I have published this video this morning. In it, I argue that a couple of days after the election, I feel even more strongly than ever that we need proportional representation.
The audio version of this video is here:
The transcript is:
I've got post-election blues.
I would like to live in a democracy. And as the election has made clear, I don't.
Labour shouldn't have a supermajority. There should be more members of parliament, well, from the Tories. And Reform, I hate to say it. And also, from the Greens. And maybe the Liberal Democrats - and the SNP are underrepresented in Scotland. Plaid Cymru might even deserve more than the seats they've got.
My point is this. Our first-past-the-post electoral system does not work. It means that we end up with parties in power who do not represent the majority of the people of the country.
Labour does not do that.
Keir Starmer has managed to get this enormous majority by securing fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn did, which is a quite extraordinary situation.
But Jeremy Corbyn didn't win a majority as we know.
And why should Keir Starmer be able to rule on the basis of such a low level of support?
It's quite absurd. This doesn't even approximate to democracy when democracy is about the voice of the people - ‘the demos'.
So what should we have? Well, proportional representation is the obvious answer. PR - as it's called - would seek to better reflect those MPs elected in accordance with the wishes of the people who vote.
It's quite simple to deliver. You don't abandon constituencies, but you certainly make them a lot bigger than the existing ones, many of which don't make sense, if we're totally honest.
You would have a constituency, say in my case, called Cambridgeshire, a pretty big geographic area, for which there would be five, six, seven MPs, maybe.
And you'd vote in the election for your party of choice. And the first person on that party's list would get in if they were allocated one seat as a result of the election. If they were allocated three seats, the first three people on that party's list would get in. And so on.
The point is, you'd end up with MPs being returned who, broadly speaking, represented the opinion of the area. Every single person in the constituency - unless they vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party, who have a reason for standing in elections but don't seek real representation - would probably end up with somebody who they could talk to who broadly reflected their views.
I would love that.
Millions, tens of millions of people in this country would love that because, well, they've never experienced it.
First-past-the-post has always denied them the opportunity to vote for an MP whose opinion they actually share. So, we need proportional representation.
Now the absurd thing is that I suspect that every single party that has now been returned to parliament, excepting Keir Starmer's Labour Party, will now support proportional representation in 2029, because they know it's their best chance of increasing their number of seats.
Keir Starmer's Labour Party won't.
And I use the word Keir Starmer's Labour Party deliberately because the Labour Party itself has voted in conference by a very large majority to adopt proportional representation along the lines I've just suggested. Constituencies with multiple members returned to Parliament to make sure that we get a fair representation of opinion in that place.
But Keir Starmer doesn't want that. Keir Starmer comes out as a consequence as the biggest anti-democrat in the UK.
I want democracy.
I want democracy in Parliament.
I want democracy in local government.
I want democracy for the devolved nations of the UK. I want them to have their own choice.
But we're being denied it.
And one person is standing now between us and the achievement of that goal. And it's our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. And it's not to his credit.
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I have repeatedly advocated for proportional representation for many of the reasons you have set out Richard. One example very simplistically stated is that there is evidence that the Green Party would have polled closer to 20% if voters believed that there vote would make a difference.
I also believe that the far right should be proportionately represented so that they are in full view and can be scrutinised and challenged.
Keir Starmer though has told us he’s a democratic socialist! There’s dissonance here! There has to be a reason for it. I’d go for Anti-Social Personality Disorder as that reason:-
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-sociopath
Lots of our politicians appear to suffer from this especially on the right-wing.
Having said all that and knowing that politicians with ASPD will resort to using PR if there’s an advantage for them ( https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/30/keir-starmer-wins-change-in-labour-nec-election-rules ) it still doesn’t get over the fact there’ll never be true democracy until the vast majority of voters make the effort to understand how their fiat monetary system really works. Understand the following basic fact for example and its implications:-
“… there is no market-determined exchange rate between two different UK banks that issue IOUs, as there is between two different currencies like the Pound Sterling and the US dollar. All bank IOUs are compelled to be equal to £1 of central bank liabilities.”
https://gimms.org.uk/2023/05/27/uk-monetary-system-overview/
It could be argued the UK is mired in another kind of personality disorder fear of thinking out of the box which creates a sort of fairly mindless herd instinct. The antidote of course is coming to understand that your life doesn’t have to be regulated by other people’s thinking with the exception of continuously working to balance your needs against those of others.
