I strongly believe we need a new political system in the UK.

[Theemeperorsnewclothes]

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. It’s always been this way. The Tories have really f upped because the middle classes are feeling the pinch of their disgraceful profiteering from covid. Labour won’t be much better as they are still too far right to make it right. Linda on the council estate is not your enemy. The big corporations who are using the Russian/Ukraine war are. Until a government steps in and actually advocates for the individual we are all f…ed. There is no political knight in shining armour coming to rescue us anytime soon. We need to change the political system in the UK. We need better representation, who actually stand a chance of winning.

During that time Wales has had a Labour government since 1999 and Scotland and SNP government since 2007.

The SNP could be deposed by a rainbow coalition. It's the nature of UK politics that this won't happen rather than an issue with the Scottish PR system.

@GasPanic [Belgium] - No government for 600 days. I don't think it has gotten any better since then.

But Belgium is still there. The country did not collapse or cease to exist. Life went on as usual - perhaps raising the question of what governments actually do; do they sometimes cause more damage than improvements?

"PR tends to lead to endless fighting between parties as the vie for support and power with each other."

Examples please. In my experience, coalitions result in the demands of the more extreme parties having to be watered down, and the status quo of the established parties occasionally recieving a welcome kick up the backside from the newer parties.

"FPTP actually allows governments to get on with implementing policy and to me is far better in a time of crisis when decisive action is needed. That policy is not always what I want. But I won't be crying to change the system because I believe it works and is effective."

Only if the governing party acts in good faith. The "good, decent chap" assumption that the government would always act in the best interests of the country as a whole (and the principle to which the MPs agree to when they enter Parliament) that Johnson and his cronies finally and fatally blew out of the water and that the present government, more than any other, has rendered totally meaningless. The danger with FPTP is that the "stable government" morphs into an elected dictatorship - which is what the present government has come very close to and which is why we are having this discussion. Not everyone sees FPTP as being as effective as you do - some see it as an anachronistic, flawed and damaging system that is preventing the emergence of new ideas, new thinking, and new parties more relevent to the 21st century.

"FPTP actually allows governments to get on with implementing policy"

Except they don't. Not only do governments tend not to implement their manifesto promises, but in many cases, there was never any intention of implementing them. Instead, the manifesto is quietly placed in the filing cabinet, and having gained power they get on with the "real manifesto" that nobody was ever given the chance to vote on.

I’ve observed the Swedish system that is based on the Dutch. This has a lower bar of 4%, and guess what you have a few smaller parties getting 4%-10%.

They all campaign as if they will be in government on their own, which of course will never happen. Instead deals are done behind closed doors involving the smaller parties that the mainstream has vowed never to work with (Swedish Democrats and the Left Party) because the numbers simply don’t add up without involving them.

I think many people from the UK supporting PR don’t quite understand that rather than giving a fairer result for the existing voting pattern a real PR system will deliver a much more fragmented result.

Yes. So let's do away with governments all together.

Sorry your claims make no sense.

PR has advantages and disadvantages over FPTP. But it is not clear cut and none of your arguments are convincing.

Examples please ? DYOR. I've just given you one, Belguim, where the government wasn't formed for 600 days because of inter party discussion and infighting. Have a look at where the Dutch government is at at the moment and the process that got it there. How much work are they doing trying to change law for the better ?

And yes FPTP governments do get on with implementing policy. My suspicion is that it is policy that you don't like though. That is not a good reason to me for the system to be changed.

How can a government that is not even formed such as the Belgian one given in the example implement policy ?!

Here is a realistic, what I see as balanced and simple discussion :

https://theweek.com/news/politics/958037/pros-and-cons-of-proportional-representation

None of the arguments make a compelling case for me and most of the things you come out with re points like "elected dictatorship" are clearly hyperbole as we are about to find out in the next few days.

I can understand that some people see the situation different to me. But I don't agree with selling PR as some sort of panacea which will solve all the countries political issues, which is what most proponents appear to claim.

I prefer a government that when it gets elected it can get on with implementing policy and be judged at the next election on that basis. Not that spends huge amounts of effort and energy horse trading with a myriad of different groups to try to achieve the smallest change. Governments have enough diversity of thought in their own parties opinions.

Fortunately I don't see the situation changing any time soon.

I'm in favour of it because of the inter-party deals that are required.

If you look at recent years we've had one formal coalition, which showed us that we're not used to this as an electorate and our political parties weren't prepared for it. We've then had the supply-and-demand agreement between the Conservatives and the DUP. And that showed us the dangers of coalition type arrangements when there isn't a large enough pool of small parties to work with - the DUP had the Conservatives over a barrel on that one because there was no one else they could turn to.

If we had a genuine PR system (with a threshold of either 4% or 5%) the largest party would have a choice of partners with at least semi-compatible objectives to try and do deals with. And coalition deals in general temper the extremes. If one party tries to push through exit from ECHR it's going to need a majority from parties elected on the basis of overall public electoral will. It can't be pushed through by a party with a parliamentary majority despite a popular vote minority.

And remember with FPTP you still get very similar problems to that of coalitions in PR. We only had the Brexit referendum because a small part of the Conservative parliamentary party held the Conservative Prime Minister hostage over it whilst Farage goaded from the sidelines. Intra-party rebellions only need to number half the governments majority before the PM is in real trouble. If the government majority is 80 it only needs a rebel faction of forty to bend the back of the PM on an issue.

