Last year’s election was brutal. It was a disaster for the country and it made us all realise that politics needs to change.
I’m not talking about the Lib Dems’ electoral defeat. I’m not even talking about the Tory majority. Last year’s election made a mockery of British democracy. 1 in 4 voters voted Lib Dem, Green or UKIP, but have just 10 MPs to represent them. That is appalling.
Why then do the Westminster elite stand up for this broken system? Pure selfishness. I’m afraid that is the only answer I can think of. So many Labour and Tory MPs think they should be elected not because they have the most support, but merely because that is the way it has always been. MPs aren’t elected to protect their positions at all costs. They are elected to represent the people. Without proportional representation (PR) they are failing to do that spectacularly.
This is why politicians and activists from across the political spectrum came together on Monday. Well-respected figures from parties from Labour to the Lib Dems and beyond met to fight for a better voting system. There were countless great speeches about why we need PR. Dedication to voting reform was the common denominator last Monday.
There is still a long way to go though. Most Labour MPs are incredibly resistant to PR, as are nearly all Tory parliamentarians. Too many Westminster politicians are detached from reality. We need to make them listen.
Thankfully, Makes Vote Matter have organised a demonstration outside parliament on 7th May, the anniversary of the disaster for our democracy.
I believe we have to aim higher. This issue is no longer just for politics geeks and constitution buffs. This issue is leaving millions of people without a voice.
Let’s make the 7th May a national ‘Make Seats Match Votes’ campaign day. This issue is more important than any election past or present. This issue is about the long-term sustainability of UK democracy. People from towns and cities all over the country who have been denied a voice need to show that they have one. We must show Westminster that we will not stay silent. At risk of sounding like Russell Brand, we genuinely do need a revolution.
Now for the practical bit. I’ve put my idea to Alliance4PR, who have in turn got in touch with Make Votes Matter. I think this needs political party involvement but it must not be a party political event. Ultimately this is about giving the everyone a voice, not gaining any one party votes. I welcome anybody, from any party or none, who feel that they are being ignored by the voting system, to come and campaign on 7th May. Let’s come together in towns and cities across the country and finally get Westminster’s attention.
I urge all political parties and campaign organisations, including us Lib Dems, to work together to coordinate a national day of protest on 7th May. I want a real democracy. Do you?
* A Liberal in Leeds is the pseudonym for a Lib Dem member. His identity is known to the LDV team.
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38 Comments
Why then do the Westminster elite stand up for this broken system? Pure selfishness
Well, no. I think it’s because nobody’s yet suggested an alternative that wouldn’t risk plunging the country into the nightmare of permanent coalitions, and Belgium-style post-election negotiations, and make ever having a proper single-party government again a vanishingly unlikely dream.
Our current system has delivered stable and effective government, mostly, for a long time: even on the one occasion recently that we did get a hung parliament, the maths were such that a reasonably secure government could be formed (and if it hadn’t been, there likely would have been a new election fairly quickly and the chances are that would have given a stable government as its result).
So if it ain’t broke, don’t go messing with it.
If you want to talk about selfishness and entitlement, look no farther than Nick Clegg before last year’s election making it clear that he thought he should be in government no matter who actually won.
Except Dav that it is broken. Completely broken. It is a system designed for the 1950s when there were only two choices available. Things have changed a lot since then.
There is no “nightmare of permanent coaltions”. Single party government is perfectly possible with proportional systems. Holyrood has a single party government using a proportional system (AMS). Lots of Scottish local authorities also have single party administrations using a different proportional system (STV). Both of those systems retain constituency links while delivering an elected assembly which is much more representative of the electorate’s preferences. STV could be delivered to English local government with minimal change and could be delivered for Westminster simply by redrawing constituency boundaries (something which is happening currently).