Your argument is confirmed already by Anas Sarwar on BBC Radio Scotland. Asked by Martin Geissler on both electoral reform and immigration policy for Scotland, Geissler was reduced to a baffled and repeated “is that a Yes, or a No?” by Sarwar’s refusal to answer a straight question with a straight answer. We are back to the politics of evasion and truth twisting. Nothing has changed. Labour proposed electoral reform in opposition; now Sarwar keeps saying,’this is the system’, as if it was a law of nature. Change means we can change it. Labour’s vast and unprecedented majority means they are more able to change the system than anybody, ever. They will not do it, because they are in bed with the Conservatives in a political conspiracy of power I term the Westminster Cartel. Meanwhile, look at the Scottish Labour line-up. The old sweats are back. Nothing has changed.
You may well be right
Equally unimpressed with Anas the Evasive in that un-interview.
It really does confirm the weasel words of reinforcing devolution and SKS diktat.
The SLabs have milked hatred of the Tories, but with an empty briefcase.
Sarwar clearly wants to disregard the Indy movement in its entirety, with a few well chosen dismissive platitudes – his usual MO.
What he will conveniently forget is that at least half the Labour vote has previously voted for an independence supporting party. They are not unionists.
The matter will prove to be more important than Anas’s wishes to ignore it.
Brown’s unwanted Devo-Max proposals have been entirely ignored in the very thin Labour prospectus.
We’re certainly back to business as usual.
I doubt that Labour will even restore the spirit of the Sewel convention.
Then, as Dani Garavelli writes today, the Indy movement will continue to be subjected to the “relentless cycle of hope and betrayal”.
If you had STV with multi-member constituencies as you suggest, you wouldn’t have to have a party list either – you would rank candidates within as well as between parties.
Agreed
In Tasmania they use the Hare-Clark proportional system with Robeson rotation. You can vote in any order for any candidate, you are not restricted to a list,
“After a candidate reaches a quota and is elected, all of their ballot papers are redistributed to elect additional candidates based on the voters’ next preferences indicated on each ballot paper. The redistributed votes have a reduced transfer value, which is determined by the relationship of the number of surplus votes received by the previously elected candidate compared to the total votes he or she holds.
In cases where no candidates are initially elected, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their preferences are distributed at full value. Ballot papers with non-transferable votes are set aside during this process. ”
see :
https://www.tec.tas.gov.au/info/Publications/HareClark.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare%E2%80%93Clark_electoral_system
A variation on STV then
That sounds like this system would need a seriously well informed and engaged electorate. Personally I would fear the influence of tik tok , X etc.
Why not the much simpler- retain 1 MP for our current constituency but vote a first, second and third preference.
So why not chose from rather more on a bigger list?
My electiin paper was already pretty big this time
I think the arguement is that bigger constinuency for PR evens out the geographical variations and is more represenative of the population as a whole
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/what-is-the-ideal-number-of-mps-per-constituency-in-proportional-representation/
I see the PM has talked about having mandates in all 4 constituent parts of the UK. In Northern Ireland – where Labour doesn’t stand – and in Scotland where he considers 37 seats a mandate to govern, on a very low turnout, but the 48 seats SNP had wasn’t (after the 2019 GE).
Yet another charlatan to rule over us.
Democracy, what democracy?
The irony with PR is it eventually becomes profoundly undemocratic as deals get done with minority parties who then get unfair influence in Government. Far better for Government to be formed in proportion to their seats (in a PR system) and that way the electorate get heard fairly in line with a democratic process.
But that is not workable
So why should the greens for example with 4% of the votes have a position in government? And the Conservatives and Reform with nearly 40% of the share of the vote are on the sidelines, what is democratic about PR here? FPTP is the better option in the sense in that the party with the largest share assume power.
Because they could form a coalition with those who, ith them, have the largets block of votes
Don’t you realise all of politucs is abiut coaliution building?
Steven, because real government requires some compromise to carry commitment forward; not elective (distorted or rigged) majority dictatorship.
No system is perfect.
In Italy since WWII I think the average Government has lasted less than 13 months.
And you could, it is true, have a situation under PR where an alliance needed to get a majority between the biggest party and a minority party gave undue influence to the minority party (didn’t the Greens have just 4 MPs but ended up with 2 cabinet ministers in Scotland?).
