What if we had proportional representation ?

PR would allow a lot of parties to fracture, you could see the labour left and SWP becoming one and they would get seats. The right of the tories could (Hello Suella) could join Reform and yes they would get more seats. But the stinker is that manifestos would go out of the window when, at the end of the process, they look for parties to build a coalition with.

That's probably the case in the majority of seats, more people will have voted for someone other than the winner. Getting over 50% isn't that common. So most people could say "in my seat, more people didn't want labour/lib dem/tory/reform/green, but that's what we've got".

In my seat, Labour won. But more people wanted either Tory or Reform.

I'm very happy because with the new Westminster boundaries I actually got to vote for the candidate I wanted most and see them win for the first time ever (& I'm old!)

There's many different versions but the one we have in Wales we get two votes. One is for our constituency Senedd member, the other for the regional list which is proportional. You can (& I often do) vote for different parties for each. Parties still need a reasonably large vote to get in but it's much more proportional than first past the post

I'd have voted differently with PR.

I live in the SW which was always likely to swing majority Lib Dem and I didn't want the Tories back.

I'm not sure your thinking takes into account a good percent of the voters this election voted tactically. In a PR situation, Labour would attract more votes in areas like mine.

Me too.

PR confuses me

WHO are you voting for?

If all the votes have to be tallied up and all the constituencies represented, then who sits in the HoC?

Would there be a pool of likely candidates who are called up if their party gets enough votes?

Preferential choices?

What?

I really hope we do get some version of PR in the next Labour manifesto though I'm not hopeful. I feel like both the Welsh & Scottish governments have shown that it really doesn't lead to unstable fragmented government.

Was quite surprised to note that in my (true blue) constituency, Lib. Dem. and Labour combined (about 13,000 and 11,000 respectively) got 7,000ish more votes than the Tory winning candidate. Feels unfair that more people didn’t want a Tory win, than did, yet here we are with FPTP.

Exactly, in a PR system the votes would most likely be different.

Same here

People want a local MP. Would we still have that with PR? Or would it become even more London centric?

Exactly, there's little point trying to translate these votes to how it would be under a different system.

My parents and sister voted Lib Dem to get their Tory candidates out - they'd have voted labour if it had been a choice between them and Lib Dem.

If Reform had not fielded a candidate in our area, the Lib Dems would have unseated the Conservative candidate.

Why would Reform not exist if we had PR? Why assume all Reform votes would go to the Tories if we had PR?

I think we should have PR, but the cost of it is that parties like Reform will have seats in parliament.

I like the idea of PR but I think the risk is you end up without anyone with enough mandate to do much.

This is a good point.

I had too little sleep and too much champagne so I'm not the sharpest this morning, but is the OP asking why the Conservatives didn't win even though she's imagined a load of extra votes for them?

If we had proportional representation then parties would change their election strategy, we can’t assume that the results would be the same, because the campaigning would have been carried out differently.

The aim of a parties election strategy is to secure a certain number of seats, the aim of the strategy isn’t to secure the highest proportion of votes.

Not only that but the parties would structure differently and "PR" is not one thing - there are many variations. Which version of PR are people thinking we would get?

PR was soundly defeated in a national referendum as recently as the Cameron/Clegg regime. Not really surprising as the Liberals insisted on a version of PR which would likely have given the Liberals a permanent balance of power.

FPTP forces the two major parties to be broad churches to have a hope at power. When they cease to be broadly moderate but accommodating of a range of views they lose power - the coalitions are within the parties.

Any PR system would likely see some fragmentation in the parties, some of them would give disproportionate power to fringe parties and create instability.

I remember Barbara Castle speaking on the subject of electoral reform and going through the pros and cons of different system. A big plus point of FPTP in her view was that the winning party has the power to really make change and it holds them firmly to account for their actions. That has always stuck with me as I've wavered on the subject.

I do think that something like PR is a better voting system. Currently my vote makes no difference as it is a very safe Tory seat (less safe this time round mind you and I think a lot of the Tory voters did indeed jump ship to Reform looking at the percentages)

Lib Dem's got 12.2% of the vote and 71 seats and Reform got 14.3% of votes and 4 seats

Just points to Reform being lots of small % in many areas

@AutismHelp1980 ,

That is a slightly strange way of looking at it.

If we had PR, we would prob have a left wing coalition government of Labour plus Lib Dem’s + Greens who, between them scored over 50% of the vote.

Of course that would risk the next government being a right wing Conservative/Reform coalition, with Farage as a senior minister.

PR has pluses, but you get dangerous bedfellows in coalition. Look at Israel where Netanyahu is governing with the permission of the religious (racist) right.

People might have voted differently if there was PR though

I voted for an independent candidate I knew in the hope he didn't lose his deposit because I live in a Lib Dem stronghold

Had we had PR, I would have voted differently

That was the only time since I've been old enough to vote that I've abstained (should have spoilt my ballot really). Both options were shit.