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General election 2024

FPTP doesn't work - time to reform it

135 replies

twodowntwotogo · 05/07/2024 09:51

There's such a wild mismatch between % of the vote and the actual result - the most extreme ever. It makes for a 'cleaner' outcome but given the mutli-party system, isn't it time to move to proportional representation as more democratic? Thoughts? (I'm all for it but would be interested in hearing if anyone seriously champions FPTP).

OP posts:
ChimneyPot · 05/07/2024 16:50

BlackLambAndGreyFalcon · 05/07/2024 15:34

If we want to split hairs - the 2011 referendum was not a referendum on PR. It was a referendum on the AV voting system, which is not a PR voting system.

And a new referendum on the EU would be about applying to join rather than leaving.

Apileofballyhoo · 05/07/2024 16:52

Ireland has PR but it's PR in each individual constituency so it doesn't just go by country wide vote share. There is sometimes a discussion on how the country wide vote related to the no of seats. One particular party were very good at managing their vote share to deliver more seats. Parties very occasionally get an overall majority, sometimes propped up by independents in a manner not unlike Theresa May's deal with the DUP, and more recently we had a minority government propped up by the second largest party. We have had so many coalitions and they decide on a programme for government before agreeing to go into government and then aim to deliver that. So there are compromises made there.

Our constituencies are multiparty constituencies and we have a single transferable vote so you might actually get 4 or 5 TDs all of whom you have a vote to. How this works is all the votes are counted and TDs have to reach the quota (total no of votes divided by no of seats available) to be elected. Once someone is elected their surplus is redistributed proportionally to the next candidates down the list. Same if someone is eliminated. So you could vote for say the monster raving loony party as ypur no 1, safe in the knowledge they won't get in and your no 2 will be counted instead. If your no 2 gets elected with a huge majority, your no 3 will be counted and so on. So the larger parties run 2 candidates or 3 and sometimes get all 3 in, though that has become rare of late.

Our 2 largest parties are aligned along civil war lines and not on a really strong left/right division so fondly known as two cheeks of the same arsenal and indeed formed the last government together (still needing the Greens to form a majority) rotating the position of Taoiseach (our PM). But that is a very very recent development, for years we just swapped from one to the other, sometimes with other parties, sometimes not. It used to often be Labour being the minor party in coalition, it's just as likely to be the Greens more recently. Labour got burned same way as the LDs, the minor parties often do as they get in as a protest or floating voters who can't bring themselves to vote for either of the main two. We've also had the rise of Sinn Féin, mainly a protest but nobody would consider them as a coalition partner so they are the largest party in opposition at the moment. I don't think they will do as well in the next election. Plenty of smaller left wing parties but we were missing a smaller right wing party, as they propped up the Celtic Tiger government for years so got decimated when the bubble burst. We do have a Sinn Féin splinter group, I suppose they are right wing socially but I don't know if I'd say they are economically, I tend to tune them out.

I think people vote differently under PR. It's not as simple as your x in a box though of course you can just give your no 1 and not fill in any of the other boxes. There are parties I would never give a vote to no matter what.

A lot of things still apply to us like choosing candidates over party or party over candidate, which a lot do and editing to add a lower share of the country wide vote can still mean a much higher share of the seats, and a higher share of the vote doesn't mean a huge number of seats for smaller parties either. It is very constituency dependent. Sometimes there is nobody actually running in my constituency I particularly want to vote for, so I still have to do the least worst option.

At the moment we do have a real mix in the Ðáil (parliament) but we have had PR since the foundation of the state and it's been stable over all. It is interesting at the moment because of the relative collapse of the civil war divide, but in the recent elections for European Parliament and the local elections/councils those two parties still got most of the seats and votes.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 16:59

twodowntwotogo · 05/07/2024 09:51

There's such a wild mismatch between % of the vote and the actual result - the most extreme ever. It makes for a 'cleaner' outcome but given the mutli-party system, isn't it time to move to proportional representation as more democratic? Thoughts? (I'm all for it but would be interested in hearing if anyone seriously champions FPTP).

The Lib Dems have championed PR for as long as I can remember.

We had a referendum on an alternative to FPTP a few years ago and the proposal was rejected but a large margin. As we know once the will of the people has been determined by a referendum sadly there is nothing that can be done about it ever again.

I also note that the undemocratic EU has PR elections for its parliament.

Until the most recent London Mayoral elections FPTP was not used, presumably in 2022 when the relevant act was passing through parliament you campaign against it?

