Mehdi Hassan - Why does it take Nigel Farage to make the case for electoral reform?

[claig]

The answer is obvious. Because the rest of them are "all in it togeher", metropolitan.

"OK, I’ll say it out loud. I agree with Nigel. Sorry, I can’t help it. For once, Farage is spot on. The UK’s “winner-takes-all”, first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system is, to quote the Ukip leader, “totally bankrupt”.
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So why isn’t electoral reform a higher priority for the left? How can any self-styled progressive support an electoral system that denies millions of voters a voice in parliament – no matter how reactionary or regressive, in the case of Ukip, that voice is deemed to be?
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Yet Andy Burnham, the frontrunner for Labour’s top job, is on record dismissing electoral reform as a “peripheral issue”, as a “kind of fringe pursuit for Guardian-reading classes”. It isn’t."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/02/nigel-farage-electoral-reform-left-first-past-the-post-proportional-representation

That's all very well, except we had a referendum about it not long ago. Hardly anyone bothered to vote. Of those who did, something like 69% opted to keep 'first past the post'. So we are stuck with it for some time yet.

Yes, but as Katie Ghose, head of the Electoral Reform Society, said, the referendum was on AV and that is not proportional. She said our politics has changed dramatically in the meantime.

I think Andy Burnham and the rest of the Oxbridge class need to look at it again and allow the people a say on a real proportional system.

Of course they won't because there is nothing in it for them.

claig
Of course they won't because there is nothing in it for them.

Yes and no. With proportional representation in place, Labour may have achieved fewer seats, but the Tories' majority would have been destroyed, shrinking the difference between the two parties in terms of seat numbers.

You could equally well ask, if there was nothing in it for UKIP, would they be shouting about this piece of progressive reform?

I wonder how proportional representation might change people's voting strategies. Would people voting UKIP as a protest vote against another party still vote UKIP if their vote was more likely to translate into seats?

fascicle, I agree Labour will one day have to adopt PR in order to survive because in reality they are now finished with the rise of the SNP and UKIP and with the Tories trying to become the "blue collar party of working people". However, the Labour elite are nearly all Oxbridge (i.e the Establishment) and therefore they may not be allowed by the Establishment to adopt PR.

'You could equally well ask, if there was nothing in it for UKIP, would they be shouting about this piece of progressive reform?'

I think UKIP would because UKIP are the people's party and just like Mehdi Hasan and others, they believe in allowing the people to decide and not just the Establishment and their Oxbridge management team. Don't forget that UKIP want local democracy and direct democracy with recall and local referenda. That strikes panic into the hearts of the Oxbridge team as they know that then their game will be up.

'Would people voting UKIP as a protest vote against another party still vote UKIP if their vote was more likely to translate into seats?'

None of the metropolitan media pundits really understand UKIP and UKIP voters. With PR, UKIP would topple the Tories. That is why the Oxbridge class have been told to do everything they can to stop PR. IF we had had PR this time, then reports suggest that UKIP would have had 83 seats. Once UKIP get seats and are shown to be competent (despite all attempts by the metropolitan media to smear them) then it will be game over for the Oxbridge class.

This says it all; 4 million voted UKIP and got 1 MP, we need reform and soon!

And more, we need to think about how many MPs we need and what kind of thing they should be doing. Many do good constituency work, but they aren't supposed to be social workers tackling small problems locally, they are supposed to hold the government and the executive to account. There isn't enough of that going on.