A proportional system will mean that parties have to campaign for all our votes as they would all now count for something in the final outcome. Under such a system there will no longer be the focus on swing voters in marginal consituencies, leaving the rest of us effectively irrelevant. My vote will finally be worth campainging for (it isn’t at the moment, none of the parties actually really bother because of where I live). It will also do away with inequities such as being able to secure 8 MPs with only 185,000 votes yet gaining 3.88 million votes delivers only 1 MP.
Single party government is perfectly possible with proportional systems
It is possible, but you must admit that, taken generally over proportional systems globally, it is the exception rather than the rule?
We currently have a system which has proven robust in doing what elections are meant to do, ie, choosing a government and then enabling the electorate to hold that government to account and get rid of it. And yes while theoretically it could deliver a hung parliament, historically it hardly ever does and on those rare occasions where it has, it has sorted itself out.
Proportional systems have the possibility of failing at both of those: they might fail to choose a government, resulting in a coalition. Or they might fail to allow the population to hold the government to account if, say, a government composed of Party A and party B is defeated at the polls yet, because of the proportional distribution of seats, party B manages to get back into power, this time in coalition with party C.
Again, these are not guaranteed to happen, but you can’t say for sure they will not.
Given we have a system which had stood the test of time to fulfil its primary purpose, why take the risk of changing it to one which might not?
The question is what is the role of an MP? Traditionally it is to represent ALL the people in their constituency, not just those who vote for them?
The problem is that the rise of political parties has obscured this simple fact, by putting the party and political ideology agenda ahead of the constituents agenda.
What is concerning, is that the constituency boundary reforms that are likely to kick in for 2020 are likely to further separate an MP from their constituents, furthering the notion that what people are voting for isn’t a representative for their geographic area, but a representative for their political viewpoint/ideology.
Hence to my mind voting reform isn’t actually about real representation, but about ideological representation.
When the voters had a choice to change the voting system they chose not to trust Nick Clegg. The party should keep this in mind when taking part in any referendum about Europe. The very mention of his name seems to appal most of the voting public. Take heed.
Dav, I don’t consider the purpose of the electoral system to deliver a government, its function should be to deliver a representative government. Government of the people by the people, not government by a minority for a minority (which is what we have at present). It should not be possible or acceptable for a group of policians put there with the support of less than a quarter of the electorate to be able to impose their will on the more than three-quarters who did not vote for them, yet that is what we have at present. I do not consider it acceptable and will continue to argue for fair representation for all.
Thomas
Welcome to the party as you are a younger and newer member , glad you are .An excellent piece ,only difficulty is that what was once the unique selling point of Liberal, SDP and then Liberal Democrat , third party politics , now is not ! Good to have belated other party converts, but when many of their parties either did not exist or had disinterest ,Liberals and this party , was a solo act with this issue , before I was born .
Are these , on this , fair weather friends ?The AV referendum also changes the game. Who really cares ?To inspire , we need a wider narrative about democracy at every level.This party is the only party to lead that .It is a major part of what we are all about. It is , unique to us in that it is in our name .Liberal DEMOCRATS.Take a note of that , ridiculous members wanting to return to be the Liberals !
Hi Lorenzo
AV referendum was a vote against Nick Clegg, not against reform. Tories campaigned by asking voters if they wanted the Lib Dems in power.
Hi Roland
I couldn’t disagree more. Of course it would be nice if everyone voted for a person not a party, but that is unrealistic. It’s much easier to vote for a party and its common ideas. The public is not politically engaged enough to research the manifestos of individual candidates. If we banned parties many more people just wouldn’t vote.
I would add that STV allows you to vote for candidates and parties. We don’t need a party list system which removes individual MPs in my opinion.
Lorenzo,
I would add that this isn’t about the party; it’s about representation. I couldn’t care less what people’s motives are for wanting PR. The Liberals/ Lib Dems may have started the battle for electoral reform, but we can’t win it alone.
Roland 10th Feb ’16 – 12:47pm
“The problem is that the rise of political parties has obscured this simple fact, by putting the party and political ideology agenda ahead of the constituents agenda”
So Roland, you believe that before we had political parties, the wealthy men in Parliament represented their constituents and placed constituent’s interests ahead of their own self-serving agendas?
