I might not agree with his reasoning, but at least these are actual view points.
Compared to other MPs who literally just copy and paste some nonsense leave it there.
It is a thought-out response; it almost certainly wasn't him who wrote it. From experience one of his staffers will draft it, quickly check that he's happy with the underlying content, and then send it back out. I don't blame MPs for working like that given the volume of correspondence and all the other crap they have to do, but it's pretty vanishingly rare for someone to draft responses to constituents himself.
I recieved this response a day or two after my initial email, over the christmas break.
I highly doubt staffers were working at the time.
So while i dont agree with him, big props to the guy
We basically do have coalitions now anyway they are just unified in public behind the red and blue banners. The different wings of each party still try to exert control in the same way minor parties would do in a more visible coalition
The difference is you know what the coalition is before the election and it runs on a single manifesto. This is preferable to a system where coalitions form after the election with no obligation to any manifesto
Manifestos serve as a statement of principles, but at the end of the day, they have to be reconciled with the rest of the democratic landscape - other parties - and the always changing conditions of the world to which the manifesto is built around and intended to apply.
Ultimately, you elect representatives to represent you and your values in the political space.
Coalitions are the only real honest and transparent way of doing this.
First-past-the-post merely obscures this behind the machinations of internal party factions and decisions by party leaderships, while emphasising voters in marginal constituencies at the expense of many voters elsewhere, who become effectively disenfranchised.
The benefit of PR is that voters can more clearly see the dividing lines and have a greater say in them through their vote, which tilts the balance behind different parties and representatives who ultimately end up around the coalition negotiating table.
That's better for voters and parties: a more open, transparent, and honest politics.
The key thing is that those votes were made knowing coalition negotiations would happen.
Under PR, party representatives outline how they intend to approach coalition negotiations, specifying policy priorities and ruling out working with particular parties or agreeing to certain policies.
Voters therefore put their trust in representatives to negotiate on their behalf to get the best possible deal for their party and its voters. And likewise, voters can see and understand the positions taken by other parties, giving them an understanding of how negotiations are likely to go. This is *representative* democracy in action.
It's fair to say that this process is democratic, and significantly transparent, even if, like any system, it isn't perfect.
By contrast, it's hard to see how FPTP is any better.
Under PR, there's an election campaign where a range of parties have open conversations about a range of policy issues and afford voters a spectrum of choice for who will represent them in coalition negotiations and potentially in government.
But under FPTP, all of that is instead obscured behind internal party processes and party leadership decisionmaking, with a bias towards voters in marginal constituencies, whose choice is in any case typically limited to being between the lesser of two evils, meaning many don't actually wholeheartedly back the manifesto, and certainly don't have a hand in writing it.
And, of course, the vast majority of the time FPTP means that government is fully controlled by a party which represents only a minority of voters, typically nowhere near the majority.
The result is that the manifesto that is implemented in government only has the support of a minority of voters, and even many of those voters will not support significant parts of the manifesto - they just opted for that party over the only viable alternative.
It's hard to see how that's democratic, nor indeed how that's much more transparent than PR.
If 10%of the population wants a green party and they end up being kingmakers then so be it. Youd acknowledge as well that if coalition is a real possibility pre election (such as in most mature PR nations) then you have your major policy points you need to see through.
Yep. The compromise is behind closed doors within parties, where the proportions of power are decided by unaccountable means. You have little say whether you get a ERG brexiteer, a Johnson populist or a Tory moderate as the Tory candidate in your seat. Or a lefty socialist or a centrist labour candidate. You get what you're given and unless you join and put serious effort into engaging with the internal selection processes you have no say in that.
Surely most people would want to have a chance for their vote to be towards someone who represents their values, who would have a voice proportional to their support in discussions of compromise between the different factions. There could still be a room for a centre left meets social democrats coalition but it would be given a mandate of compromise by proportionate voices of the different interests.
Compromise between parties is way more openly democratic than compromise within parties.
You don't even have to look beyond the UK to see that PR and coalitions are not the nightmare that some make them out to be.
Labour decided to adopt PR for Scotland, Wales, and the London Assembly. Howarth, a Labour MP, likely even voted for the legislation that enabled that, as he was in Parliament at the time.
Nobody is calling for those polities to adopt first-past-the-post, because all things considered, they work well, having had multiple coalitions.
And, of course, ironically enough, the party most opposed to PR, the Conservatives, proved that even Westminster is fully capable of operating an effective coalition over five years from 2010 to 2015, regardless of whether its policies were right or wrong.
And the major parties openly portray themselves as broadchurch coalitions of sometimes opposing views. Our major political parties are already coalitions except the coalitions are formed behind closed doors.
ERG and momentum are both so far removed from the central edict of their respective parties that they would be obvious candidates for forming separate parties under a true pr system. Except were currently view for Tory or Labour yet potentially end up with an erg or momentum government.
I think the idea, and what your MP was getting at, is that coalitions governments can sometimes lead to a decrease in the number of decisions made; whereas majority governments typically pass through more legislation.
It's not unusual for MPs destined for cabinet to know nothing about their constituencies and just be parachuted in. Their defense for the "weakening of the link" already happens in all but name.
The pro's are that they don't need to think about getting back in power so can play long term - they don't have backers or speical interest groups they need to stroke so in theory should be looking for the best interests of the people
Downside, we have no say in who they are and can't control them or if we disagree with their vision put a diffrent monarch into power (generally - short of a civil war)
....I don't like the short termist goals but I'm not sure we want to put someone in control of our country just because they got pushed out of the right womb....
Constituency link is a nonsense these days. I live in one constituency, work in another and spend leisure time in a third.
I only have democratic representation in the one where I spend, potentially, a minority of my time if you discount the time I spend being unconscious.
It's a really bizarre argument from Labour, who only get a solid majority in very rare occasions.
If we had PR, and, say Lib-Dem had supported the Conservative party, Partygate would have been over months ago as LD decides to no longer support the Conservative government.
>if an MP is threatened with having the whip removed for voting against party interests
And therein lies the link between the constituency and party politic.
>It's simply past time for FPTP to be replaced with a system that's more representative and democratic.
I (mostly) agree- bring in P3CF voting. Increase representation of those that keep everything going by doing something like weighting votes according to household income tax bracket.
Sure his response is very much to shut down your idea, but I'm always happy to see when a MP actually engages with these questions and shows they've taken the time to counterargue.
Well, that’s disheartening. Seems to be prizing a very direct link between an MP and a constituency above all else, with a sprinkling of “coalitions might not be progressive” weirdness.
Must just enjoy his safe seat job for life rather than actually improving the quality of our democracy or ending massive Tory majorities on comparatively low vote shares.
Knowsley is i believe the 2nd safest Labour seat in the UK, just behind Liverpool Walton which is down the road.
So im not really surprised by his response.
I did firmly dislike his conflation of AV with PR and then using it against PR regardless.
He doesn't conflate it.
He writes "AV is not, strictly speaking, a proportional system". And then explains why he doesn't like AV (albeit with some misinformation). And if you're discussing voting reform, it makes sense to comment on the referendum we had on it.
He then writes why he doesn't like two actual PR methods; party-list and STV.
Doesn't need the "strictly speaking", AV is not a proportional system and that attempts to muddy the waters as if its somehow nearly one when its clearly not.
I think he was describing AV+. A variant of the system used in New Zealand with ranked voting. Suggested by Labour before 1997.
Essentially you rank your candidates, and then vote for a national party. Ranked candidate is a local MP, chosen by the same method as AV. Additional MPs are added from a list to keep national party numbers mostly proportional.
What would you have rather they done?
Whether you like it or not, the Tories won the 2010 election at a time of crisis with Britain on the verge of running out of money and in economic hardship, due to the financial crisis.
The Tories had more seats than Labour and even if the LD joined with Labour (who by no means are progressive as they make out to be), they still wouldn't have been a majority government.
Labour would have had to limp on a minority with SNP support, which if you're a student of history will know Labour- Lib minority governments are not great at getting things done, and certainly not ideal to deal with a crisis.
The LD did a lot to mitigate the harshness of the Tories.
They got Gay Marriage legalized, reinforced abortion rights, pushed hard for green energy policies thought setting up the green investment bank, ended income tax for those earning less than 10k , increased taxes on the rich , introduced the pupil premium for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, introduced shared parental leave as a right, introduced a minimum of 15 hrs of free childcare for all 3-4 year olds, pushed for an increase in net social housing for the first time in decades, stopped the Tories from: monitoring everyone's internet and social media use/ history, permanently storing people's DNA, routinely detaining children in immigration cases and this is on top of ensuring only 14 days of detention without trial, extending juries to complex law cases and reforming libel law so people can criticize firms and academics with much more ease.
A lot of that list is defunct or repealed now thanks to majority Tory rule and some has even been co-opted (like the tax free income up to 10k).
But a lot of people voted Lib Dem, I know I did, because we weren't fully happy with Labour but the just thing we wanted was a Tory government. They sold their voters down the river for a few cabinet salaries for themselves. Unforgivable.
I can understand that.
But when you're a minority party, I'm not really sure what you're supposed to do.
This is why PR (well STV for us) is so important, so we can move to a more European model and stop stigmatising parties for working with each other and forming coalitions.
Because in the event of a crisis, the last thing you want is unstable minority governments which any get bills through or agree with a coherent strategy to deal with said crisis, especially in our system of Parliamentary sovereignty, where the legislative branch is supreme. Dysfunction in that branch paralyses the country. (The upswing being, if parliament is working, we have the most powerful ability to make sweeping changes, unrestricted by generations past)
I'd also urge you to reconsider your forgiveness. I can understand you might feel betrayed, but Liberals tend towards pragmatism and I remember the feeling at the time was we don't like the Tories, but we'll do what we must, even if it's a deal with the devil, for the good of Britain and a chance to enact some of our agenda (which tbf most of the coalition years' policies, excluding austerity, was us, we just got backstabbed by the Tories and Clegg was naive)
Wasn't just siding with the Tories. They also campaigned to abolish tuition fees and then voted to triple them. They aren't pragmatic. They are right wingers economically. They showed their true colours with the last General Election as well. Could've had a coalition to prevent Brexit but preferred to vote for a GE that the Tories would whitewash instead of allowing Corbyn to be in charge temporarily.
Clegg achieved exactly what he wanted. Bit of fame, exposure and has ended up at Facebook so shows his morals.
They shouldn't ever be trusted. Nothing but chancers. Liberal voters might be the things you mention but the politicians that represent them are not.
I disagreed with voting for the tution fees. That was ridiculous really, especially when they campaigned to abolish it. I mean it was going to pass anyway so why didn't they vote it down, probs because they wanted to keep parliamentary unity in government but seriously it was ridiculous. Saying that 21 out of 49 MPs voted against the rise.
It's also worth bearing in mind that Labour were the ones who first introduced Tution fees back in anyway.
I'm unsure how Corbyn could have been in charge last election? I mean Labour voted for the election as well so I don't really see your point?
The Tories had a minor minority, but they weren't at risk of losing a confidence vote or anything like that and there was no way Labour had the numbers to make a government even if they did.
Also I mean this is some serious gaslighting considering Corbyn was no proper remainer, so there was no guarantee he would have prevented Brexit anyway.
All politicians should be held to high standards but it seems when it comes to the LD people want them to be faultless and sparkling clean while they're happy to tolerate the constant muck that both the Tories and Labour shove down our throats everyday.
