Tag Archives: gordon brown

In December of last year, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown published his report A New Britain. It endorsed constitutional changes including the replacement of the House of Lords with an elected senate and greater devolution for cities and regions across the UK, intended to resolve the ‘unreformed, over-centralised way of governing that leaves millions of people complaining they are neglected, ignored, and invisible’.

Last Thursday, he announced the launch of the Alliance for Radical Democratic Change, a campaign aiming for the adoption of A New Britain’s recommendations as policies in Labour next election manifesto and subsequent enactment by a future Labour government. Members of the ARDC include Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, with Scottish Labour leader Ansar Sarwar and West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin appearing as speakers at the group’s launch event.

Whilst there is significant overlap in the constitutional reforms supported by our party as policy and recommended by the ARDC, there is one area where the ARDC have come up short: electoral reform. Like Labour’s National Executive Committee, the ARDC seems apprehensive to support the replacement of Britain’s outdated First Past The Post voting system with one of proportional representation, despite such a move being favoured by a majority of Britons and an overwhelming majority of Labour members. As a matter of fact, by not supporting electoral reform, the ARDC will likely have hobbled its own agenda.

One of the key reasons why millions of people currently feel alienated from Westminster, and by extension Whitehall, is because of FPTP. It horribly distorts voters’ intentions at both the local and national levels. Members of Parliament can be elected despite being opposed by most of their constituents and may not feel any need to engage with them if they represent a safe seat. And solitary parties that can exercise total control in government with only a plurality of the national vote; although its advocates state that ‘strong, stable government’ is a benefit of FPTP, it does not guarantee it, as recent years have proved. If the ARDC were serious about