A Liberal in Leeds 10th Feb ’16 – 5:30pm
“AV referendum was a vote against Nick Clegg, not against reform. Tories campaigned by asking voters if they wanted the Lib Dems in power.”
Indeed, and it was simply an early warning of what would befall us in May 2015.
Hi Stephen
Absolutely. We were kidding ourselves back in May this year. Re coalition here’s my view. Coalition was the right decision. I say that because we delivered so many good policies like pupil premium, green bank investment, getting rid of exclusivity on zero hours contracts, catapult centres, banking reform, list goes on and on. It had a terrible impact on our party, but one which was not predictable at all. No-one, even the critics like Kennedy, expected a fall to 8 seats.
The mistake within coalition was Nick’s judgement. It pains me to say it, because I like the guy. He’s nice, genuine and honest. The trouble is he put people in coalition who he agreed with politically. To deliver on his manifesto he needed to make his job harder and have ministers who were strong figures further left in the party. That way he’d have been challenged – they’d have persuaded him not to support tuition fees, for example. Maybe then we wouldn’t have lost as many seats. Maybe then we’d still have some trust from voters.
However, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
I’m afraid I digress though!
I want a real democracy too, Thomas Shakespeare. I endorse a national day of protest on 7th May as ‘Make Seats Match Votes’ campaign day.
Thank you very much Michael. It means a lot!
Thomas Shakespeare 10th Feb ’16 – 7:54pm
I’m afraid I digress though! … so I too will avoid the temptation 🙂
I also totally agree with your post of 5:41pm …
“I would add that this isn’t about the party; it’s about representation. I couldn’t care less what people’s motives are for wanting PR. The Liberals/Lib Dems may have started the battle for electoral reform, but we can’t win it alone.” Well said!
Thanks Stephen. After the disaster that was my privatisation article, I’m glad I’ve said something that stands up! 🙂
“Party A and party B is defeated at the polls yet, because of the proportional distribution of seats, party B manages to get back into power, this time in coalition with party C.”
Because party B’s and C’s support between them would likely be over 50% of the votes cast, *that’s why*.
The system we have at the moment regularly gives an *outright majority* to a party that’s been rejected by 60%+ of the electorate.
No system is perfect, but as a democrat I know which I prefer.
@Anthony Fairclough
A question if I may, there would be horse trading prior to a coalition and no doubt the price of a deal would be some new laws for party B.
So if, for instance, party B had actually suffered badly and only ended up with 8%, then they would be putting through laws that had been rejected by 92% of voters.
How is that any better than a party doing the same with a 60% rejection?
I think one other point was also commented on many times during the coalition, people don’t vote for a coalition so you can’t say a coalition got over 50% of the vote.
Chris_sh –
Horse-trading is just a rude word for negotiation and compromise, which are essential for adult politics. It works well when parties have a fair proportion of common ideals (e.g. Lab/LD coalitions in Scotland, 1999-2007), less well when they don’t (Con/LD in UK, 2010-15). In some countries, e.g. Denmark, parties indicate which others they could work with before the election – a sensible approach that can’t work under FPTP.
Your example of a party with 8% “putting through laws that had been rejected by 92%” is unrealistic: if a party with 8% goes into a coalition, it still has to get majority support to enact its policies; if the 92% are really against a policy their chances of getting it through, unless it is trivial, are nil.
A Liberal in Leeds
yes , I agree but was questioning the level of support and not wondering in what way we could monopolise things , by any means , anyway such an approach is never going to work !
As far as Nick and co ,I do not think it required anyone more left wing , just anyone who would have better political radar .Like you I like and respect him ,and , I supported the coalition , but when it is apparently the case that David Laws even was dubious about the U turn re tuition fees , we now know Nick got some things very wrong then !
