Electoral Reform

[MaVilla]

Not sure if there is a similar thread elsewhere, if there is, please feel free to merge it.......

Anyway.

Does anyone else feel that we missed a big opportunity in 2011 by voting against proportional representation? (as a country).

Do you think the general public would be more pro proportional representation in 2024?, especially considering the mess that the UK has been in over the last 15-30 years.

If most people knew that their individual vote would go towards proportional representation, and you arent stuck with the main two parties, im guessing many people might be interested in that now?, unless you are a die hard labour/tory voter who would vote for them regardless of whether they are useless or not.

[markavfc40]

13 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

especially considering the mess that the UK has been in over the last 15-30 years

I am not sure how you have bunched the last 15 years in with the 15 years before that. For a decade plus from 1997 public services and your average Joes lot improved immensely. The last 14 years those gains have been decimated and some. 

[Davkaus]

It wasn't a vote on PR, alternate vote is a better system than fptp, but just grants an individual candidate in a constituency with more support, it doesn't aim to deliver proportional representation and would have the same problem for parties like ukip or the greens with millions of voters spread (reasonably) evenly throughout the country delivering almost no seats

As for how the country would feel about it now, part of me hopes that Reform end up with 15-18% of the vote and get one or two seats maximum, to see if Farage can kick up enough interest to fuel a desire for change, but what I really think people want is less politics and no more bloody referendums

Edited June 3 by Davkaus

[picicata]

I blame Nick Clegg

[bickster]

AV was better than what we have but not by much

Clegg just wanted Cameron's babies, he was a complete fool

[Danwichmann]

I voted yes for AV as it would have been somewhat better than FPTP, and I didn't want to vote 'no' that would be interpreted as a vote for FPTP. But I think we desperately need full PR, and ideally a full overhaul of the whole system. Get rid of the monarchy, the House of Lords and replace it all with something that's actually democratic and codified, not based on convention and gentleman's understandings. A quick look at the polls and comparison of the vote share to number of seats shows any right minded person that what we have does not represent what people want to vote for. 

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, Danwichmann said:

Ideally a full overhaul of the whole system. Get rid of the monarchy, the House of Lords and replace it all with something that's actually democratic and codified, not based on convention and gentleman's understandings.

Agreed, but... 

Not. A. Chance. 

[Danwichmann]

5 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Agreed, but... 

Not. A. Chance. 

Yes, I'll settle for something that's just a little bit more democratic than what we have, because the rest isn't happening in my lifetime. 

[Jon]

It's certainly not going to happen under a Labour government with a massive majority. 

It should, but it won't. 

[bickster]

2 hours ago, Danwichmann said:

I voted yes for AV as it would have been somewhat better than FPTP, and I didn't want to vote 'no' that would be interpreted as a vote for FPTP. But I think we desperately need full PR, and ideally a full overhaul of the whole system. Get rid of the monarchy, the House of Lords and replace it all with something that's actually democratic and codified, not based on convention and gentleman's understandings. A quick look at the polls and comparison of the vote share to number of seats shows any right minded person that what we have does not represent what people want to vote for. 

And the polls only look like that BECAUSE of FPTP. FPTP polarises views to be a battle between the top two parties, it's like being a football supporter and only really having the choice of supporting Man City or Arsenal, forever, from this point forward

[Mandy Lifeboats]

I strongly oppose proportionate representation.   

We have some really nasty and dishonest people in politics who win 1 or 2% of the national vote. Presently they get no seats in Parliament.  

Under proportionate representation these smaller parties often become crucial to deciding who becomes the government.  So they often manage to get idiotic policies through as part of the bargain.  

I don't want to see extremists having any say in running this country. Whether that be National Front, English Defence League, Hamas UK,  Just Stop Oil etc.  

 

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

There's plenty we could do instead.....

Break the bond between the church and the state. 

Replace the House Of Lords. 

Count Binface for President 

 

[LondonLax]

2 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I strongly oppose proportionate representation.   

We have some really nasty and dishonest people in politics who win 1 or 2% of the national vote. Presently they get no seats in Parliament.  

Under proportionate representation these smaller parties often become crucial to deciding who becomes the government.  So they often manage to get idiotic policies through as part of the bargain.  

