Author Archives: Robert Smith

The Independent View: The Politics of Electoral Reform

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 …

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

  • Jennie
    "Liberals have always been suspicious of too much power in too few hands." *looks at direction of travel of internal party mechanisms the last five years * ...
  • Margot Wilson
    Thankyou BLAC Libdems for this clearly written piece. I agree with Hywel. The term 'race realist' is a massive red flag....
  • Ruth Bright
    No political affiliation but please consider "Got Mushroom for Sketch Comedy", Exeter (University) Comedy Society, details and tickets on the Fringe website....
  • Jana
    @Paul Barker “ …all Parties have weaker & stronger areas…” This is true but to a large extent this is due to the central importance of social clas...
  • theakes
    It is reality that in most areas of the country we are "nobodies". We have to move out into those areas....