You are a wise fellow , Thomas , would be keen to know more about your journey to where we are at here , your interest in politics and this party ,and what else you are up to in it , I remember some of your previous post on here , on health reform etc ,keep at it !
@Denis Mollison
You may not like the terminology but it is a fairly standard phrase and it’s not particularly rude I think.
“if a party with 8% goes into a coalition, it still has to get majority support to enact its policies; if the 92% are really against a policy their chances of getting it through, unless it is trivial, are nil.”
Well no not really. If the major party needs them then they have every chance of getting something that isn’t trivial. Every party has it’s unique selling point, if it didn’t there wouldn’t be much point in them existing. It may have 90% of policies that are the same as the larger party, but if it can’t bring home the bacon on some of the other 10% then what would be the point of it’s existence.
But all of that is beside the point really, the question still remains,
“How is that any better than a party doing the same with a 60% rejection?” If the 92% rejection is a distraction, then why is is better with a 61% rejection.
I would have thought this or something similar would be a question asked of any campaign to bring in PR, so it needs an answer that doesn’t sound waffly to J Public.
Stephen Hesketh – “So Roland, you believe that before we had political parties, the wealthy men in Parliament represented their constituents and placed constituent’s interests ahead of their own self-serving agendas?”,
No, just that the political parties have simply formalised this arrangement 🙂
The point I was making was that officially my MP currently represents all the residents, regardless of who they actually voted for, of a geographic area, which has largely remained the same over generations and not just the interests of those who did vote for them. It would seem that PR etc. are more concerned about appointing a representative that holds a particular political ideology to represent those who share that ideology. My feelings are that we probably need to put in place measures to remind MP’s (and their supporting parties) of their primary purpose and priorities…
So (Thomas) I’m not advocating the abolition of political parties, just that we need to be clear what our priorities are: representation of all people within an area without exception (current system), or representation of particular ideologies and those who support said ideologies (PR system).
The system we have at the moment regularly gives an *outright majority* to a party that’s been rejected by 60%+ of the electorate.
Yes, but the point is that our system also regularly allows parties to be kicked out of office if they are deemed by the electorate to have failed.
That means parties are accountable.
Under PR, you could end up with a party which regularly got, say, 10% of the vote, being an essential part of any viable coalition. It wouldn’t have a majority but it would be needed for any government to have a working majority.
How, then, could that party be said to be accountable to the electorate, if it could never practically be removed from power?
Chris_sh –
I still think that “horse-trading” is a pejorative term hiding a faulty argument. Parties themselves are coalitions – particularly under FPTP where disparate factions have to hang together – and plenty of “horse-trading” goes on within them. The key difference between an FPTP government with 36% putting through an internally agreed package of policies and a coalition government with 51% putting through a “horse-traded” package is that the latter has greater democratic legitimacy.
Parties themselves are coalitions – particularly under FPTP where disparate factions have to hang together – and plenty of “horse-trading” goes on within them
Yes, but the essential difference is that the horse-trading goes on before the election and produces a manifesto which all in the party sign up for, so voters know in advance what they are voting for. They can thus pass a verdict on the finished product.
With a coalition, however, the negotiations happen after the voting, so there is no chance for the electorate to pass a verdict on the final manifesto — and the final manifesto might will, if it had been put before the electorate, have commanded the support of less than 50% of them, possibly a lot less.
So you can’t possibly claim that just because party A got 35% of the vote and party B got 21% of the vote, that means that the Coalition Agreement worked out by the two of them simply has 56% support — technically it has 0% support as nobody voted for it, but it’s quite possible that even had it existed pre-election to be voted on, some of party A’s supporters would have found it unacceptable and voted for party C instead, and similarly some of party B’s voters might have voted for party D, quite possibly enough to lower the combined (A + B) total below 50%.
@Denis Mollison
Well yes, obviously all parties are coalitions, but there is a big difference of course. Political parties come together and agree a manifesto to put to the people, if enough people vote for that party to put them in power they have a mandate to carry out their manifesto promises.