I agree Clegg screwed up big time and I won't forgive him for it.
But there are good people in the party and in the parliament who get good stuff done when they have the ability to do so.
We've had a pendulum swing of Tories and Labour for 70 years and all we have to show for it is decline and degradation, so I'm not too into painting the Liberals as yellow Tories or yellow Labour or as some unforgivable evil that brought destruction on this country in the 5 years they were the junior partner of a coalition. It's not fair to them.
Before the election there was a majority of remainer MPs. They could have all worked together to prevent Brexit. Swinson and co were basically a single issue party at the time and they couldn't even put that issue ahead of working with Corbyn. Might not have worked but they didn't even give it a go.
No one was innocent in the brexit debacle. Corbyn had his whips disallow any voting in favour of non Labour ideas half a dozen times for example even though doing so would of solved the crisis, and in later stages also gifted the opposition parties as a whole control of parliament.
This doesn't seem to of occurred for any reason beyond ego.
There was a significant difference with Labour though in that a significant amount of Labour voters wanted Brexit so they couldn't actively be anti-Brexit as a party. Lib Dems could. They were a single issue party at the time and didn't do something to achieve that single issue which showed they didn't really care, they were just using it opportunistically to gain voters.
> The Tories had more seats than Labour and even if the LD joined with Labour (who by no means are progressive as they make out to be), they still wouldn’t have been a majority government
But the main reason was the Conservatives offered the LibDems a referendum on proportional representation - which the country completely rejected when it was put to them.
If you'll remember, the Tories campaigned against AV but Labour weren't much better.
Officially they were supposed to be pro- AV but when push came to shove, over 200 Labour MPs and Peers campaigned against it.
So when you have the main right wing party and most of the main left wing party campaigning against something, it's no bloody wonder we lost the referendum quite handily.
I think the last decade has soured me on referendums pernamentally.
If I vote you in to do something I expect you to do your bloody job, not obscure your true opinion behind the opportunity to lie your way through a seperate vote then pretend that this somehow represents the public even having a fair set of facts.
In practice they are a get out of jail free card for throwing away popular but personally inconvenient positions.
It was not a proportional representation referendum, AV isn't proportional. That's why so many lib dem activists didn't campaign in favour, and told their friends to vote against it.
>Whether you like it or not, the Tories won the 2010 election
The simple fact there was a hung parliament says otherwise. No one won the election and the Lib Dems became king makers, and sided against the majority of their voters.
>The Tories had more seats than Labour and even if the LD joined with Labour (who by no means are progressive as they make out to be), they still wouldn't have been a majority government.
SF won 5 so a working Majority was 321. Lib Dems + Labour was 315, the SNP had 6. Add the Greens and PC and you're at 325.
There was 0 reason to enable the Tories. 0. The sole reason they did it was hyperbole about not trusting Gordan Brown because "he put us in recession" - they literally pushed Tory misinformation on a global recession while enabling them.
>They got Gay Marriage legalized
Cameron intended to introduce it with or without the Lib Dems, and depended on Labour getting it over the line.
>reinforced abortion rights, pushed hard for green energy policies thought setting up the green investment bank
Both would have been achieved had they gone in to coalition with Labour.
> introduced the pupil premium for children from disadvantaged backgrounds
And also enabled 500,000 more children being pushed in to poverty through austerity, and had a hand in the number of food banks going up 1,000%.
Lib Dems like to push this nonsense that they stopped the Tories being the nasty party, but are completely oblivious it seems to the statistical reality of what the coalition did, caused and the effect it had on ordinary people.
In reality they did effectively nothing, turned their back on a large chunk of their voter based and enabled one of the worst governments for ordinary working people since Thatcher came in.
But the alternative he’s suggesting we stick with consistently produces conservative majorities? If his priority is implementing progressive policy then a system that produce a greater chance of progressive government even if some coalitions will be regressive is a logical choice.
> Seems to be prizing a very direct link between an MP and a constituency above all else
This is the bit I really struggle to understand. An MP can claim to support their constituents all they want, but as soon as a whip is involved that idea just goes straight in the bin.
And yet PR systems exist with direct constituency links.
He is just horrified that the bulk of the PLP would lose their seats in the "great shattering" of parties that would occur after proportional representation is introduced.
Yeah, that was dumb. AV was still very much a constituency based system - it just meant reallocation of votes until one candidate had more than 50% preference.
Labour would likely split into a left wing momentum led party and a more centrist trade union supported one if this happened, since the two halves don't really agree on much but need each other in this fptp system. They would also lose a lot of voter share to the Lib Dems and Greens in a lot of cases since votes for those would now be worthwhile in more places.
So it's a shame but not a surprise that they won't touch it
The trade unions are talking about disaffiliating due to the current centrist nature of the party.
If we got PR we'd see a real party of the working class emerge
More likely we'd see a slightly left party for middle class pro welfare types. And a hard left party largely run by middle class socialists and whatever trade unions they can convince that the working class more or less ignores which survives mostly on student votes.
There won't be a working class party because the working class is not organised, and if they were they'd look more like UKIP than Labour seeing as the right is the only political group to experience any success in connecting to them in recent decades.
I think some form of PR is correct because we need people to feel their vote is not constantly wasted and engage them with voting more or risk serious problems. We shouldn't have safe seats where voting for many people just become pointless , nor have parties with concentrated votes ending up with huge amounts of representation per vote compared to parties with spread out voters.
But I agree with his points in general. I think we should keep constituencies , and I think those who want PR because it will usher in a progessive future (rather than its a fairer system) , are indulging in wishful thinking. We should prepare ourselves for the chance of indistinguishable centre coalitions and the backroom deals that entails. And understand the risk that Nigel Farage or a religious party end up being wooed as kingmaker gaining influence far above their vote count.
So I hope we change to a form of PR but I hope it's thought through and based on the best system for democracy rather than what sounds trendy.
I think PR would work as a part of a two chamber system.
For example, overhauling the House of Lords, into a system that is elected solely through PR, no regional lists, just a very basic PR system, then the House of Commons remains as is, with the constituency MPs.
It’s not the rules it’s the democratic legitimacy. You could have the same rules as now but if the two chambers disagreed and If the HOL had proportional representation it would arguably better represent the will of the people. Now it can scrutinise but it can’t be said to have more legitimacy because it’s not elected.
In this hypothetical situation, I think it would be ideal for both Chambers to have to approve laws, both can propose, but it has to have the support of both.
So the legitimacy would never really cone into question, it provides the safeguards, and level of scrutiny we have now, as well as having a more legitimate, 'blocker,' on laws that would be seen as against the publics interests.
I agree, that would be a risk.
But then, look at the problems a fully PR system had in Germany, arguably, the stalemate of not having a stable legislative brance lead to WW2. So there would need to be a process to relieve deadlock, while maintaining the standards, but I genuinely think that a fully PR system could do far more harm than good.
At the moment atheist switching to PR would be awful for British democracy considering we voted against it only 10 years ago.
> And understand the risk that Nigel Farage or a religious party end up being wooed as kingmaker gaining influence far above their vote count.
Tbf, this is a problem in FPTP as much as other systems. Look at the DUP, for example. They had something like 1% of the seats in Westminster and were basically able to dictate their terms to Theresa May.
Likewise, we have the Greens in Scotland. The SNP are in a minority without them, and this has meant that they can push through some fairly unpopular (well, to the degree that every other party attacks them) environmental policies.
>Tbf, this is a problem in FPTP as much as other systems. Look at the DUP, for example. They had something like 1% of the seats in Westminster and were basically able to dictate their terms to Theresa May.
Yep it can happen in hung parliaments and it’s also the case that a main party may neutralise a small one by taking on their policies - such as with a Brexit …. but “as much as other systems” - I’m not sure that’s the case.
>Likewise, we have the Greens in Scotland. The SNP are in a minority without them, and this has meant that they can push through some fairly unpopular (well, to the degree that every other party attacks them) environmental policies.
The Scottish Parliament includes elements of PR doesn’t it?
I completely agree with your post. I too hope that we implement PR, but it needs to be a method of PR that is right for the UK.
I also, if not agree, at least respect this MPs points in general. Yes he's wrong about AV, but AV+ would have those party lists so although he's a bit confused, if I pretend he meant about a future with AV+ being implemented it half makes sense.
In my humble opinion, the perfect form of PR for the UK hasn't yet been codified. It would essentially be as follows;
Warning; wall of text
* \- Divide the UK into approximately 180 constituencies (combining what are current 3 or 4 constituencies together in ways that make the most sense to do so)
* \- Each of the 180 new constituencies would elect 3 or 4 MPs depending on it's size.
* \- Each major party would put forward 3 or 4 candidate to try to be elected in each new constituency. (smaller parties may put forward only 1 candidate)
* \- Each member of public is asked to put an X in ONE candidates box - exactly the same as now.
* \- Then, the votes are counted overnight and each candidate is given a number of "points", roughly proportional to the number of votes they got. So; if Boris Johnson gets 100,000 votes maybe he gets 100 points, if Ed Miliband gets 50,000 votes he gets 50 points. You get the idea. (We'll come back to this later).
* \- Once the dust has settled the morning after, and the candidates know how many "points" they've been given, the bartering begins. The candidates are taken to some sort of court-like room in front of the media and begin negotiating;
* \- Any candidate who has got over 20/25% of the points is immediately elected as MP, and if they have any "spare" points (from getting over the threshold) they can pass them onto another favoured candidate. So if Boris Johnson gets over the threshold with a spare 7 points, he can pass that onto fellow conservative candidate Stuart Anderson. If Ed Miliband gets over the threshold with a spare 2 points, he can pass that onto fellow Labour candidate Jon Ashworth. (They can also choose to scrap their spare points if preferred and not pass it on).
* \- Once this is done, the eliminations start. The candidate with the lowest points remaining is then eliminated. He/she can choose to pass their points onto another candidate or scrap them altogether. So lets say Nigel Farage is eliminated, he can choose to pass his vote onto a "brexiteer" Tory candidate rather than a "remainer" tory candidate, as is his choice.
* \- And then the next candidate with the lowest points is elimated, and they can choose to pass their points on or not. And again. And again. Until we have the required 3/4 candidates with enough votes to get over the threshold as is required, and everyone else is eliminated.
Essentially, this is a form of STV (single transferable vote). Quite literally, you have a single vote that is transferred. But I favour this system over classic STV for a number of reasons: The "transfer" is very public, and very obvious what is going on. If you vote for a Lib Dem candidate, and they choose to pass your vote onto a Tory, and you hate Tories - well don't vote for them next time. Alternatively, if you vote for a Green, they may have enough points to help elect a green-aligned Labour/LibDem/Tory MP instead of a non-Green Labour/LibDem/Tory MP. In that way, even if they don't get elected, your views are still represented. Also if Boris Johnson uses his additional votes to get a crony elected who is a horrible person, well hopefully that falls back onto Boris Johnson.
Edit - one huge benefit that I forgot to mention is that it brings in different political parties to different areas. Where I live, all the constituencies always return MPs that don't represent my personal political point of view. With my political system, we'd have Labour MPs in Kent, Tory MPs in Sunderland, and so on. Every single seat is worth fighting for.
You prefer to get single people out highlighted rather than have whole party rule over? I think it might get easily corrupted with backstage deals even though the people would pick their most favourable candidate. We should try and go for it, although many unpopular people would never get a slice of the cake.
