There are many things that Labour and the Liberal Democrats may disagree about, but on one issue they are of one mind – a Reform government would be a disaster for the UK. It might even mean the end of the UK.
You would think that when the BBC reported recently that Davey wants to work with government on electoral reform the Labour government would have embraced the idea. After all, Keir Starmer supported electoral reform during his bid to become Labour leader in 2020. True, he then seemed to lose interest in the idea, and it never appeared in Labour’s election manifesto of 2024 (Labour winning an overall majority was more likely then than in 2020), but surely some awareness of his ’loveless landslide’ and the prospect of losing heavily in the next general election might encourage him to change his mind?
It seems not. As the BBC article reported, the government did not back Sarah Olney’s Lib Dem bill aimed at introducing proportional representation last year, even though it passed the first parliamentary stage with a majority of two, largely because more Labour MPs backed it than opposed it. The government simply denied the bill the parliamentary time to proceed. Once Starmer saw that a majority of his own MPs supported electoral reform, he decided that the best thing to do was to prevent it being discussed.
The problem is that the same system that gave Labour its landslide supported by only just over one third of voters, could give Reform a similar majority at the next election. And surprise, surprise, Farage, a longstanding supporter of PR has started to change his tune. Of course he has, just as Starmer changed his. The prospect of the nearest to absolute control a democracy can offer is too tempting for either man to resist.
Some people think that Labour can make good. They think it can ‘solve’ the problem of immigration by ‘going Danish’. They think that Chancellor Reeves will manage to get the growth she hopes is just round the corner and proceed to boost under-funded public services, particularly the NHS. Those are issues about which there can be a lot of debate, but I would suggest that Labour is not going to show that it has the answers on either issue. The economy is predictably suffering from post-Brexit blues, and it won’t be easy to grow out of them. As for immigration, there always seems to be a belief that someone else has the answers to all our problems. One minute it’s the Australians, then it’s the Italians, now it’s the Danes. Fine to learn from others, but I would have more faith in a government which recognised that the UK cannot simply import answers from elsewhere.
We know that under First Past the Post Reform could get an absolute majority of MPs even with two-thirds of voters opposing them. It’s true that they could have an absolute majority even with PR if they won more than 50% of the vote. But Reform will almost certainly peak in the low thirties, because they are supported by a specific section of the community – socially conservative, strong on resentment, short on policy, and hostile to immigrants just as a decade ago they were hostile to the EU (most of them are Brexiteers) and the immigrants were Poles rather than Afghans. They will always be a minority though in some circumstances a large one. Which is why electoral reform is so vital. Starmer cannot see it, presumably because he thinks he can turn things round, though behind those glasses he often looks more like a rabbit caught in headlights who just doesn’t have the ability to go anywhere.
It is to the great credit of the Lib Dems that they supported PR in the 1970s when it would obviously have boosted their representation in Parliament, and they support it now, when it would not add nearly so much to the number of Lib Dem MPs. But this has never been the point. They believe it’s the right system. Starmer and Farage, on the other hand, think only of what benefits themselves. At least in Starmer’s case, he has several MPs in his own party who support electoral reform (or would if they were allowed to debate it in Parliament). The hope is that after the next round of local and devolved elections Labour’s standing has fallen so far that there might be someone around who can get the rabbit to the side of the road before it’s too late. Ed Davey has shown how good he is at demanding physical stunts. Maybe he could try this one.
* Mark Corner is a UK national, who teaches economic history and philosophy at the University of Leuven, is married to a Czech EU official and lives in Brussels. He has just published A Tale of Two Unions suggesting that Brexit may damage the British Union unless the UK becomes more positive about the way the European Union is structured.
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7 Comments
Labour won’t want PR as it will deprive them of having a majority government. The labourites and tories will only accept PR if they are forced into it.
It is certainly true that under a FPTP electoral system a party can secure an overall majority of seats with as little as 30% of the votes cast. Labour demonstrated this last year, and the current polling shows that Reform UK could equally repeat this achievement in the event of a future general election. It is wishful thinkers in the ranks of the Labour leadership who refuse to accept this reality and fondly imagine that the decline in their support can be corrected by 2029.
One of the consequences of FPTP is this inflation of the seats won for parties with a large share of the votes. This is why almost every election over the past 75 years has given the largest party an absolute majority of seats on a minority of the votes cast. But this aspect of the FPTP is equally true in reverse for parties with a small share. There comes a point at which a party with a smaller share actually wins fewer seats than they would receive under a straight proportional system. Labour and the Conservatives, in their respective declines, are approaching that point now, where it would actually be to the benefit of those parties to have a proportionate system at the next elections. And it would of course stop Reform UK from repeating Labour’s achievement of 2024.
@ Rif Winfield. An interesting contribution.
Given the concentration of Lib Dem seats are in the Home Counties and parts of the West Country, has Rif considered the possibility that the Lib Dem’s would be adversely affected in a future parliament elected under a PR system ?
As a very young man I was inspired by Jo Grimond. Even in the early 1960s he was aware of the inadequacy of FPTP. He therefore advocated electoral reform. I have supported and been a member of the Liberal Party (and the LDs) ever since.
What we have witnessed in the last 60 years (or arguably more) is the blame game played by Labour and Conservatives. In the 1980’s, another of my heroes, David Penhaligon, described this process as “…a demolition job” – each Party blaming the other and reversing or destroying much of the legislation enacted by its predecessors.
FPTP not only disenfranchises the vast majority of the electorate but is the undermining cause of political short-termism, resulting in promises and policies designed to win the next Election.
Starmer never even mentions electoral reform, despite the support for it by the overwhelming majority of his membership. He is completely silent on the issue. He and his MPs want to keep their nice ‘safe seats’. Why would they want to change anything ? But it is now evident that the old cosy two Party duopoly is coming to an end. There is increasing public support for reform and Sir Ed and our MPs must continue to hammer away at it.
PR is of course not an elixir of itself but is the sine qua non, without which we will never sort out the mess in which this country finds itself.
@Michael Cole “As a very young man I was inspired by Jo Grimond. Even in the early 1960s he was aware of the inadequacy of FPTP.”
While Grimond was doubtless impressive, PR in the form of STV had been party policy for four decades by the early 1960s so I am not sure that constitutes an especially heightened awareness on his part!
@David Raw
It is, of course, possible that some form of PR would produce fewer Lib Dem MPs that we currently enjoy. The aim, one hopes, is that the voting system better reflects voters’ true preferences, not to favour one particular party, even this one.
@Daniel Walker: Yes, I know now that in the 1960s PR had already been Liberal policy for many years. But at that time I was a young adult beginning to take an interest in politics. It was Jo Grimond that made me aware of it.
@ Daniel Walker. As it happens, the Liberal Party could have had PR in the 1918 Representation of the People Act given the make up of the H of C at that time.
It was discussed but rejected by the Liberals – Asquith objecting to the size of the new constituencies it would imply. It’s all in Hansard if you wish to read it.