Apileofballyhoo · 05/07/2024 17:00

*two cheeks of the same arse, not arsenal!

Shortfatsuit · 05/07/2024 17:00

I do sort of agree that we probably ought to have PR in terms of democracy. However, I would be reluctant to abandon FTPT because I think it helps to keep the extremists at bay.

I would get rid of the whipping system though. If we're electing local representatives, they should be locally accountable.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 17:01

OneFrenchEgg · 05/07/2024 10:16

I agree actually, vote share doesn't equal seats gained/lost.

If Labour have 35% vote share of 647 declared that would be 226 seats surely not 412 and reform would have 84 at 13% not 4 , etc etc ?

That assume that everyone would have voted the same way if the voting system was different, which is clearly not the case.

NotbloodyGivingupYet · 05/07/2024 17:07

You cannot apply the results of this election to a hypothetical PR or AV election though. Because people would not vote the same way.
It's a bit like saying, If it had been raining all those people on the beach would have got wet. No they wouldn't because they wouldn't have gone to the beach.
If we'd had PR, I wouldn't have voted the way I did. I voted the way I did to exploit the characteristics of the fptp system. We don't know how many people would have voted for lib dem or reform under a different system. Most people's aim this time seemed to be to get the Tories out. Using the system we have.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 17:08

MorrisZapp · 05/07/2024 13:30

Nah. Unintended consequences are the fly in the ointment here. Scotland has a form of PR which resulted in lunatics from the Green party holding the whip hand over sensible adults. Do you really want Reform to grow exponentially? And do away with constituency representation?

Constituency representation is hugely important, where one has a good constituency MP, and sadly I have not had one for years, and with the boundary changes still don't it can make a massive difference to people's lives.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 17:15

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 17:01

That assume that everyone would have voted the same way if the voting system was different, which is clearly not the case.

It also assume that parties would campaign in the same way under a different system.
Jeremy Corbyn was excellent at piling up votes in constituencies that labour were always going to win.
Pat Mcfadden and Starmer, took activists from safe seats and had them campaign in Tory seats. This meant that a number of incumbent Labour MPs had their vote share reduce, but that was a price worth paying in exchange for winning so many other seats.

A key example of how things would be different under PR is that in 2019 UKIP?Brexit party/Reform or whatever they were called at the time did not stand in constituencies that the Tories were likely to win, but did where Labour was likely to win.

MrsLeonFarrell · 05/07/2024 17:15

I think the first step would be to switch to the Australian system of compulsory voting. The turn out was really low and many seats would be different if everyone voted. I think that is an easier thing to change, although probably really unpopular, than PR which has many variants.

1dayatatime · 05/07/2024 17:19

@Shortfatsuit

"I do sort of agree that we probably ought to have PR in terms of democracy. However, I would be reluctant to abandon FTPT because I think it helps to keep the extremists at bay. "

So you are in favour of PR as you view it as more democratic (which I agree with you on) but so long as it doesn't help political parties that you don't agree with ( which is undemocratic and I disagree with you on).

That's the thing about democracy, voters get to choose and you may disagree with their choice but that doesn't mean that you can then take away their right to choose.

If you start banning certain political parties then you only increase their popularity leading to civil unrest.

mybeesarealive · 05/07/2024 17:30

I used to be all for PR. I've changed my mind though. I think FPTP is rough justice and imperfect, but it saves us from having too many lunatics left and right. And it holds the country together across the nations.

ToriesDelendaEst · 05/07/2024 17:35

How about we keep FPTP but elect our second chamber by PR ? Since we've never elected the upper chamber, there's no previous system to compare it to.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 17:37

ToriesDelendaEst · 05/07/2024 17:35

How about we keep FPTP but elect our second chamber by PR ? Since we've never elected the upper chamber, there's no previous system to compare it to.

That is the approach I would take, probably with a significantly different term length for the 2nd chamber and some regional element to the PR lists rather than country wide.

I would also consider keeping a small number - less than 50% certainly of other peers- particularly in some way Lords spiritual and temporal and cross benchers.

Abhannmor · 05/07/2024 17:40

MorrisZapp · 05/07/2024 13:30

Nah. Unintended consequences are the fly in the ointment here. Scotland has a form of PR which resulted in lunatics from the Green party holding the whip hand over sensible adults. Do you really want Reform to grow exponentially? And do away with constituency representation?