If I understand what you mean, absolutely I prefer individual candidates with individual responsibility to Party List methods.
I cannot reasonably argue that Party List PR is likely to cause corruption, indeed, if you look at the list of the least corrupt countries in terms of their politics, you'll see Party List PR systems near the top (New Zealand, Denmark, etc)
However, I have had friends from countries like Spain and Portugal complain that they have found it hard to get rid of corrupt politicians in those countries as they can bury those politicians in the Party List and they end up getting elected anyway, even if no one would vote for them. Note: I'm not saying that worse than our system with "safe seats" but it's something to be considered.
With my method above, what I'm going to call the theoretical "UK-STV" there is no Party List. To be elected, you have to have someone, explicitly endorse your candidacy. If Boris Johnson takes 45% of the vote in his area, he can pass the additional votes on and get someone else elected as MP, but then that candidate is forever tied to him. He's Boris Johnson's man. If he then gets found to be a corrupt figure, that's forever tied to Boris Johnson who brought him along.
Great question!
Standard STV has a problem, which no one ever talks about. Because, well, it's not really a problem, but more of a "wait, is that really true? That's weird"
With standard STV, the person that gets elected can depend on how you count the results...
For Example:
Lets say 'Adam the Ant' gets 25 votes and only needed 22 votes to pass the threshold. He has 3 "additional" votes that can go to the next candidate. How do you choose which 3 of the 25 votes goes to the next candidate? Could a nefarious person somehow game the system so that the 3 "transferable" votes go to Benjy the Beatle?
The answer to these questions are "well it depends!". Because there are multiple different systems for this. But often a "every xth vote" system is used, so in our example with 25 votes and 3 spare votes the 7th, 14th and 21st vote might be taken, and those voters get their second choice. Or it might be the top 3 votes. Or the bottom 3 votes. Or a fraction of all 25 votes.
From wikipedia;
**Hare allocation system**
\> Reallocation ballots are drawn at random from those most recently received. In a manual count of paper ballots, this is the easiest method to implement.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting\_single\_transferable\_votes#Counting\_rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_single_transferable_votes#Counting_rules)
But there are multiple other systems, including some that give fractions of votes to the next candidate, and so forth.
You can see how the above is open to manipulation, and not at all transparent to the majority of voters. And quite small changes can have large consequences; if Tory A is elected with 27% of the vote and a 2% surplus, if you carefully select that 2% to be all votes to go to Tory B instead of Lib Dem A, then maybe that gives Tory B 17% compared to Lib Dem As 16% and therefore eliminates Lib Dem A, whereas if taken randomly it maybe been an even split to Lib Dem A and Tory B, instead eliminating Tory B.
You can even have some weird effects where its better for your candidate to go out early so that your vote has a higher chance of going to someone else you like... for example, picture these scenarios where we have one MP left to elect after Tory A, and Labour A and B are already past the threshold:
>Lib Dem A (with Green Credentials) - 10
>
>Tory B - 12
>
>Labour C - 14
>
>Green A - 8
Let's say in the above scenario, nearly all of the people that voted for "Green A" rank "Lib Dem A" as their second choice as "Lib Dem A" has green credentials. After Green A is eliminated, Lib Dem A has 18 votes. Tory B is then eliminated and his vote is split 50/50 to Lib Dem A and Labour C, and so Lib Dem A (with Green credentials) is elected.
Compare this to:
>Lib Dem A (with Green Credentials) - 10Tory B - 12Labour C - 14Green A - 13
Here, Green A has more votes than previously. So, with the lowest votes Lib Dem A is eliminated first. Lib Dem A voters split their vote between Tory B and Labour C roughly 50/50 giving them 17 and 19 votes respectively. Next Green A is eliminated and most of their voters third choice (second choice was Lib Dem A who is already eliminated) go to Labour C who is elected as the candidate.
Because Green A got more votes, Green A's third choice was elected (Labour C). Had Green A got fewer votes, Green A's second choice would have been elected (Lib Dem A with Green Credentials)
STV is full of weird nuisances which aren't talked about, and overall it works well. But I'd still prefer to make it simpler, and nothing is simpler than voting for a single candidate and letting them represent your vote in the best way they can.
You can literally have a version of PR while keeping constituencies. Northern Ireland and Ireland have STV where people are still very much beholden to their constituency. Anyone who's irish and reads this can tell you localism is alive and well kerry is literally run on all keels by a family who have seats as independents.
Scotland has a dual system where some votes are to do with locality and others are across Scotland, as far as I know, Scottish readers can clarify. I'm not too familiar with it. I just remember hearing alba was running people only at a national level, mot local for Scottish representatives.
The idea of a wasted vote is nonsense in my view. Not winning doesn't mean your vote was "wasted". To claim so suggests that the goal of voting is to guess who is going to win and vote for that party.
> To claim so suggests that the goal of voting is to guess who is going to win and vote for that party.
In a lot of places, there are generally one or two clear leading candidates. At that point, any vote for a different one will have no meaningful effect. Instead it means that your vote is best used to vote *against* your least liked candidate, by voting for the opponent who is most likely to be successful.
At least with PR, that vote will be counted towards a proportion of the total vote used to allocate national seats.
> I think referring to any vote as "wasted" is incorrect.
You're technically right. Vote share can be used as a proxy to vague public sentiment, for example. It's why I was careful to say "no meaningful effect". Tactical voting, though, understands that to get the most meaningful effect from your vote you are restricted in how you use it, thus "wasting" it if you don't use it for that purpose.
> And PR doesn't get rid of tactical voting
True, but it drastically reduces the need for it, particularly if the vote is on a national scale.
My favourite voting format is pretty unheard of and manages to eliminate tactical voting without PR. It's called Score run-off vote. You score each candidate and then the two highest scoring candidates go head to head, with your vote going to whichever candidate you gave the higher score.
>Instead it means that your vote is best used to vote
>
>against
>
>your least liked candidate, by voting for the opponent who is most likely to be successful.
THIS this is the current state of FPTP - I vote against who I don't want
PR would be great, and yes Labour would likely split into 2 that's the concern, I suspect you'd end up with some centralist rainbow of New Labour/Libs and Green and maybe Old Labour......who knows, be interesting to see what PR would do to the electorate, if parties would split.....could Tories split, I can't see any obvious divides in the party but who knows
> could Tories split, I can't see any obvious divides in the party but who knows
Judging by the past 3 years, I'd expect a roughly 50/50 split. You had a purge back in 2019, where a lot of tories either fled the party and joined others, or were just kicked out, when Johnson took over. From there, you've got the recent no confidence vote.
I would expect the Johnson cultists to break into one party, and everyone else attempt to form a sort of pre-johnson tories.
There is also the fact that they took a swing to the right under Cameron, and I expect most of them either to stick with Johnson, or align with whatever Farage's latest party is, although these will be a small portion of the MPs.
>The idea of a wasted vote is nonsense in my view.
That's wrong.
>Not winning doesn't mean your vote was "wasted".
No, your vote not electing anyone means it was wasted.
>To claim so suggests that the goal of voting is to guess who is going to win and vote for that party.
No, its getting someone who represents you, win or lose.
Who gets power in Parliament is wholly different question.
Let's look at the alternative...
With PR (in its extreme form), every vote counts towards the proportion of representation in parliament from your chosen party.
Literally every vote counts.
With FPTP, a vote for anything other than first place might as well have had "FUCK ME IN THRE ARSE" scrawled on it.
There are some downsides to PR but they’re much smaller than FPTP which at heart is highly undemocratic especially in a multi party system.
The loss of the constituency link would be no loss since it’s actually insane that our legislators are also expected to be local social workers.
No it isn't. We should be able to write to OUR representatives, and tell them when we belive they are acting against our interests, not having to wait 5 years for another election.
Yes that’s awesome. And then 95% of the time they’ll send a boilerplate response and ignore it - or ask a token question in the house. We prioritise our petty need to “speak to the manager” over an actually effective and accountable political system.
The reason I want PR is this;
In 2019 the Conservatives got 365 seats from almost 14m votes at an average of 39,000 votes a seat.
The SNP got 48 seats from 1.2m votes at 25,000 votes a seat.
The Green Party got 1 seat from 835,000 votes. They got 2/3 the number of votes as SNP but a fraction of the seats.
How is this fair? How is the will of the voting public legitimately represented?
Also UKIP at its height had 10% of the vote and no seats, that isn't representative and its just not right. The libs, UKIP, Green all unrepresented, SNP, Tories massively over represented and we end up with governments that the majority of people don't want.
I'd grudgingly accept UKIP holding 65 seats in Westminster, so long as it was more representative of the nation.
I still think the best idea would be to make Lords a long-term (20+ years) elected position. Unfortunately, I have no idea how that would be done without turning into something like the US supreme Court nomination shitshow.
Just a little not to point out that the SNP are vocally and consistently pro PR at Westminster. It’s party policy and a manifesto point.
They have the distinction of being the only party who benefit from FPTP but support its abolition anyway as a matter of principle.
Dear Constituent,
The Labour Party was founded on the principle of protecting workers, and if we were to switch to a proportional voting system then that would result in fewer jobs for members of my party. As such I am unable to support this.
Kind regards,
An MP in an ultra safe Labour seat who only needs to keep their CLP on side in order to have a job for life.
A vote in an FPTP system is effectively a vote to disenfranchise everyone who doesn't want your candidate. It's a vote for a candidate, and against all the others. Often, it's not even a vote for a candidate - I've always voted against the Tory. How lovely it was to vote in the European elections, knowing that my vote actually mattered and wasn't potentially disenfranchising anyone.
We throw a large amount of votes away in the UK. Every MP in parliament is about 17 million votes for them, the rest of the votes cast, around 14 million votes, do not have impact on the result at all. Worse perhaps is that having had that vote thrown away because more people voted the other guy they are now in a constituency run by someone who does not represent them at all and who we know will almost always vote on party lines regardless of what happens in their constituency.
Its a terrible system which produces wildly unrepresentative governance and any time it looks representative is by chance. It overplays the importance of local individual MPs when most people vote for the party and even just the leading MP and can't even name their local representative.
Disagree with him, but at least he has the decency to address the points, rather than just copy and paste the party line like members of the government do.
The massive majorities enabled on a minority of public support in FPTP lead to situations like the current one. A government consumed by sheer arrogance and power trips. A democracy needs a strong opposition to function, and real consequences for MPs who step out of line, in order to function effectively.
In this respect I can see how FPTP in theory holds back extremism, except that the tories basically morphed into the BNP-lite so not entirely convincing.
Annoyingly he didn't say the main reason, in that in reality many Labour mps are shit scared of it because it would reduce their own chances of entering government.
Looks like he’s actually given a proper bespoke response as opposed to a cut and paste one. Reading between the lines, it looks like his main concern is the movement of our system away from constituency representation if we moved to a form of PR. And that is a concern for a lot of people to be fair. The other concern he has is about coalition government - understandable, as British politics is geared towards swinging from one majority to another across the political spectrum, and parties in power don’t like having to negotiate with coalition partners to get things done (although arguably the Lib Dems helped hold the worst excesses of the Tories back).
Coalitions are bad, and I'll use the extreme worst example to prove it. Yeah because adversarial politics is working so well for the UK at the minute isn't it?
