What if we had proportional representation ?

[AutismHelp1980]

If reform didn’t exist then looking right now the Tories would have more votes (adding reform’s to their’s) than the Labour Party but as we are FPTP it’s likely Labour will have still won, but they didn’t have the most votes?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/results

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes I would have voted differently too.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

That was the only time since I've been old enough to vote that I've abstained (should have spoilt my ballot really). Both options were shit.

People might have voted differently if there was PR though

I voted for an independent candidate I knew in the hope he didn't lose his deposit because I live in a Lib Dem stronghold

Had we had PR, I would have voted differently

@AutismHelp1980 ,

That is a slightly strange way of looking at it.

If we had PR, we would prob have a left wing coalition government of Labour plus Lib Dem’s + Greens who, between them scored over 50% of the vote.

Of course that would risk the next government being a right wing Conservative/Reform coalition, with Farage as a senior minister.

PR has pluses, but you get dangerous bedfellows in coalition. Look at Israel where Netanyahu is governing with the permission of the religious (racist) right.

Lib Dem's got 12.2% of the vote and 71 seats and Reform got 14.3% of votes and 4 seats

Just points to Reform being lots of small % in many areas

I do think that something like PR is a better voting system. Currently my vote makes no difference as it is a very safe Tory seat (less safe this time round mind you and I think a lot of the Tory voters did indeed jump ship to Reform looking at the percentages)

Not only that but the parties would structure differently and "PR" is not one thing - there are many variations. Which version of PR are people thinking we would get?

PR was soundly defeated in a national referendum as recently as the Cameron/Clegg regime. Not really surprising as the Liberals insisted on a version of PR which would likely have given the Liberals a permanent balance of power.

FPTP forces the two major parties to be broad churches to have a hope at power. When they cease to be broadly moderate but accommodating of a range of views they lose power - the coalitions are within the parties.

Any PR system would likely see some fragmentation in the parties, some of them would give disproportionate power to fringe parties and create instability.

I remember Barbara Castle speaking on the subject of electoral reform and going through the pros and cons of different system. A big plus point of FPTP in her view was that the winning party has the power to really make change and it holds them firmly to account for their actions. That has always stuck with me as I've wavered on the subject.

If we had proportional representation then parties would change their election strategy, we can’t assume that the results would be the same, because the campaigning would have been carried out differently.

The aim of a parties election strategy is to secure a certain number of seats, the aim of the strategy isn’t to secure the highest proportion of votes.

I had too little sleep and too much champagne so I'm not the sharpest this morning, but is the OP asking why the Conservatives didn't win even though she's imagined a load of extra votes for them?

This is a good point.

I like the idea of PR but I think the risk is you end up without anyone with enough mandate to do much.

Why would Reform not exist if we had PR? Why assume all Reform votes would go to the Tories if we had PR?

I think we should have PR, but the cost of it is that parties like Reform will have seats in parliament.