No they couldn't because the greens and independents would support the SNP.

I think the unlikelihood of Labour and the Conservatives going into coalition is more to the point. But that's the parties, not the system. Which was my point. The system would permit the SNP to be deposed, if there was a political will from the other parties to do so.

Although to criticize the system, AMS is a bastardised version of MMP that sacrifices absolute PR for a constant number of seats. It has flaws. But the SNP's position in Scottish politics isn't really one of them.

@GasPanic "I prefer a government that when it gets elected it can get on with implementing policy and be judged at the next election on that basis."

But recent experience suggests that UK governments don't "get on with implementing policy" and in any case, the vast majority of voters didn't vote for these policies. "The will of the people" is a false claim - ignoring this, and actually implementing policies that were never in any manifesto (and that polls suggest are not supported by voters) is at best an insult to the electorate (both those who voted for the winning party and those who voted against) and at worst is really an elected dictatorship. And FPTP just repeats the problem rather than resolving it - just as in 2019, the majority can vote for parties opposed to the government and the incumbent can still "win" by just gaining the support of just 29% of the electorate.

Not that spends huge amounts of effort and energy horse trading with a myriad of different groups to try to achieve the smallest change.

Again, there is no evidence of this in most countries that have some form of PR. You quote Italy and Belgium, but ignore the Scandinavian countries, Austria, Germany and all of the other EU countries that have PR.

Even if you support FPTP, at what point does a government cease to have legitimacy? When it only has the support of 30% of the electorate? 25% (a real possibility later this week)? 20%? How long can a government govern if it is opposed by 80% of the electorate? Is a coalition of parties making up close to 50% of the electorate not more representative than a government attempting to govern with the support of only half that?

I strongly believe we need to take a long, hard look at who is getting into the position of being selected for all parties, why they got there, and why other people didn't

Some sort of primary system ? Wasn't something proposed/trialled somewhere in the SW ?

That does run the risk of leading to an election a week if you aren't careful.

"I think many people from the UK supporting PR don’t quite understand that rather than giving a fairer result for the existing voting pattern a real PR system will deliver a much more fragmented result".

That's democracy!! Complex and messy. The opinions of 60 million people are not going to fit conveniently into 2 camps. Those 2 camps are also prone to infighting and factions. Or the party leader can override the wishes of a large section of his party, as in the article from theweek.com cited upthread.

Plus the UK has a major identity problem, always thinking it is special and can just pick and choose the bits of systems that it likes (eg let's join Europe but no, we are Special so will keep our Special currency - you other plebby countries can have your poxy euro). Then whining about Brexit. What do we want, in or out? The UK doesn't really know what it wants. It is actually the FK, the fragmented kingdom (the kingdom part being one of its main problems, but that's for another thread).

It is not "united" at all, but a hotchpotch of different countries and different social classes all flag-waving for their own conflicting political interests and regional identities. The Senedd, the Scottish parliament and the NI assembly all use different voting systems from Westminster. The people are not all pulling in the same direction.

If FPTP was so efficient, it would surely still be used in most other European democracies, when in fact the only two countries still using a form of winner- takes-all are a dictatorship (Belarus) and France... the French are not exactly having a fun time at the polls, are they?

(https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/which-european-countries-use-proportional-representation/)

Looks like chaos to me. Then people wonder why we are having such trouble electing decent politicians.

Plus the UK has a major identity problem, always thinking it is special

The UK. Or just England ?

And that throws another layer of complexity into the mix. The fact the UK is actually 4 nations crowbarred by geography and history into the same islands.

I think one problem is even the language 'government' and 'opposition'. Describing the other parties as 'opposing' isn't helpful, why would they 'oppose' good policy. There shouldn't be an 'opposition', politicians and parties should all be on the same side, that of the population. They might have some disagreement on what's best but I don't think describing them as 'opposition' is helpful.
I heard Rishi Sunak on the radio today talking about how much he loved the Tory party, I did think WTF! I don't want politicians who 'love' their political party, frankly, I want politicians who don't give a shit about the party, or what's best for the party. In the hierarchy of what professionally politicians should care about, it should be country/constituency, that's it, nothing else should come into it.

FPTP allows the electorate to punish governments like no other. I’d keep it. It forces parties to get their ducks in a row a
if they want to succeed and it squares extremist parties.

what I would do is ban all arty headquarters from providing constituencies Ruth a shortlist of possible candidates whom they have vetted. Local members should have free choice over their representative. It would make MP better reflect the will of the electorate and it would make them more accountable to their constituents.

On a point of information though, what you describe as wanting out of your government re individual freedom is fundamentally right wing.

squashes not squares.

If we had a genuine PR system we’d never be able to push useless politicians out of power. PR also encourages people to vote for minor parties like Reform. It’s why they want that system. It’s Farage’s route to Downing St.

Jeremy Corbyn was the messiah and the British public wouldn't have it

Jeremy Corbyn was and still is an absolute wanker and the British public could see it a mile off.

Why on earth has this silly old man become such a talisman for so many people? He didn't just turn up, he's been hanging around for 40 years, mostly ineffectual troublemaking, picking the wrong side in conflicts, droning on about the same old nonsense. People who have known him for years didn't want to be in his cabinet.