Any MP that tries to defend FPTP on the basis of the constituency link needs to speak to their constituents more. Around 2/3 won't know who the MP is and of the 1/3 that do, a large chunk will hate them
This is what cropped up in my head when I read it. You’d swear he has some sort of unspoken beautiful relationship with all his constituents where they can access him for advice and progress on local issues at the drop of a hat, but somehow PR would destroy this
May as well have just scrapped all that nonsense and had out with the much simpler, real answer: "AV doesn't benefit the Labour Party and therefore puts my job at risk".
Ok but how about a system where FPTP elected MPs and then we had a PR system that elected lords in the house of lords. Does that not retain all the benefits of FPTP but allow PR to also act as a check and balance on minority rule?
PR does in fact remove the link between an MP and their constituency.
But I think that as well as that being a negative, it also brings a possible benefit to the country. Currently, the candidate in every constituency is attacked if they aren't sufficiently local. I.e. if they weren't brought up in the area, don't know much about the area or don't live in the area, those are seen as negative points against the candidate. That means that elections tend to be (maybe slightly) biased in favour of local candidates.
However, many parties have pretty solid safe seats. If a candidate happens to be born, grows up and becomes political in a particular constituency that is "safe" for the other party, they have to move. And if they move they suffer the negatives of not being from the new constituency.
Let's say that for a Labour candidate, 1/3 of the country is a safe Tory seat, and if they happen to be born there they are at a bit of a disadvantage. Same for a Conservative candidate born and brought up in a safe Labour seat. This disadvantage may be small, but I do think it exists.
And yet, statistically, the best candidate for any one party could be born and grow up anywhere in the country. Why should a percentage of their finest people start with a demerit? PR would allow parties to select the best candidates from everywhere. If it turns out that the best six people in the country were all born in the same constituency, they can all enter politics and have the same chance as everyone else.
The main reason I'd like to see PR is that my Red Wall constituency has two parties who might win it (Labour or Conservative), and I'm not that enamored of either of them.
If I want my vote to matter, I have to vote against the party I want to see *out* of office, not pick anyone I'd actually like to see in office = because all the people I'd like to see in office could never win my constituency.
I.e. in the next election I want to turf out the Conservatives so I'll be picking Labour.
I'd very much like to vote positively for a party I like rather than negatively against a party. My current choice would be the Green Party. But, as I don't live in Brighton, any vote for them is completely pointless.
The two advantages I see for PR are:
* I get to vote positively for the first time in my life.
* As a result the parties will have to positively appeal to me, and reduce the negative campaigning.
In a two party system, the equilibrium under FPTP, neither party will want to reform it because it disempowers them.
The benefits accruing to the MPs of a party permanently in opposition, like Labour who Blair aside pretty much never win, are still incredible. These MPs are quite content doing essentially nothing in opposition for their entire careers
The Lib Dems insisting on another referendum to support a government that needs them is the only possible way by which electoral reform can happen.
Why don't we look at Wales, where there is both FPTP constituency MSs and PR regional MSs?
In my experience, I have never seen any of my four regional MSs, not one of them. Little did I know, it even included the Welsh Health Secretary, however, how an I supposed to know that, when I have never seen her?
However, for all the faults of my constituency MSs, and even though I don't support some of his policies, at least he is there holding constituency surgeries and doing various events.
Welsh Labour have recently said they intend to get rid of the constituency MSs, and only have regional ones. This is a huge backwards step for democracy. While it may mean that the representation if the Senedd will be closer to that of the voters, I feel like the main purpose of the reforms is to remove a crucial layer of accountability that all the constituency MSs have.
At least with FPTP, I know who to wrote angry letters to.
So AMS does not exist then?
One of the two proportional systems *we actually use in the UK*?
AMS doesn't even need party lists - it doesn't have them in Baden-Wurttemberg.
Coalition governments should be a norm because they balance the policy.
A good government is not the one that makes decisions efficiently, but rather the one that doesn't make stupid decisions
I hate this answer so much - that stupid referendum always gets thrown back in our faces but the fact is none of those choices were proportional representation!! How on earth they can say the British people voted against proportional representation when it wasn't even one of the options on the table is beyond me.
Makes me furious all over again whenever anyone mentions it
It sounds like Sir George Howarth MP is scared of the people democratically electing MPs.
"Oh, but UKIP might gain" isn't the defence he thinks it is. If UKIP gained a bunch of MPs through STV it would be because that's what people in that area wanted. Perhaps Labour would then have to actually try?
STV is used in NI and in Scotland specifically to avoid nationalist parties gaining majority control. If it's good enough for Holyrood and Stormont, why not Westminster?
His assessment of the 2011 AV vote is totally wrong. There was no party list component to the proposal. Every MP would still be a constituency MP. He's talking out of his arse.
STV is not proportional representation yet is still more representative than FPTP, not to mention that, in Ireland at least, independent MPs without party affiliation are not uncommon at all. Seems like an ideal system for us.
EDIT: before anyone calls me out, I meant TDs, not MPs
Not surprising. Anyone who at this stage in the game is still projecting their desire for PR onto a Labour government is delusional.
If you want PR Labour is not the party for you.
So you think the lib dems may back it and make it a requirement of any coallition - that could be spicy - and if they really went for it......
Problem is splitting that 'not tory' vote.....could result in, well Tory
Voting reform is not particularly popular with most people. But this sub has a weird obsession with it acting like it’s some magic democracy bullet rather than just a slightly different way of doing things.
Im not really too sure where you are coming from at all.
Voters being split wouldnt be a concern if our electoral system actually represented how people voted. As it is right now, millions of people have "wasted" votes.
The current system results in Tory governments elected by a minority but plurality of people in England that the other countries of the UK overwhelmingly reject and vote against by large margins.
I wouldn’t say that’s working great for a union of countries.
PR, on its own, is not the answer. Making the "job" of MP have a finite span e.g. 10 years would help. Relocate Parliament outside of London.
The UK needs its democracy dragging into the 21st century and beyond.
Yeah I agree.
PR would be an answer to a lot of problems. For one thing we wouldn't have had the Tories as majority government for the past 12 years, it'd probably be a Lib- Labour Coalition most of the time.
The current system entrenches the duopoly between the Tories and Labour.
10 years is too little, we need experianced parliamentarians who know what they're doing and understand tradition, precedent and procedures, and who are adept at debating and making laws, otherwise you get a clown show.
Also there's nothing inherently wrong with having the union parliament in London, though we should definitely have regional assemblies based on equal population sizes for the rest of England.
If anything it would probably make things worse. It would incentivise them even more to provide favours so that they get “consultancies” after they’re done.
Yes, it ended up doing exactly this when they instituted term limits in the California State Assembly, meaning it was easier for lobbyists to influence legislators
I’ve never been keen on the concept of term limits. I do understand why people like the idea and understand the benefits it would have in some circumstances. I help but feel, though. that it places arbitrary limits on and would sometimes force someone out of their job and/or position based on that arbitrary limit when they might actually be the best and most competent person for it. They might actually be doing an unusually good job of if and they’ll have to step down in favour of someone who might have only a fraction of the integrity and competence. If someone is bad and people want them out, I think they should be voted out by the people, not have the option of voting or not for them removed because of a limit.
He makes fair points but with the constituency boundary changes looming which will put more seats in traditionally Tory voting areas (No surprise there !) FPTP is set to put the Labour party in even longer spells in opposition.
Fun fact : - Scotland uses a mix of the AV system and PR for the Scottish Parliament Elections. What this MP said about the AV system made me chuckle "It would create two classes of MP". My assumsion is that the ones getting in via the list would be a "Lower class" MP. Douglas Ross, leader for the Scottish Conservative Party got in via the list.
Complete idiot.
It's like he doesn't want progressives to win or something.
If any kind of Labour government doesn't introduce STV in its next government, after been given the perfect opportunity to fix this archaic pro-landowner South-centric system literally no other country uses - then they will be ultimately useless.
Then we do the non-electoral strategy. This should be serious shit.
The parties campaigning to switch to PR systems are the ones in a position to gain most from this, however they have not been doing that well in elections and as the MP's reply states, there was not enthusiasm from UK voters to change the system.
Snapshot of _A few months ago, i wrote to my Labour MP regarding proportional representation. Here is the response:_ : An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://i.redd.it/8fc0awdwqr791.png) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think the only real chance is a lib dem - labour coalition, labour by itself is a bit too comfortable being the *de facto* opposition to risk electoral shake-ups, although they sure would have my vote if they went for it
Every other time Labour have claimed to support it they've been lying. Why would next time be any different?
If the last coalition is anything to go by, the Lib Dems tend to forget about electoral reform as soon as they get a sniff of power.
What are you talking about? The chance of electoral reform was the main thing that convinced them to go into coalition
A referendum the Lib Dem leadership completely ignored.
The Lib Dems wanted, and always wanted, STV. AV was the middle-ground the Tory party forced them to accept as a referendum question. The Lib Dems achieved quite a bit but they had to concede some of their points to gain others. They were never into AV. They barely campaigned for it knowing full well it wasn't a good system. But it's the only thing Cameron was willing to consider putting to referendum. You could argue that Clegg should have put his foot down but they were the minority party in the coalition.
so they could have collapsed the Coalition if he didn't let them have a better option
AV could have been a stepping stone to further reform. Sadly the Lib Dems were too distracted by making people poorer and eroding public services to realise this.
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No, it was Demonic Scummings' fault
They did try, it just got blocked by the tories and labour
Are you confusing the Lib Dems with Labour?
A fair point but the most recent and high profile example has been the Lib Dems. I guess Labour was smarter in only promising to look at electorial reform without making much of a commitment. But yeah, a plague on both houses imho.
I constantly see the same two defences of the FPTP system. One is the link between MPs and their constituency. Sound enough in theory, but if an MP is threatened with having the whip removed for voting against party interests then I feel that MP ultimately represents their party, not their constituency. The second is the "strong and stable" defence, which is literally no defence at all. It's an admission that the system gives more control to a minority party for a 'stability' born of not having to bother working towards a consensus with other parties. Not only is this second point inherently undemocratic, it doesn't even provide the supposed stability they claim. One only has to glance at the volatile, self-sabotaging factions within the Conservative and Labour parties to determine as much. It's simply past time for FPTP to be replaced with a system that's more representative and democratic.
The idea of coalitions being inherently bad is a weird one i dont understand. Denmark uses a PR Party list method and has coalitions. It is hardly the chaotic nightmare these people claim. It doesnt really stand up to scrutiny imo
It's doesn't seem like he's saying that coalitions are inherently bad, just that they're not inherently good either. For what it's worth Howarth is also my MP and I think he's pretty crap.
To be fair at least this looks like an actual thought out response. I might not agree with his reasoning, but at least these are actual view points. Compared to other MPs who literally just copy and paste some nonsense leave it there.
It is a thought-out response; it almost certainly wasn't him who wrote it. From experience one of his staffers will draft it, quickly check that he's happy with the underlying content, and then send it back out. I don't blame MPs for working like that given the volume of correspondence and all the other crap they have to do, but it's pretty vanishingly rare for someone to draft responses to constituents himself.
I'm aware that this is highly likely, but it doesn't change the point that this is an actual response to questions, not just some copy paste job.
I recieved this response a day or two after my initial email, over the christmas break. I highly doubt staffers were working at the time. So while i dont agree with him, big props to the guy
Yep. He’s mine too. Total waste of oxygen talking to him.
