Author Archives: Robert Smith

Robert Smith

The Independent View: The Politics of Electoral Reform

By Robert Smith | Sat 2nd May 2009 - 1:20 pm

Following their formation as the ‘Labour Representation Committee’ in 1900, the policy of the Labour Party (the name they adopted in 1906) regarding electoral reform was an obvious one. Primarily, they were interested in extending the franchise to their main group of supporters, the working class, who in the large part were excluded from the electoral process.

Alongside this however came a demand for electoral reform – an end to the ‘unfair’ First-Past-The Post and the introduction of a form of Proportional Representation which would create a better correlation between votes and seats.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Labour abandoned this policy …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged | 23 Comments
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