You are misleading ppl with that constituency representation bit. Or you don't understand PR. All 3 of my reps are from this area in Cork and all live here. As for lunatics - the Tories were colonised by psychos , unhinged fanatics and criminals years ago and nobody seems to have cared. Understand FPTP it takes an earthquake to get rid of them. And then the madness begins anew.

ZingySquid · 05/07/2024 17:41

I am coming out for FPTP much more as the years go by. MPs to represent their constituents. It’s a good system. It makes it harder for small groups of extremists to be a tail wagging the democratic dog. It’s more stable.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 17:45

ZingySquid · 05/07/2024 17:41

I am coming out for FPTP much more as the years go by. MPs to represent their constituents. It’s a good system. It makes it harder for small groups of extremists to be a tail wagging the democratic dog. It’s more stable.

Certainly Israel's government is a good example of the dangers of PR.

AnotherEmma · 05/07/2024 17:50

Butterflyfern · 05/07/2024 10:32

And yet when we had a referendum to change to a AV system in 2011, it was overwhelmingly voted no.
42% turnout, with 67.9% people voting no. The yes vote lost in every single constituency.

It was the libdems who pushed for it as part of the coalition agreement and it was the right wing parties who were vociferously campaigning against the change. The libdems originally wanted PR but it was watered down by the Tories to AV

Funny that.

The "yes" vote did not lose in every constituency; there were 10 (out of 440) who voted yes overall: Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow Kelvin, Edinburgh Central, and the London Boroughs of Hackney, Islington, Haringey, Lambeth, Southwark and Camden.

32% voted yes throughout the country, which is significant. A definite loss, obviously, but don't pretend no one supported it.

Wolfpa · 05/07/2024 17:58

how would they decide who your local MP was in this system?

ToriesDelendaEst · 05/07/2024 18:03

The "yes" vote did not lose in every constituency;

So ?

NI and Scotland voted to stay in the EU. Did them little good. And this was even though there was a proposal that all 4 UK nations should deliver the same outcome for it to proceed.

Shortfatsuit · 05/07/2024 18:05

1dayatatime · 05/07/2024 17:19

@Shortfatsuit

"I do sort of agree that we probably ought to have PR in terms of democracy. However, I would be reluctant to abandon FTPT because I think it helps to keep the extremists at bay. "

So you are in favour of PR as you view it as more democratic (which I agree with you on) but so long as it doesn't help political parties that you don't agree with ( which is undemocratic and I disagree with you on).

That's the thing about democracy, voters get to choose and you may disagree with their choice but that doesn't mean that you can then take away their right to choose.

If you start banning certain political parties then you only increase their popularity leading to civil unrest.

I understand your logic, and I anticipated this kind of response. I guess I don't see "absolute" unfettered democracy as the highest priority - after all, even Hitler was elected democratically, so I think it's probably preferable to have some checks and balances in place that help to protect against the worst extremes. FPTP offers that in my view.

It isn't about banning parties that I personally disagree with - we have been governed for the last 14 years by a party that I don't agree with, so it isn't as if FPTP always works in favour of my choices! It's about prioritising mainstream views over extreme fringe ones, whether that's extreme right, extreme left, fundamentalist religious parties or whatever. Ultimately, there is nothing to stop a new party doing well under FPTP if they can persuade the majority of voters in the majority of constituencies that they are the best option. If they can only ever persuade a minority of people in each constituency - or if they can only win a majority in a tiny minority of constituencies - there might be very good reasons for that.

Gingerisgoodforyou · 05/07/2024 18:40

The lib dems died on this hill a while ago, and I have no time for parties who didn't favour it then, to suddenly support it now it would suit them (Farage probably).

PR has previously appealed to me, snd I voted for AV, but the rise of right wing parties has really put me off.

absquatulize · 05/07/2024 18:53

ToriesDelendaEst · 05/07/2024 18:03

The "yes" vote did not lose in every constituency;

So ?

NI and Scotland voted to stay in the EU. Did them little good. And this was even though there was a proposal that all 4 UK nations should deliver the same outcome for it to proceed.

Has NI left the EU, I thought perhaps they had effectively stayed in, although I may be a little confused.

RishisPortilloMoment · 05/07/2024 18:54

Funny how the Daily Heil is now saying we should have PR, when they were the most vociferously against any change at the referendum.

It's almost like they are only interested if it helps their cause...

Rhaidimiddim · 05/07/2024 19:01

The German system, put into place after WW2, is a model for government by PR that also allows for regional voices.