At their heart, parties are supposed to be coalitions between like-minded independent MPs anyway. The whole idea of “party whips” is undemocratic.
We basically do have coalitions now anyway they are just unified in public behind the red and blue banners. The different wings of each party still try to exert control in the same way minor parties would do in a more visible coalition
The difference is you know what the coalition is before the election and it runs on a single manifesto. This is preferable to a system where coalitions form after the election with no obligation to any manifesto
The negative thing is you might vote for a local Tory candidate, yet end up with an ERG government.
>The difference is you know what the coalition is before the election The absolute vast majority of the time you know that in a PR system too.
Manifestos serve as a statement of principles, but at the end of the day, they have to be reconciled with the rest of the democratic landscape - other parties - and the always changing conditions of the world to which the manifesto is built around and intended to apply. Ultimately, you elect representatives to represent you and your values in the political space. Coalitions are the only real honest and transparent way of doing this. First-past-the-post merely obscures this behind the machinations of internal party factions and decisions by party leaderships, while emphasising voters in marginal constituencies at the expense of many voters elsewhere, who become effectively disenfranchised. The benefit of PR is that voters can more clearly see the dividing lines and have a greater say in them through their vote, which tilts the balance behind different parties and representatives who ultimately end up around the coalition negotiating table. That's better for voters and parties: a more open, transparent, and honest politics.
Coalitions aren't transparent, they are formed by private negotiations after the votes have been counted
The key thing is that those votes were made knowing coalition negotiations would happen. Under PR, party representatives outline how they intend to approach coalition negotiations, specifying policy priorities and ruling out working with particular parties or agreeing to certain policies. Voters therefore put their trust in representatives to negotiate on their behalf to get the best possible deal for their party and its voters. And likewise, voters can see and understand the positions taken by other parties, giving them an understanding of how negotiations are likely to go. This is *representative* democracy in action. It's fair to say that this process is democratic, and significantly transparent, even if, like any system, it isn't perfect. By contrast, it's hard to see how FPTP is any better. Under PR, there's an election campaign where a range of parties have open conversations about a range of policy issues and afford voters a spectrum of choice for who will represent them in coalition negotiations and potentially in government. But under FPTP, all of that is instead obscured behind internal party processes and party leadership decisionmaking, with a bias towards voters in marginal constituencies, whose choice is in any case typically limited to being between the lesser of two evils, meaning many don't actually wholeheartedly back the manifesto, and certainly don't have a hand in writing it. And, of course, the vast majority of the time FPTP means that government is fully controlled by a party which represents only a minority of voters, typically nowhere near the majority. The result is that the manifesto that is implemented in government only has the support of a minority of voters, and even many of those voters will not support significant parts of the manifesto - they just opted for that party over the only viable alternative. It's hard to see how that's democratic, nor indeed how that's much more transparent than PR.
If 10%of the population wants a green party and they end up being kingmakers then so be it. Youd acknowledge as well that if coalition is a real possibility pre election (such as in most mature PR nations) then you have your major policy points you need to see through.
Yep. The compromise is behind closed doors within parties, where the proportions of power are decided by unaccountable means. You have little say whether you get a ERG brexiteer, a Johnson populist or a Tory moderate as the Tory candidate in your seat. Or a lefty socialist or a centrist labour candidate. You get what you're given and unless you join and put serious effort into engaging with the internal selection processes you have no say in that. Surely most people would want to have a chance for their vote to be towards someone who represents their values, who would have a voice proportional to their support in discussions of compromise between the different factions. There could still be a room for a centre left meets social democrats coalition but it would be given a mandate of compromise by proportionate voices of the different interests. Compromise between parties is way more openly democratic than compromise within parties.
You don't even have to look beyond the UK to see that PR and coalitions are not the nightmare that some make them out to be. Labour decided to adopt PR for Scotland, Wales, and the London Assembly. Howarth, a Labour MP, likely even voted for the legislation that enabled that, as he was in Parliament at the time. Nobody is calling for those polities to adopt first-past-the-post, because all things considered, they work well, having had multiple coalitions. And, of course, ironically enough, the party most opposed to PR, the Conservatives, proved that even Westminster is fully capable of operating an effective coalition over five years from 2010 to 2015, regardless of whether its policies were right or wrong.
And the major parties openly portray themselves as broadchurch coalitions of sometimes opposing views. Our major political parties are already coalitions except the coalitions are formed behind closed doors. ERG and momentum are both so far removed from the central edict of their respective parties that they would be obvious candidates for forming separate parties under a true pr system. Except were currently view for Tory or Labour yet potentially end up with an erg or momentum government.
funnily enough the aim of the Labour Party is to get the Labour Party into power not some coalition
I think the idea, and what your MP was getting at, is that coalitions governments can sometimes lead to a decrease in the number of decisions made; whereas majority governments typically pass through more legislation.
There are issues in the Netherlands with coalition governments. Can expand if so desired / people are genuinely interested / polite discourse.
It's not unusual for MPs destined for cabinet to know nothing about their constituencies and just be parachuted in. Their defense for the "weakening of the link" already happens in all but name.
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Dictatorship, anyone?
Dictatorships are massively unstable, for the record. Precisely because they don't care about wide buy in.
The pro's are that they don't need to think about getting back in power so can play long term - they don't have backers or speical interest groups they need to stroke so in theory should be looking for the best interests of the people Downside, we have no say in who they are and can't control them or if we disagree with their vision put a diffrent monarch into power (generally - short of a civil war) ....I don't like the short termist goals but I'm not sure we want to put someone in control of our country just because they got pushed out of the right womb....
This would actually be a better solution. Better to have somebody who has been trained from a young age on how to lead
In the German system it is quite possible to vote for a direct candidate and also have proportional list candidates. So you get both.
Very nicely put.
Constituency link is a nonsense these days. I live in one constituency, work in another and spend leisure time in a third. I only have democratic representation in the one where I spend, potentially, a minority of my time if you discount the time I spend being unconscious.
It's a really bizarre argument from Labour, who only get a solid majority in very rare occasions. If we had PR, and, say Lib-Dem had supported the Conservative party, Partygate would have been over months ago as LD decides to no longer support the Conservative government.
>if an MP is threatened with having the whip removed for voting against party interests And therein lies the link between the constituency and party politic. >It's simply past time for FPTP to be replaced with a system that's more representative and democratic. I (mostly) agree- bring in P3CF voting. Increase representation of those that keep everything going by doing something like weighting votes according to household income tax bracket.
This is so brilliantly put!!
Sure his response is very much to shut down your idea, but I'm always happy to see when a MP actually engages with these questions and shows they've taken the time to counterargue.
Totally agree. This is a great response even if we don’t like the answer.
Same response from a Tory MP would be vilified.
He hasn't engaged with it. He's sent standard paragraphs for AMS when he meant to send the ones for AV
Well, that’s disheartening. Seems to be prizing a very direct link between an MP and a constituency above all else, with a sprinkling of “coalitions might not be progressive” weirdness. Must just enjoy his safe seat job for life rather than actually improving the quality of our democracy or ending massive Tory majorities on comparatively low vote shares.
Knowsley is i believe the 2nd safest Labour seat in the UK, just behind Liverpool Walton which is down the road. So im not really surprised by his response. I did firmly dislike his conflation of AV with PR and then using it against PR regardless.
He doesn't conflate it. He writes "AV is not, strictly speaking, a proportional system". And then explains why he doesn't like AV (albeit with some misinformation). And if you're discussing voting reform, it makes sense to comment on the referendum we had on it. He then writes why he doesn't like two actual PR methods; party-list and STV.
Doesn't need the "strictly speaking", AV is not a proportional system and that attempts to muddy the waters as if its somehow nearly one when its clearly not.
The downsides of AV are shared by PR systems too. If you prefer FPTP to AV, you're highly unlikely to want PR over FPTP.
>The downsides of AV are shared by PR systems too What downside? whatever he described wasn't AV.
I think he was describing AV+. A variant of the system used in New Zealand with ranked voting. Suggested by Labour before 1997. Essentially you rank your candidates, and then vote for a national party. Ranked candidate is a local MP, chosen by the same method as AV. Additional MPs are added from a list to keep national party numbers mostly proportional.
Yeah I thought it was a very reasonable response. I might not agree with it all but it was a fair point of view, well put forward
>STV. Need not be PR, it's only PR if there are multimember constituencies, which isn't required.
Indeed - STV in a single member constituency is as far I can see the same thing as AV.
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What would you have rather they done? Whether you like it or not, the Tories won the 2010 election at a time of crisis with Britain on the verge of running out of money and in economic hardship, due to the financial crisis. The Tories had more seats than Labour and even if the LD joined with Labour (who by no means are progressive as they make out to be), they still wouldn't have been a majority government. Labour would have had to limp on a minority with SNP support, which if you're a student of history will know Labour- Lib minority governments are not great at getting things done, and certainly not ideal to deal with a crisis. The LD did a lot to mitigate the harshness of the Tories. They got Gay Marriage legalized, reinforced abortion rights, pushed hard for green energy policies thought setting up the green investment bank, ended income tax for those earning less than 10k , increased taxes on the rich , introduced the pupil premium for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, introduced shared parental leave as a right, introduced a minimum of 15 hrs of free childcare for all 3-4 year olds, pushed for an increase in net social housing for the first time in decades, stopped the Tories from: monitoring everyone's internet and social media use/ history, permanently storing people's DNA, routinely detaining children in immigration cases and this is on top of ensuring only 14 days of detention without trial, extending juries to complex law cases and reforming libel law so people can criticize firms and academics with much more ease. A lot of that list is defunct or repealed now thanks to majority Tory rule and some has even been co-opted (like the tax free income up to 10k).
But a lot of people voted Lib Dem, I know I did, because we weren't fully happy with Labour but the just thing we wanted was a Tory government. They sold their voters down the river for a few cabinet salaries for themselves. Unforgivable.
I can understand that. But when you're a minority party, I'm not really sure what you're supposed to do. This is why PR (well STV for us) is so important, so we can move to a more European model and stop stigmatising parties for working with each other and forming coalitions. Because in the event of a crisis, the last thing you want is unstable minority governments which any get bills through or agree with a coherent strategy to deal with said crisis, especially in our system of Parliamentary sovereignty, where the legislative branch is supreme. Dysfunction in that branch paralyses the country. (The upswing being, if parliament is working, we have the most powerful ability to make sweeping changes, unrestricted by generations past) I'd also urge you to reconsider your forgiveness. I can understand you might feel betrayed, but Liberals tend towards pragmatism and I remember the feeling at the time was we don't like the Tories, but we'll do what we must, even if it's a deal with the devil, for the good of Britain and a chance to enact some of our agenda (which tbf most of the coalition years' policies, excluding austerity, was us, we just got backstabbed by the Tories and Clegg was naive)
Wasn't just siding with the Tories. They also campaigned to abolish tuition fees and then voted to triple them. They aren't pragmatic. They are right wingers economically. They showed their true colours with the last General Election as well. Could've had a coalition to prevent Brexit but preferred to vote for a GE that the Tories would whitewash instead of allowing Corbyn to be in charge temporarily. Clegg achieved exactly what he wanted. Bit of fame, exposure and has ended up at Facebook so shows his morals. They shouldn't ever be trusted. Nothing but chancers. Liberal voters might be the things you mention but the politicians that represent them are not.
