What if we had proportional representation ?

Interesting that Labour got 3 million more votes than Conservatives and many more MPs than them, but Reform got 4 million votes and only 4 MPs.

9.6 million people voted for Labour, that really isn’t that many to give them such a majority

It might allow better representation by smaller parties, more democracy. The two main party system does not represent us well at the moment.
It could potentially be unwieldy. Anyone who's tried to lead a team of diverse personalities pulling in different directions might understand.
I was impressed by the speeches after the Swindon vote, winning and leaving candidates both spoke of serving their constituents and there was mutual respect. This is what I would like to see more of.

Why are we assuming Reform votes would be added to Conservative?

That referendum was not for proportional representation. It was for alternative vote which is a preferential voting system, nothing like PR.

Hmm, AV is not proper PR, but this argument has been rehashed many times!

We had a referendum on PR. People didn't want it.

Yes I would have voted differently too.

I voted tactically for labour, but would’ve voted for a smaller party if we had PR. I suspect many others would- which is why the big parties campaigned so hard against PR in the first place.

The results/vote share might look quite different with PR. At the moment in a lot of seats people "hold their nose" and vote tactically for the party with the best chance of unseating the person they want to remove, rather than who they actually want to win.

Labour did have the most votes - around 3m more than Conservatives.

Big assumption that 100% of Reform's vote would transfer to Conservative if they didn't stand.

People vote a certain way BECAUSE we have FPTP and BECAUSE they choose between the range of parties on offer.

You can't just decide to rewrite an election in the way that suits you.

Well we had a referendum about it about a decade ago and decided we didn't want it so tough tit.

ETA that was also when we had a coalition government and lots of people jumping up and down about the unfairness of the vote share etc.

Would as many people have voted Reform if actually more chance of getting an MP?

Sadly I think more people would although I’d like to think it’s the opposite. I’ve been very pro PR most of my life (and I’m old!) but I’m not so sure now. I think it can lead to the opportunity for weird coalitions that have nothing to do with the will of the people. There are no perfect systems of course.

I wonder if mandatory voting (with a none of the above option for abstentions) is the way to go actually. That may force politicians to think about a wider demographic rather than focusing on people likely to turn up.

Would as many people have voted Reform if actually more chance of getting an MP?

BBC are predicting that Labour will have 35% of the vote, up 2%. Seems odd with that level of the vote you have so many more MPs

Why “if Reform didn’t exist”. More interesting surely to look at where we’d be with PR including them. That’s absolutely key to PR, that the smaller parties get a voice.

Its bizarrely disingenuous to arbitrarily award the Tories a load of extra votes then declare they got more votes than labour.