FPTP doesn't work - time to reform it

[twodowntwotogo]

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).

Yep, it's now become the "willy of the people" and can never be changed ever again...

Yes. Which in a democracy is how it should work.

I object to the 'sore loser' charge. I didn't vote Labour ( I spoiled) because of their inability to guarantee protection to women's rights, but Labour's massive majority for 34% of the vote isn't what I'd call democracy.

And for those bleating about '2011', PR wasn't the option, AV was.

I want PR and I also think they should make it mandatory to vote, punishable by a fine.

Disenfranchising those voters doesn't make their opinion go away. That's a very tin-pot African republic thing to do, rig your system so views you don't want to hear get shut down.

One reason Brexit went the way it did was because of the sheer number of people who were so used to their vote not counting, they thought their protest-against-the-government 'Leave' vote wouldn't REALLY count, just stick it to The Man.

A while back, California flirted with Swiss style direct referendum democracy; the sanitary workers asked for for more pay, the electorate voted 'No', the workers went on strike. Once the bags of garbage became mountains on every street, the electorate thought 'oh hang in, we voted for this'.....

People would be a lot more careful with their vote if they knew it would count.

But doesn't NI still have free movement with the EU in people, goods and services, and so effectively is still in?

But ignoring those who voted against brexit was absolutely fine...

No, no and no.

You are a(n ex) Tory Minister and I claim my five pounds.

Why do you want to control other people so much?

This.

I know people are getting in a flap over the voting percentages and how can labour have so many seats when they don't have more the 35% of the vote.

In this election thousands (maybe even millions) of people voted tactically - they wanted the tories out. Far more than have in other elections from my understanding of the discussions from analysts.

So labour voters voted lib dem, green voters voted lib dem, etc etc etc so PR is another option (which I am not against) but I feel it is difficult to say so many people are not being listened to. They understood the prime objective - to get the tories out and did that systematically in a targeted way.

That’s what we have in Australia! It works fine actually.
So there are good bits and bad. Under our system you definitely get more of a feel that your vote counts. Equally, the system gives the small parties with many fewer votes quite a disproportionate level of power. This is because the two main parties are often quite close in the number of seats they get, and so they rely on the support of the small parties to get things done.
To my knowledge and memory, the smaller parties don’t tend to take advantage of this in a bad way, but they could do.
But in general it’s fine.

@ZingySquid i think it’s a privilege to be able to vote and to experience a smooth transfer of power as the UK has experienced this week - so many other places in the world do not have the experience. Citizenship is about more than just a passport - even if you spoil a ballot or pay the fine you are still being part of a democratic society so if that is controlling then so be it.

I prefer to live in a society with less coercion and fewer citizens who wish to coerce others. I cherish freedom I suppose.

If you do cherish freedom @ZingySquid then surely encouraging others to vote would be a key element of retaining that right.

‘Encouragement’ isn’t the word I’d use to describe mandates and punishment for non-compliance.

I’m in favour of PR.

I am also amused by the number of people arguing for it for the first time when it’s their party for once which is one the wrong end of it. Just coincidence, I’m sure.

Yes, yes, and no. NI is in the single market for goods, but not services. And its people can choose Irish, British, or both passports, so have free movement in the EEA if they take the Irish or dual option. Free movement doesn't technically work the other way but in practice it does as people can come to Ireland and then cross the border easily enough.

I've always advocated for AV/STV in the lower house - maintaining the MP system with personal local accountability - and a proper upper house with teeth and powers that is elected via PR based on broad geographic regions. You are likely to get proper clarity and a clear winner to form a government for the lower house that better represents the population's preferences, but there are greater controls over major issues such as finance bills or constitutional matters via an elected upper house.

However it's worth remembering that the vote share is a function of both FPTP and of the strong Labour lead. Tactical voting this time around was on a level not seen previously. The Labour strategy was specifically to go for breadth not depth - aiming for the largest number of seats even if it cost them hundreds of thousands of "heartland" votes. And the strength of the Labour polling lead almost certainly affected voter behaviour - feeling safer to vote for a small party for example, because there was near-zero jeopardy between the two parties in principal contention.