I disagreed with voting for the tution fees. That was ridiculous really, especially when they campaigned to abolish it. I mean it was going to pass anyway so why didn't they vote it down, probs because they wanted to keep parliamentary unity in government but seriously it was ridiculous. Saying that 21 out of 49 MPs voted against the rise. It's also worth bearing in mind that Labour were the ones who first introduced Tution fees back in anyway. I'm unsure how Corbyn could have been in charge last election? I mean Labour voted for the election as well so I don't really see your point? The Tories had a minor minority, but they weren't at risk of losing a confidence vote or anything like that and there was no way Labour had the numbers to make a government even if they did. Also I mean this is some serious gaslighting considering Corbyn was no proper remainer, so there was no guarantee he would have prevented Brexit anyway. All politicians should be held to high standards but it seems when it comes to the LD people want them to be faultless and sparkling clean while they're happy to tolerate the constant muck that both the Tories and Labour shove down our throats everyday. I agree Clegg screwed up big time and I won't forgive him for it. But there are good people in the party and in the parliament who get good stuff done when they have the ability to do so. We've had a pendulum swing of Tories and Labour for 70 years and all we have to show for it is decline and degradation, so I'm not too into painting the Liberals as yellow Tories or yellow Labour or as some unforgivable evil that brought destruction on this country in the 5 years they were the junior partner of a coalition. It's not fair to them.
Before the election there was a majority of remainer MPs. They could have all worked together to prevent Brexit. Swinson and co were basically a single issue party at the time and they couldn't even put that issue ahead of working with Corbyn. Might not have worked but they didn't even give it a go.
No one was innocent in the brexit debacle. Corbyn had his whips disallow any voting in favour of non Labour ideas half a dozen times for example even though doing so would of solved the crisis, and in later stages also gifted the opposition parties as a whole control of parliament. This doesn't seem to of occurred for any reason beyond ego.
There was a significant difference with Labour though in that a significant amount of Labour voters wanted Brexit so they couldn't actively be anti-Brexit as a party. Lib Dems could. They were a single issue party at the time and didn't do something to achieve that single issue which showed they didn't really care, they were just using it opportunistically to gain voters.
> The Tories had more seats than Labour and even if the LD joined with Labour (who by no means are progressive as they make out to be), they still wouldn’t have been a majority government But the main reason was the Conservatives offered the LibDems a referendum on proportional representation - which the country completely rejected when it was put to them.
If you'll remember, the Tories campaigned against AV but Labour weren't much better. Officially they were supposed to be pro- AV but when push came to shove, over 200 Labour MPs and Peers campaigned against it. So when you have the main right wing party and most of the main left wing party campaigning against something, it's no bloody wonder we lost the referendum quite handily.
I think the last decade has soured me on referendums pernamentally. If I vote you in to do something I expect you to do your bloody job, not obscure your true opinion behind the opportunity to lie your way through a seperate vote then pretend that this somehow represents the public even having a fair set of facts. In practice they are a get out of jail free card for throwing away popular but personally inconvenient positions.
Tories half-assed it, just like they did the Remain campaign. We know how that turned out.
It was not a proportional representation referendum, AV isn't proportional. That's why so many lib dem activists didn't campaign in favour, and told their friends to vote against it.
>Whether you like it or not, the Tories won the 2010 election The simple fact there was a hung parliament says otherwise. No one won the election and the Lib Dems became king makers, and sided against the majority of their voters. >The Tories had more seats than Labour and even if the LD joined with Labour (who by no means are progressive as they make out to be), they still wouldn't have been a majority government. SF won 5 so a working Majority was 321. Lib Dems + Labour was 315, the SNP had 6. Add the Greens and PC and you're at 325. There was 0 reason to enable the Tories. 0. The sole reason they did it was hyperbole about not trusting Gordan Brown because "he put us in recession" - they literally pushed Tory misinformation on a global recession while enabling them. >They got Gay Marriage legalized Cameron intended to introduce it with or without the Lib Dems, and depended on Labour getting it over the line. >reinforced abortion rights, pushed hard for green energy policies thought setting up the green investment bank Both would have been achieved had they gone in to coalition with Labour. > introduced the pupil premium for children from disadvantaged backgrounds And also enabled 500,000 more children being pushed in to poverty through austerity, and had a hand in the number of food banks going up 1,000%. Lib Dems like to push this nonsense that they stopped the Tories being the nasty party, but are completely oblivious it seems to the statistical reality of what the coalition did, caused and the effect it had on ordinary people. In reality they did effectively nothing, turned their back on a large chunk of their voter based and enabled one of the worst governments for ordinary working people since Thatcher came in.
A rainbow government would of worked for about 5 minutes before having a political crisis, probably followed by a deadlocked parliament.
But the alternative he’s suggesting we stick with consistently produces conservative majorities? If his priority is implementing progressive policy then a system that produce a greater chance of progressive government even if some coalitions will be regressive is a logical choice.
> Seems to be prizing a very direct link between an MP and a constituency above all else This is the bit I really struggle to understand. An MP can claim to support their constituents all they want, but as soon as a whip is involved that idea just goes straight in the bin.
And yet PR systems exist with direct constituency links. He is just horrified that the bulk of the PLP would lose their seats in the "great shattering" of parties that would occur after proportional representation is introduced.
AV doesn’t result in a top-up party list. This guy is clueless. Calling working together “perverse” is pretty shocking too.
Yeah, that was dumb. AV was still very much a constituency based system - it just meant reallocation of votes until one candidate had more than 50% preference.
Translation: PR will make Labour's piece of the pie smaller, so I'm against it.
Labour would likely split into a left wing momentum led party and a more centrist trade union supported one if this happened, since the two halves don't really agree on much but need each other in this fptp system. They would also lose a lot of voter share to the Lib Dems and Greens in a lot of cases since votes for those would now be worthwhile in more places. So it's a shame but not a surprise that they won't touch it
They want to keep the freedom to vote for who we actually bloody choose away from us. Democracy doesn't mean anything to them, clearly.
The trade unions are talking about disaffiliating due to the current centrist nature of the party. If we got PR we'd see a real party of the working class emerge
More likely we'd see a slightly left party for middle class pro welfare types. And a hard left party largely run by middle class socialists and whatever trade unions they can convince that the working class more or less ignores which survives mostly on student votes. There won't be a working class party because the working class is not organised, and if they were they'd look more like UKIP than Labour seeing as the right is the only political group to experience any success in connecting to them in recent decades.
I think some form of PR is correct because we need people to feel their vote is not constantly wasted and engage them with voting more or risk serious problems. We shouldn't have safe seats where voting for many people just become pointless , nor have parties with concentrated votes ending up with huge amounts of representation per vote compared to parties with spread out voters. But I agree with his points in general. I think we should keep constituencies , and I think those who want PR because it will usher in a progessive future (rather than its a fairer system) , are indulging in wishful thinking. We should prepare ourselves for the chance of indistinguishable centre coalitions and the backroom deals that entails. And understand the risk that Nigel Farage or a religious party end up being wooed as kingmaker gaining influence far above their vote count. So I hope we change to a form of PR but I hope it's thought through and based on the best system for democracy rather than what sounds trendy.
I think PR would work as a part of a two chamber system. For example, overhauling the House of Lords, into a system that is elected solely through PR, no regional lists, just a very basic PR system, then the House of Commons remains as is, with the constituency MPs.
I think it would lead to a democratic conflict between the two as to which has more legitimacy.
Well, with some proper well thought out rules for it, or even exactly the same as the HOL now, potenti problems would be mitigated.
It’s not the rules it’s the democratic legitimacy. You could have the same rules as now but if the two chambers disagreed and If the HOL had proportional representation it would arguably better represent the will of the people. Now it can scrutinise but it can’t be said to have more legitimacy because it’s not elected.
In this hypothetical situation, I think it would be ideal for both Chambers to have to approve laws, both can propose, but it has to have the support of both. So the legitimacy would never really cone into question, it provides the safeguards, and level of scrutiny we have now, as well as having a more legitimate, 'blocker,' on laws that would be seen as against the publics interests.
That would seem like a recipe for the sort of repeated stalemate that can happen in the US.
I agree, that would be a risk. But then, look at the problems a fully PR system had in Germany, arguably, the stalemate of not having a stable legislative brance lead to WW2. So there would need to be a process to relieve deadlock, while maintaining the standards, but I genuinely think that a fully PR system could do far more harm than good. At the moment atheist switching to PR would be awful for British democracy considering we voted against it only 10 years ago.
And we end up with a US style legislative deadlock all the time. That sounds pretty horrifying to be honest.
> And understand the risk that Nigel Farage or a religious party end up being wooed as kingmaker gaining influence far above their vote count. Tbf, this is a problem in FPTP as much as other systems. Look at the DUP, for example. They had something like 1% of the seats in Westminster and were basically able to dictate their terms to Theresa May. Likewise, we have the Greens in Scotland. The SNP are in a minority without them, and this has meant that they can push through some fairly unpopular (well, to the degree that every other party attacks them) environmental policies.
>Tbf, this is a problem in FPTP as much as other systems. Look at the DUP, for example. They had something like 1% of the seats in Westminster and were basically able to dictate their terms to Theresa May. Yep it can happen in hung parliaments and it’s also the case that a main party may neutralise a small one by taking on their policies - such as with a Brexit …. but “as much as other systems” - I’m not sure that’s the case. >Likewise, we have the Greens in Scotland. The SNP are in a minority without them, and this has meant that they can push through some fairly unpopular (well, to the degree that every other party attacks them) environmental policies. The Scottish Parliament includes elements of PR doesn’t it?
I completely agree with your post. I too hope that we implement PR, but it needs to be a method of PR that is right for the UK. I also, if not agree, at least respect this MPs points in general. Yes he's wrong about AV, but AV+ would have those party lists so although he's a bit confused, if I pretend he meant about a future with AV+ being implemented it half makes sense. In my humble opinion, the perfect form of PR for the UK hasn't yet been codified. It would essentially be as follows; Warning; wall of text * \- Divide the UK into approximately 180 constituencies (combining what are current 3 or 4 constituencies together in ways that make the most sense to do so) * \- Each of the 180 new constituencies would elect 3 or 4 MPs depending on it's size. * \- Each major party would put forward 3 or 4 candidate to try to be elected in each new constituency. (smaller parties may put forward only 1 candidate) * \- Each member of public is asked to put an X in ONE candidates box - exactly the same as now. * \- Then, the votes are counted overnight and each candidate is given a number of "points", roughly proportional to the number of votes they got. So; if Boris Johnson gets 100,000 votes maybe he gets 100 points, if Ed Miliband gets 50,000 votes he gets 50 points. You get the idea. (We'll come back to this later). * \- Once the dust has settled the morning after, and the candidates know how many "points" they've been given, the bartering begins. The candidates are taken to some sort of court-like room in front of the media and begin negotiating; * \- Any candidate who has got over 20/25% of the points is immediately elected as MP, and if they have any "spare" points (from getting over the threshold) they can pass them onto another favoured candidate. So if Boris Johnson gets over the threshold with a spare 7 points, he can pass that onto fellow conservative candidate Stuart Anderson. If Ed Miliband gets over the threshold with a spare 2 points, he can pass that onto fellow Labour candidate Jon Ashworth. (They can also choose to scrap their spare points if preferred and not pass it on). * \- Once this is done, the eliminations start. The candidate with the lowest points remaining is then eliminated. He/she can choose to pass their points onto another candidate or scrap them altogether. So lets say Nigel Farage is eliminated, he can choose to pass his vote onto a "brexiteer" Tory candidate rather than a "remainer" tory candidate, as is his choice. * \- And then the next candidate with the lowest points is elimated, and they can choose to pass their points on or not. And again. And again. Until we have the required 3/4 candidates with enough votes to get over the threshold as is required, and everyone else is eliminated. Essentially, this is a form of STV (single transferable vote). Quite literally, you have a single vote that is transferred. But I favour this system over classic STV for a number of reasons: The "transfer" is very public, and very obvious what is going on. If you vote for a Lib Dem candidate, and they choose to pass your vote onto a Tory, and you hate Tories - well don't vote for them next time. Alternatively, if you vote for a Green, they may have enough points to help elect a green-aligned Labour/LibDem/Tory MP instead of a non-Green Labour/LibDem/Tory MP. In that way, even if they don't get elected, your views are still represented. Also if Boris Johnson uses his additional votes to get a crony elected who is a horrible person, well hopefully that falls back onto Boris Johnson. Edit - one huge benefit that I forgot to mention is that it brings in different political parties to different areas. Where I live, all the constituencies always return MPs that don't represent my personal political point of view. With my political system, we'd have Labour MPs in Kent, Tory MPs in Sunderland, and so on. Every single seat is worth fighting for.