But the current system – which was just about OK when we had in reality just two significant parties – is now obviously not fit for purpose. A ‘super majority’ on less than 35% of votes is indefensible.
But Italy is an outlier in so many ways – not least because it still behaves as if it is so many countries only vaguely still rolled into one
It makes us decidedly United – even though we are not
Setting aside the issue of PR this was a double-bluff or Alice in Wonderland election. On the one hand were Starmer and Reeves pretending they didn’t understand the the country’s fiat monetary system and the government operates on a credit card but has now run out of money but they will now open the spending taps because they’re in office? On the other hand do they actually believe this rubbish and they’re mad as March hares like most of the UK’s citizens in this respect?
As you know, I think PR is critical to any improvement in our politics. The question now is how can we reasonably expect to get there?
PR is a significant change and it was not in Labour’s manifesto. To suddenly suggest a change now would be odd given the pressing priorities and I would put a slightly different spin on Anas Sarwar’s prevarication when asked about the issue. The obvious answer would have been “It is not in our manifesto, we have a lot to do in other areas so we will not introduce legislation that paves the way for PR in this Parliament”….. but he did not. That says quite a lot.
Would PR require a referendum? In theory, no… Roy Jenkins pushed through abolition of hanging and legalisation of homosexuality – both big changes, both might have failed in a referendum, both not in the manifesto. However, in practice the precedent has been set.
Labour members want PR. It is taken as read that the leadership does not… now that they are getting their turn in power. However, this is not a given, fragmentation in politics but make many senior figures crave PR (if they get high enough up the party list) – ask a host of ex-Tory MPs, Jon Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire.
So, Starmer’s failure to endorse PR right now is not the end of the story. Perhaps the best we can hope for would be a Royal Commission to look at the issue, propose a system that could then be fought over at the next election.
A Royal Commission is the classic, kick the can down the road evasion; Indeed it comes with a warranty: two generations will pass with nothing, or until nobody will remember anything about it. Why was PR a Party commitment but not in the Manifesto? Because the Westminster Cartel, the slice and dice power arrangements between the parties to the Single Transferable Party Golden Goose contract with the Conservatives is never to be placed in jeopardy. It is an arrangement about a guarantee of office, sooner or later; and that is the sole end and purpose of Party. Everything else is spin.
I must say, I shuddered when I typed “Royal Commission”…. but the push for PR requires broad consensus.
Last time around in 2011 it was a 2 to 1 against with less than 50% turnout and a repeat must be avoided. Any proposal set forth by Labour will immediately inspire “tribal” resistance from other parties. We need a genuinely (party political) neutral analysis of the best alternative to the FTTP system… which then gives a concrete proposal for decision – whether by Parliament or Referendum.
Maybe it’s not a Royal Commission – perhaps the Electoral Commission could be charged with the task?
Given Labour’s majority they could drive PR through; in your terms, do
a Roy Jenkins. The Labour majority makes the other Parties irrelevant. In any case the LibDems, SNP and Greens will not object to PR. It is what they want; and why would Reform object? That leaves the Conservatives; a broken husk, and nobody is listening to anything they say. But here is the real problem: Labour itself. PR promises nothing good for them. Preserving the Westminster Cartel is the first priority of Labour. Now is the best time to establish PR, which is why Labour will not do it. They will only ever pursue it when they know they have no power to do it, and it will not happen. This is the beauty of the Westminster Cartel nod and wink arrangement. When it is your turn to be out of office your real interests are protected by your supposed deadly opponent. Neat, eh?
It seems to me that PR is the one thing that guarantees Labour two terms
A UK Constitutional.Convention with a remit of democratic renewal might be better than a Royal Commission. It could either be set up by government or, as in Scotland, by civic society independent of government. Either way it could incorporate conclusions from one or more Citizen Assemblies to make its work more inclusive and less top-down.
But who picks Citizen Assemblies?
“Who picks citizen assemblies?”
Sortition. “The participants should be a representative microcosm of the general public, selected by lottery. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to be selected to participate.”
There’s quite an extensive literature on this.
https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/what
Sorry – but that is a massively unreasonable thing to ask of people – far more than jury service
The UKCC or parliament?
It does not have to be the only way but to avoid a divisive referendum (they often end up being a vote on something different to the question on the ballot paper) I think we need some vehicle to involve citizens so it is not a completely top down process. CAs have worked in Ireland and Canada (they had one to chose a voting system in 2004 https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/
There may be other ways to achieve the same aim?
https://www.climateassembly.uk/about/
citizens-assemblies/
Are you not keen on CAs?