"A hybrid system with a mix of directly-elected and PR-allocated members calculated on a regional basis ... introduces conditions so complex to describe and administer that the electorate would hate it"

And yet, that is exactly how the elections to the Scottish parliament are run. They use the additional member system and have a "Regional Vote" which covers typically nine constituencies. Most Scottish people seem to be okay with it.

"Under PR you'd have a minimum of 3 parties in every coalition "

Scotland manages it with just two parties, even just one party at times.

"UK-wide PR would annihilate regionally-focused parties in the 3 devolved nations and would be also be totally unworkable for independent parties - independent candidates won 2.0% of the vote so theoretically should have 13 seats"

No it wouldn't, under an additional member system then any regional party or independent that wins a local constituency gets to keep that seat. Whether they are awarded any extra seats depends on how many votes they got in total. In addition, with the Scottish Regional Vote where you are looking at very localised regions then even much smaller parties could get a look in (eg the Yorkshire Party).

In Germany, there was also a rule that if any party won at least three constituencies then they would get the full amount of their percentage share of the vote, even if they got less than 5%. Although they did scrap this rule in 2021.

In reality, under any sort of additional member system you're looking at needing at least 5% of the vote to get awarded any additional seats.

"There would be 16 different parties (based on 2024 results) with at least 1 mp, nine of which have at least 5"

With the Scottish regional vote system, each party in a region needs to get around 5%-6% of the regional vote in order to get one MSP.

In Germany, which runs a similar system to Scotland, there is an explicit 5% lower limit of votes for a party to be eligible to be awarded any additional seats.

"There would be 16 different parties (based on 2024 results) with at least 1 mp..."

You do realise that in the current parliament there are 14 different parties with at least one MP?

"...nine of which have at least 5"

And that there are currently eight parties that have at least five MPs (although one of those parties refuses to sit in parliament)?

Assuming one of the above mechanisms then an additional member system would likely throw up something like this, assuming that the minor parties (eg Plaid Cymru and DUP) still won in constituencies. Under the Scottish system:

Labour - 226 seats
Conservative - 158 seats
Reform - 95 seats
Lib Dems - 81 seats
Green - 45 seats
SNP - 16 seats

Yes and the Greens in Scotland have far too much sway.

The great thing about PR is, that Ed Davey would have been in government after all of the last 5 general elections rather than just one of them, and the SNP and Greens would have been involved at times as well.

*Assuming that one is allowed to use the same simplistic logic of adding vote shares for different parties up, ignoring that people would vote differently under a different system.

In other equally good news, PR (and the simplistic interpretation) would have meant that Thatcher never became PM.

Churchill of course didn't win the 1951 election and was PM with a smaller vote share than Atlee as LOTO.

In fact the last time a party won more than 50% of the vote share was Baldwin in 1931.

No wonder the Lib Dems are so keen on PR they would have been continuously in government for the last 100+ years, and would just need to switch who with occasionally.

I voted for AV in 2011, one of the 13.5% of the electorate who did so, and would vote for electoral reform (ideally PR) again if given the chance. BUT, as the referendum had such a resounding result to leave well alone, I resigned myself to the status quo.

That doesn't mean I can't be pleased by the size of Labour's majority, or by the relatively small number of seats Reform got in relation to their vote share. I get to enjoy the smooth with the rough.

On a personal note, the people I know who were most vocally pro FPTP in 2011 normally vote Conservative (and were probably split between Conversative and Reform this time). I will remind them of their earlier position if required.

I'm quite enjoying learning that only some referendums mean that the question is settled for a generation and that revisiting it would be a betrayal though. 😂😂

There's a whole section of the electorate suddenly waking up to the concept of losers' consent. Fortunately for our democracy, if not for my own sense of karmic justice, from his early words it does seem that Starmer might get the concept better than his four most recent predecessors.

It only doesn’t work when the result doesn’t suit you.