You prefer to get single people out highlighted rather than have whole party rule over? I think it might get easily corrupted with backstage deals even though the people would pick their most favourable candidate. We should try and go for it, although many unpopular people would never get a slice of the cake.
If I understand what you mean, absolutely I prefer individual candidates with individual responsibility to Party List methods. I cannot reasonably argue that Party List PR is likely to cause corruption, indeed, if you look at the list of the least corrupt countries in terms of their politics, you'll see Party List PR systems near the top (New Zealand, Denmark, etc) However, I have had friends from countries like Spain and Portugal complain that they have found it hard to get rid of corrupt politicians in those countries as they can bury those politicians in the Party List and they end up getting elected anyway, even if no one would vote for them. Note: I'm not saying that worse than our system with "safe seats" but it's something to be considered. With my method above, what I'm going to call the theoretical "UK-STV" there is no Party List. To be elected, you have to have someone, explicitly endorse your candidacy. If Boris Johnson takes 45% of the vote in his area, he can pass the additional votes on and get someone else elected as MP, but then that candidate is forever tied to him. He's Boris Johnson's man. If he then gets found to be a corrupt figure, that's forever tied to Boris Johnson who brought him along.
Interesting!
Why not just let the voter assign where they want their vote to go in order from 1st to last candidate? And then transfer on accordingly.
Great question! Standard STV has a problem, which no one ever talks about. Because, well, it's not really a problem, but more of a "wait, is that really true? That's weird" With standard STV, the person that gets elected can depend on how you count the results... For Example: Lets say 'Adam the Ant' gets 25 votes and only needed 22 votes to pass the threshold. He has 3 "additional" votes that can go to the next candidate. How do you choose which 3 of the 25 votes goes to the next candidate? Could a nefarious person somehow game the system so that the 3 "transferable" votes go to Benjy the Beatle? The answer to these questions are "well it depends!". Because there are multiple different systems for this. But often a "every xth vote" system is used, so in our example with 25 votes and 3 spare votes the 7th, 14th and 21st vote might be taken, and those voters get their second choice. Or it might be the top 3 votes. Or the bottom 3 votes. Or a fraction of all 25 votes. From wikipedia; **Hare allocation system** \> Reallocation ballots are drawn at random from those most recently received. In a manual count of paper ballots, this is the easiest method to implement. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting\_single\_transferable\_votes#Counting\_rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_single_transferable_votes#Counting_rules) But there are multiple other systems, including some that give fractions of votes to the next candidate, and so forth. You can see how the above is open to manipulation, and not at all transparent to the majority of voters. And quite small changes can have large consequences; if Tory A is elected with 27% of the vote and a 2% surplus, if you carefully select that 2% to be all votes to go to Tory B instead of Lib Dem A, then maybe that gives Tory B 17% compared to Lib Dem As 16% and therefore eliminates Lib Dem A, whereas if taken randomly it maybe been an even split to Lib Dem A and Tory B, instead eliminating Tory B. You can even have some weird effects where its better for your candidate to go out early so that your vote has a higher chance of going to someone else you like... for example, picture these scenarios where we have one MP left to elect after Tory A, and Labour A and B are already past the threshold: >Lib Dem A (with Green Credentials) - 10 > >Tory B - 12 > >Labour C - 14 > >Green A - 8 Let's say in the above scenario, nearly all of the people that voted for "Green A" rank "Lib Dem A" as their second choice as "Lib Dem A" has green credentials. After Green A is eliminated, Lib Dem A has 18 votes. Tory B is then eliminated and his vote is split 50/50 to Lib Dem A and Labour C, and so Lib Dem A (with Green credentials) is elected. Compare this to: >Lib Dem A (with Green Credentials) - 10Tory B - 12Labour C - 14Green A - 13 Here, Green A has more votes than previously. So, with the lowest votes Lib Dem A is eliminated first. Lib Dem A voters split their vote between Tory B and Labour C roughly 50/50 giving them 17 and 19 votes respectively. Next Green A is eliminated and most of their voters third choice (second choice was Lib Dem A who is already eliminated) go to Labour C who is elected as the candidate. Because Green A got more votes, Green A's third choice was elected (Labour C). Had Green A got fewer votes, Green A's second choice would have been elected (Lib Dem A with Green Credentials) STV is full of weird nuisances which aren't talked about, and overall it works well. But I'd still prefer to make it simpler, and nothing is simpler than voting for a single candidate and letting them represent your vote in the best way they can.
You can literally have a version of PR while keeping constituencies. Northern Ireland and Ireland have STV where people are still very much beholden to their constituency. Anyone who's irish and reads this can tell you localism is alive and well kerry is literally run on all keels by a family who have seats as independents. Scotland has a dual system where some votes are to do with locality and others are across Scotland, as far as I know, Scottish readers can clarify. I'm not too familiar with it. I just remember hearing alba was running people only at a national level, mot local for Scottish representatives.
Oh I know, I'm just saying it's it's good idea to pick one that keeps the local connection.
Without PR, my Green vote is wasted. Fuck the two-party monopoly. We don't want to be the US.
The idea of a wasted vote is nonsense in my view. Not winning doesn't mean your vote was "wasted". To claim so suggests that the goal of voting is to guess who is going to win and vote for that party.
> To claim so suggests that the goal of voting is to guess who is going to win and vote for that party. In a lot of places, there are generally one or two clear leading candidates. At that point, any vote for a different one will have no meaningful effect. Instead it means that your vote is best used to vote *against* your least liked candidate, by voting for the opponent who is most likely to be successful. At least with PR, that vote will be counted towards a proportion of the total vote used to allocate national seats.
That's just tactical voting. I think referring to any vote as "wasted" is incorrect. And PR doesn't get rid of tactical voting
> I think referring to any vote as "wasted" is incorrect. You're technically right. Vote share can be used as a proxy to vague public sentiment, for example. It's why I was careful to say "no meaningful effect". Tactical voting, though, understands that to get the most meaningful effect from your vote you are restricted in how you use it, thus "wasting" it if you don't use it for that purpose. > And PR doesn't get rid of tactical voting True, but it drastically reduces the need for it, particularly if the vote is on a national scale.
My favourite voting format is pretty unheard of and manages to eliminate tactical voting without PR. It's called Score run-off vote. You score each candidate and then the two highest scoring candidates go head to head, with your vote going to whichever candidate you gave the higher score.
But that fundamentally doesn't change anything - You having more options doesn't make those options meaningful.
Single Transferable Vote
>Instead it means that your vote is best used to vote > >against > >your least liked candidate, by voting for the opponent who is most likely to be successful. THIS this is the current state of FPTP - I vote against who I don't want PR would be great, and yes Labour would likely split into 2 that's the concern, I suspect you'd end up with some centralist rainbow of New Labour/Libs and Green and maybe Old Labour......who knows, be interesting to see what PR would do to the electorate, if parties would split.....could Tories split, I can't see any obvious divides in the party but who knows
> could Tories split, I can't see any obvious divides in the party but who knows Judging by the past 3 years, I'd expect a roughly 50/50 split. You had a purge back in 2019, where a lot of tories either fled the party and joined others, or were just kicked out, when Johnson took over. From there, you've got the recent no confidence vote. I would expect the Johnson cultists to break into one party, and everyone else attempt to form a sort of pre-johnson tories. There is also the fact that they took a swing to the right under Cameron, and I expect most of them either to stick with Johnson, or align with whatever Farage's latest party is, although these will be a small portion of the MPs.
>The idea of a wasted vote is nonsense in my view. That's wrong. >Not winning doesn't mean your vote was "wasted". No, your vote not electing anyone means it was wasted. >To claim so suggests that the goal of voting is to guess who is going to win and vote for that party. No, its getting someone who represents you, win or lose. Who gets power in Parliament is wholly different question.
> No, your vote not electing anyone means it was wasted. I think that's a pretty crazy view to have
Let's look at the alternative... With PR (in its extreme form), every vote counts towards the proportion of representation in parliament from your chosen party. Literally every vote counts. With FPTP, a vote for anything other than first place might as well have had "FUCK ME IN THRE ARSE" scrawled on it.
There are some downsides to PR but they’re much smaller than FPTP which at heart is highly undemocratic especially in a multi party system. The loss of the constituency link would be no loss since it’s actually insane that our legislators are also expected to be local social workers.
No it isn't. We should be able to write to OUR representatives, and tell them when we belive they are acting against our interests, not having to wait 5 years for another election.
Yes that’s awesome. And then 95% of the time they’ll send a boilerplate response and ignore it - or ask a token question in the house. We prioritise our petty need to “speak to the manager” over an actually effective and accountable political system.
The reason I want PR is this; In 2019 the Conservatives got 365 seats from almost 14m votes at an average of 39,000 votes a seat. The SNP got 48 seats from 1.2m votes at 25,000 votes a seat. The Green Party got 1 seat from 835,000 votes. They got 2/3 the number of votes as SNP but a fraction of the seats. How is this fair? How is the will of the voting public legitimately represented?
Also UKIP at its height had 10% of the vote and no seats, that isn't representative and its just not right. The libs, UKIP, Green all unrepresented, SNP, Tories massively over represented and we end up with governments that the majority of people don't want.
I'd grudgingly accept UKIP holding 65 seats in Westminster, so long as it was more representative of the nation. I still think the best idea would be to make Lords a long-term (20+ years) elected position. Unfortunately, I have no idea how that would be done without turning into something like the US supreme Court nomination shitshow.
Just a little not to point out that the SNP are vocally and consistently pro PR at Westminster. It’s party policy and a manifesto point. They have the distinction of being the only party who benefit from FPTP but support its abolition anyway as a matter of principle.
BREAKING NEWS: Man who's had power and money for 36 years straight doesn't want to overturn the system that gave it to him.
Dear Constituent, The Labour Party was founded on the principle of protecting workers, and if we were to switch to a proportional voting system then that would result in fewer jobs for members of my party. As such I am unable to support this. Kind regards, An MP in an ultra safe Labour seat who only needs to keep their CLP on side in order to have a job for life.