That is obviously different to 2 parties negotiating and agreeing a manifesto which is not put to the people as a whole. You end up with policies that the majority of people have not voted for (so there is no 51%), just as in FPTP. If the aim is to get >50% of the people to agree with the policies on offer, then surely it would be better to have a run-off system? The top 2 parties go through to a second election and the people choose which of the 2 parties it is most comfortable with.
“Yes, but the essential difference is that the horse-trading goes on before the election and produces a manifesto which all in the party sign up for, so voters know in advance what they are voting for.”
And of course manifesto commitments are always kept and delivered on by single party administrations, aren’t they…
And of course manifesto commitments are always kept and delivered on by single party administrations, aren’t they…
The point of democracy being that if they don’t keep their manifesto commitments you can kick them out. Parties are accountable to the electorate if they fail to deliver.
Which as pointed out you can’t be sure of doing under a proportional system. A party could completely fail to deliver in government but still get back in after the next election if it’s numerically necessary for a coalition.
So you’ve just given yet another reason to prefer a system proven by history to work over a proportional one which could cause all sorts of problems.
Dav, parties aren’t accountable to the electorate under the current system, only to swing voters in the marginals. They are not accountable to me, they don’t care about me or my vote because my vote is irrelevant in the result as I live in a very safe seat that has only ever returned one party since it was first created in Victorian times. I am disenfranchised by the current electoral system. That is wrong. No one deserves to be disenfranchised by the electoral system irrespective of where they live or who they (would) vote for. The only way to address disenfranchisement is to introduce a form of PR.
@Peter Parsons
You haven’t been disenfranchised if you don’t get the party you want. PR doesn’t solve the problem either. If other people vote for a party that falls below a PR threshold they haven’t been disenfranchised either, although they may also feel that their vote doesn’t count for much as they never get what they want.
Chris_sh, as the system stands at the moment it is impossible for me to have any effect, no matter how negligible, on the outcome of the election, which means my vote is actually worthless, and therefore I am disenfranchised by the FPTP system. I would suggest you look at how STV works as it gives every voter a chance to affect the final outcome by how they express preferences, and therefore doesn’t disenfranchise in the way FPTP does.
When surveyed, the majority of the public want a proportional system, yet politicians put there by a minority continue to deny the will of the majority. One day this will change and I hope I am still around to see it.
When surveyed, the majority of the public want a proportional system
Surveys are costless.
When they actually had to make a choice with consequences, the public, by a large majority, chose (wisely) to stick with the system they’ve got and know rather than take a leap into the dark with unknown results.
Now, true, the conclusively-rejected alternative wasn’t a proportional system, but I doubt that would have made any difference to the result.
Dav, I disagree. There are lots of proportional elections already in the UK – Scottish Parliament (AMS), Scottish local government (STV), Welsh Assembly (AMS), Northern Ireland Assembly (STV), Northern Ireland local government (STV), Northern Ireland European elections (STV), Greater London Assembly (AMS), English/Welsh/Scottish European elections (Closed party list PR). This means STV, AMS and list PR, all proportional systems, are all known quantities in the UK already.
If the Conservatives were sufficiently confident that the electorate would have rejected a PR system, they would presumably have allowed a PR system in the 2011 referendum. The fact that they wouldn’t agree to that is revealing.
@A Liberal in Leeds
“AV referendum was a vote against Nick Clegg, not against reform.”
To an extent, but then the AV referendum didn’t offer much in the way of reform, so should not be interpreted as a ringing endorsement of FPTP. The public were essentially offered two versions of FPTP, neither guaranteed to be more proportional than the other, so could not see the point of change.
Good article though, well done.
Hi Lorenzo
I take your point about coalition. Thanks for the encouragement!
Hi Stuart
I agree with you there. Like you, I don’t think you can interpret the AV referendum as a vote in support of FPTP. It was a vote against half-reforms and, to an extent, our record in coalition. Thanks for the compliment!