Richard, I am interested in your views in Citizen Assemblies?
I don’t think they can be democratic
They make useful sounding boards – buit should not decide anything
The deliberations of a CA could feed into a UKCC rather than making the final decisions
I am lost
What is a UKCC?
My apologies, UKCC = a UK wide Constitutional Convention
The 1989 Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC) was on devolution but also covered the electoral system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Constitutional_Convention
Their 1995 report: https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/history/scotlands-parliament-scotlands-right.pdf
Thanks
Who appoints it?
If appointed by parliament it would have a mandate and the government would appoint.
If a civic version there would need to be a robust process to ensure all parts of society were included. The Scottish Constitutional Convention claimed to meet this bar “the Convention is beyond question the most broadly representative body in
Scotland” but others may disagree. All political parties were invited to join and it included 80 per cent
of Scotland’s MPs and MEPs; representatives of the great majority of local authorities; Scottish Trades Union Congress, the churches, ethnic minority groups, women’s movements, and sections of the business and industrial community.
But I agree there could be issues with democratic integrity. If Labour will not progress the issue of PR for House of Commons this may be the next best option. Asking for a Royal Commission will provide them with the gift of throwing it into the long grass.
Or a constitutional convention of civic society. Bypass the professional politicians who have been captured by plutocrats. And the first pronouncement would be to declare the Westminster parliament democratically illegitimate as its composition does not reflect the voting intentions of the electorate. Second, declare that the people are sovereign. And take it from there.
The French don’t have a PR system as such. The top two then have a run off contest. A transferable vote could avoid that but it does, perhaps, give time for reflection.
It is interesting how parties of the Left in France have come together in the face of the rise of the National Rally party.
They have even agreed to stand down candidates for the greater good. This is tactical voting as we have never done it-maybe the 1918 ‘coupon election’?
Perhaps there is a lesson here but I am not sure what it is!
Let’s see what happens…
It is now 8.20pm on Sunday. It looks like the left coalition worked.
Politico breaking news:
Left set to win most seats in shock French election
France on course for a hung parliament with the left holding the most MPs, in a defeat for the far-right.
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-legislative-election-2024-second-round-front-populaire-jean-luc-melenchon-raphael-glucksmann-shock-victory/
I am hoping this is true….
Unfortunately, no political party who have woo under our present system will, I believe, vote for PR as they think that is like turkeys voting for Christmas. They always believe that they will win the next election on the present system.
Which is precisely why they are not fit for office
Labour party conference voted massively for PR last year. This year may be a little early, but by next year’s conference there will be a number of issues upsetting a lot of people. Conference motion to censure the leadership unless they implement conference motion on PR?
Surely the evidence is now obvious that until it’s recognised market capitalism will continue with inbuilt punishment beatings of austerity? There’s now a huge cottage industry of economist, journalist and politician shills doing their level best to prevent voters from understanding how fiat money really works and why it got to be that way. It’s too simplistic to put all your eggs in one basket and pretend that just a switch to PR will do away with the punishment beatings. A strategy of twin thinking out of the box is needed!
I agree. There are a whole raft of changes that are required, certainly necessary but even in toto maybe not sufficient to bring about some real democracy – government by the people, not professional politicians, lobbyists and plutocrats.
I’ve come to the view, as expressed above and by Aileen, that a civic constitutional convention is the only way because politicians cannot be trusted to vote against their interests, which is rotating absolute power between 2 parties.
It’s also the way suggested by Prof McCorquodale by which Scotland could gain international recognition for secession.
From the Daily Kos:-
“Debt hysteria is pumped up by politicians from both parties and the mainstream media. Every President for the last seven decades warns “we are running out of money,” “just like a household, we have to balance our books,” or “our grandchildren will be burdened by this debt.” The terrifying “National Debt Clock” ticks up menacingly.
On the ‘burden to our grandchildren,’ I ask first,
First, ‘What is a greater burden, an accounting number or a world uninhabitable because of climate change?’
Second, ‘Are we impoverished because we are paying the national debt from our grandparents (e.g., the huge WW II debt?)’ [Rhetorical question] and
Third, ‘To whom will this fearsome national debt be paid?’ [Spoiler alert: It’s the grandchildren themselves.]”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/19/2245950/-Watch-this-Movie