A vote in an FPTP system is effectively a vote to disenfranchise everyone who doesn't want your candidate. It's a vote for a candidate, and against all the others. Often, it's not even a vote for a candidate - I've always voted against the Tory. How lovely it was to vote in the European elections, knowing that my vote actually mattered and wasn't potentially disenfranchising anyone.
We throw a large amount of votes away in the UK. Every MP in parliament is about 17 million votes for them, the rest of the votes cast, around 14 million votes, do not have impact on the result at all. Worse perhaps is that having had that vote thrown away because more people voted the other guy they are now in a constituency run by someone who does not represent them at all and who we know will almost always vote on party lines regardless of what happens in their constituency. Its a terrible system which produces wildly unrepresentative governance and any time it looks representative is by chance. It overplays the importance of local individual MPs when most people vote for the party and even just the leading MP and can't even name their local representative.
I would have less of a problem with FPTP if it wasn't for the whip. An individual who attempted to represent all their constituents.
The whips system ought to be illegal, its literally the use of blackmail to force MPs to vote against their own views.
Disagree with him, but at least he has the decency to address the points, rather than just copy and paste the party line like members of the government do. The massive majorities enabled on a minority of public support in FPTP lead to situations like the current one. A government consumed by sheer arrogance and power trips. A democracy needs a strong opposition to function, and real consequences for MPs who step out of line, in order to function effectively. In this respect I can see how FPTP in theory holds back extremism, except that the tories basically morphed into the BNP-lite so not entirely convincing. Annoyingly he didn't say the main reason, in that in reality many Labour mps are shit scared of it because it would reduce their own chances of entering government.
Looks like he’s actually given a proper bespoke response as opposed to a cut and paste one. Reading between the lines, it looks like his main concern is the movement of our system away from constituency representation if we moved to a form of PR. And that is a concern for a lot of people to be fair. The other concern he has is about coalition government - understandable, as British politics is geared towards swinging from one majority to another across the political spectrum, and parties in power don’t like having to negotiate with coalition partners to get things done (although arguably the Lib Dems helped hold the worst excesses of the Tories back).
Coalitions are bad, and I'll use the extreme worst example to prove it. Yeah because adversarial politics is working so well for the UK at the minute isn't it?
Any MP that tries to defend FPTP on the basis of the constituency link needs to speak to their constituents more. Around 2/3 won't know who the MP is and of the 1/3 that do, a large chunk will hate them
This is what cropped up in my head when I read it. You’d swear he has some sort of unspoken beautiful relationship with all his constituents where they can access him for advice and progress on local issues at the drop of a hat, but somehow PR would destroy this
May as well have just scrapped all that nonsense and had out with the much simpler, real answer: "AV doesn't benefit the Labour Party and therefore puts my job at risk".
Ok but how about a system where FPTP elected MPs and then we had a PR system that elected lords in the house of lords. Does that not retain all the benefits of FPTP but allow PR to also act as a check and balance on minority rule?
PR does in fact remove the link between an MP and their constituency. But I think that as well as that being a negative, it also brings a possible benefit to the country. Currently, the candidate in every constituency is attacked if they aren't sufficiently local. I.e. if they weren't brought up in the area, don't know much about the area or don't live in the area, those are seen as negative points against the candidate. That means that elections tend to be (maybe slightly) biased in favour of local candidates. However, many parties have pretty solid safe seats. If a candidate happens to be born, grows up and becomes political in a particular constituency that is "safe" for the other party, they have to move. And if they move they suffer the negatives of not being from the new constituency. Let's say that for a Labour candidate, 1/3 of the country is a safe Tory seat, and if they happen to be born there they are at a bit of a disadvantage. Same for a Conservative candidate born and brought up in a safe Labour seat. This disadvantage may be small, but I do think it exists. And yet, statistically, the best candidate for any one party could be born and grow up anywhere in the country. Why should a percentage of their finest people start with a demerit? PR would allow parties to select the best candidates from everywhere. If it turns out that the best six people in the country were all born in the same constituency, they can all enter politics and have the same chance as everyone else.
The main reason I'd like to see PR is that my Red Wall constituency has two parties who might win it (Labour or Conservative), and I'm not that enamored of either of them. If I want my vote to matter, I have to vote against the party I want to see *out* of office, not pick anyone I'd actually like to see in office = because all the people I'd like to see in office could never win my constituency. I.e. in the next election I want to turf out the Conservatives so I'll be picking Labour. I'd very much like to vote positively for a party I like rather than negatively against a party. My current choice would be the Green Party. But, as I don't live in Brighton, any vote for them is completely pointless. The two advantages I see for PR are: * I get to vote positively for the first time in my life. * As a result the parties will have to positively appeal to me, and reduce the negative campaigning.
In a two party system, the equilibrium under FPTP, neither party will want to reform it because it disempowers them. The benefits accruing to the MPs of a party permanently in opposition, like Labour who Blair aside pretty much never win, are still incredible. These MPs are quite content doing essentially nothing in opposition for their entire careers The Lib Dems insisting on another referendum to support a government that needs them is the only possible way by which electoral reform can happen.
Why don't we look at Wales, where there is both FPTP constituency MSs and PR regional MSs? In my experience, I have never seen any of my four regional MSs, not one of them. Little did I know, it even included the Welsh Health Secretary, however, how an I supposed to know that, when I have never seen her? However, for all the faults of my constituency MSs, and even though I don't support some of his policies, at least he is there holding constituency surgeries and doing various events. Welsh Labour have recently said they intend to get rid of the constituency MSs, and only have regional ones. This is a huge backwards step for democracy. While it may mean that the representation if the Senedd will be closer to that of the voters, I feel like the main purpose of the reforms is to remove a crucial layer of accountability that all the constituency MSs have. At least with FPTP, I know who to wrote angry letters to.
So AMS does not exist then? One of the two proportional systems *we actually use in the UK*? AMS doesn't even need party lists - it doesn't have them in Baden-Wurttemberg.
If anyone wants to abolish the two party system, there’s at least two parties they definitely won’t belong to.
Ha! the SNP laughs at your "Single Transferable Vote stopping a majority" rhetoric ...
Coalition governments should be a norm because they balance the policy. A good government is not the one that makes decisions efficiently, but rather the one that doesn't make stupid decisions
I hate this answer so much - that stupid referendum always gets thrown back in our faces but the fact is none of those choices were proportional representation!! How on earth they can say the British people voted against proportional representation when it wasn't even one of the options on the table is beyond me. Makes me furious all over again whenever anyone mentions it
It sounds like Sir George Howarth MP is scared of the people democratically electing MPs. "Oh, but UKIP might gain" isn't the defence he thinks it is. If UKIP gained a bunch of MPs through STV it would be because that's what people in that area wanted. Perhaps Labour would then have to actually try? STV is used in NI and in Scotland specifically to avoid nationalist parties gaining majority control. If it's good enough for Holyrood and Stormont, why not Westminster?
His assessment of the 2011 AV vote is totally wrong. There was no party list component to the proposal. Every MP would still be a constituency MP. He's talking out of his arse.
STV is not proportional representation yet is still more representative than FPTP, not to mention that, in Ireland at least, independent MPs without party affiliation are not uncommon at all. Seems like an ideal system for us. EDIT: before anyone calls me out, I meant TDs, not MPs
Not surprising. Anyone who at this stage in the game is still projecting their desire for PR onto a Labour government is delusional. If you want PR Labour is not the party for you.
So you think the lib dems may back it and make it a requirement of any coallition - that could be spicy - and if they really went for it...... Problem is splitting that 'not tory' vote.....could result in, well Tory
Why do you think the public would want PR any more now than they did in 2011 when 68% of the UK said “no thanks”?
Someone didn't even read the letter.
Voting reform is not particularly popular with most people. But this sub has a weird obsession with it acting like it’s some magic democracy bullet rather than just a slightly different way of doing things.
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Im not really too sure where you are coming from at all. Voters being split wouldnt be a concern if our electoral system actually represented how people voted. As it is right now, millions of people have "wasted" votes.
The current system results in Tory governments elected by a minority but plurality of people in England that the other countries of the UK overwhelmingly reject and vote against by large margins. I wouldn’t say that’s working great for a union of countries.
PR, on its own, is not the answer. Making the "job" of MP have a finite span e.g. 10 years would help. Relocate Parliament outside of London. The UK needs its democracy dragging into the 21st century and beyond.
Im not really too sure what either of those achieve apart from removing experienced parliamentarians and being a waste of public money.
Yeah I agree. PR would be an answer to a lot of problems. For one thing we wouldn't have had the Tories as majority government for the past 12 years, it'd probably be a Lib- Labour Coalition most of the time. The current system entrenches the duopoly between the Tories and Labour. 10 years is too little, we need experianced parliamentarians who know what they're doing and understand tradition, precedent and procedures, and who are adept at debating and making laws, otherwise you get a clown show. Also there's nothing inherently wrong with having the union parliament in London, though we should definitely have regional assemblies based on equal population sizes for the rest of England.
> Making the "job" of MP have a finite span e.g. 10 years would help. In what way would that help?
If anything it would probably make things worse. It would incentivise them even more to provide favours so that they get “consultancies” after they’re done.
It would also reduce legislative experience. It’s a bad idea.
Yes, it ended up doing exactly this when they instituted term limits in the California State Assembly, meaning it was easier for lobbyists to influence legislators
I’ve never been keen on the concept of term limits. I do understand why people like the idea and understand the benefits it would have in some circumstances. I help but feel, though. that it places arbitrary limits on and would sometimes force someone out of their job and/or position based on that arbitrary limit when they might actually be the best and most competent person for it. They might actually be doing an unusually good job of if and they’ll have to step down in favour of someone who might have only a fraction of the integrity and competence. If someone is bad and people want them out, I think they should be voted out by the people, not have the option of voting or not for them removed because of a limit.
Could have been a lot shorter: ‘FPTP suits me just fine’.
Exactly. "You have to understand that FPTP is good for me even if we never win an election!"
Would have had a whole bunch of UKIP MPs with PR.
So? They would have atleast been representative of what people wanted
Fair enough but it was a reminder to the definitely not UKIP folk on here to think it through.
He makes fair points but with the constituency boundary changes looming which will put more seats in traditionally Tory voting areas (No surprise there !) FPTP is set to put the Labour party in even longer spells in opposition.
Seems like he's fine just watching the Tories fuck everything up then. As it has been, so shall it continue
"STV bad" because religious parties in... Israel? Huh?
Fun fact : - Scotland uses a mix of the AV system and PR for the Scottish Parliament Elections. What this MP said about the AV system made me chuckle "It would create two classes of MP". My assumsion is that the ones getting in via the list would be a "Lower class" MP. Douglas Ross, leader for the Scottish Conservative Party got in via the list.
Complete idiot. It's like he doesn't want progressives to win or something. If any kind of Labour government doesn't introduce STV in its next government, after been given the perfect opportunity to fix this archaic pro-landowner South-centric system literally no other country uses - then they will be ultimately useless. Then we do the non-electoral strategy. This should be serious shit.
The parties campaigning to switch to PR systems are the ones in a position to gain most from this, however they have not been doing that well in elections and as the MP's reply states, there was not enthusiasm from UK voters to change the system.