I don't want to see extremists having any say in running this country. Whether that be National Front, English Defence League, Hamas UK,  Just Stop Oil etc.  

 

 

Except that you have those idiots in seats now, they are just the nutty fringe of the two main parties.

They often get their way as well, look at Brexit, a nutty fringe of the Tory party made a Brexit referendum a condition of their continued support.

Under PR they would be operating under two different banners from each other but the end result may well be similar  

I think the differences between PR / FPTP and other options in between are a bit over stated really. People frustrated with politics have an idea that it would all be much better under a different system but I think that is not so clear cut. 

[Mr_Dogg]

10 hours ago, Davkaus said:

It wasn't a vote on PR, alternate vote is a better system than fptp, but just grants an individual candidate in a constituency with more support, it doesn't aim to deliver proportional representation and would have the same problem for parties like ukip or the greens with millions of voters spread (reasonably) evenly throughout the country delivering almost no seats

As for how the country would feel about it now, part of me hopes that Reform end up with 15-18% of the vote and get one or two seats maximum, to see if Farage can kick up enough interest to fuel a desire for change, but what I really think people want is less politics and no more bloody referendums

Hasn't the UK had 3 referendums ever?

[Davkaus]

1 minute ago, Mr_Dogg said:

Hasn't the UK had 3 referendums ever?

Do you think people will be enthusiastic about another one?  

[Seat68]

21 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

I strongly oppose proportionate representation.   

We have some really nasty and dishonest people in politics who win 1 or 2% of the national vote. Presently they get no seats in Parliament.  

Under proportionate representation these smaller parties often become crucial to deciding who becomes the government.  So they often manage to get idiotic policies through as part of the bargain.  

I don't want to see extremists having any say in running this country. Whether that be National Front, English Defence League, Hamas UK,  Just Stop Oil etc.  

 

 

I could have written this. I agree with every word 

[Danwichmann]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

And the polls only look like that BECAUSE of FPTP. FPTP polarises views to be a battle between the top two parties, it's like being a football supporter and only really having the choice of supporting Man City or Arsenal, forever, from this point forward

Absolutely agree. That the Greens or Reform can pick up 10%ish of the vote each despite having no chance of winning in no seats suggests that they could get a lot more votes if they were actually going to matter. 

[cyrusr]

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/publications/lessons-not-learnt-the-2015-2017-2019-general-elections/

 

So in this is sets outs what the outcomes would be in the last 3 general elections if they were done under different forms of proportionate representation (Party List PR, Alternative Vote, Single Transferable Vote, Additional Member System) although I am not sure why they do different methods for each election. The bar charts didn't copy correctly but here is the data instead: -  

Seat projections under different voting systems, General election 2015 (Great Britain)

Party	FPTP	STV	AV	List PR
Conservative	331	276	337	242
Labour	232	236	227	208
SNP	56	34	54	30
Lib Dem	8	26	9	47
Plaid Cymru	3	3	3	5
UKIP	1	54	1	80
Green Party	1	3	1	20
Total	632	632	632	632

 

In short, it would have unlikely had a massive impact on 2015 election (either Tories outright or in coalition with UKIP) so that would have likely led to Brexit vote anyway. 

Seat projections under different voting systems, General election 2017 (Great Britain)

Party	FPTP	STV	AMS	AV
Conservative	317	282	274	304
Labour	262	297	274	286
SNP	35	18	21	27
Lib Dem	12	29	39	11
Plaid Cymru	4	3	4	2
Green Party	1	1	8	1
UKIP	0	1	11	0
Total	631	631	631	631

In 2017, in all of the PR options, it would have likely led to some combination of Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition and likely change the future as to how Brexit was dealt with. 

Seat projections under different voting systems, General election 2019 (Great Britain)

Party	FPTP	STV	AMS	List PR
Conservative	365	312	284	288
Labour	203	221	188	216
SNP	48	30	26	28
Lib Dem	11	59	79	70
Plaid Cymru	4	5	5	4
Green Party	1	2	38	12
Brexit Party	0	3	12	11
Others	0	0	0	3
Total	632	632	632	632

In 2019 again both the Party List and Alternative Members system would lead to coalitions of Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Greens. With the Single Transferrable Vote it might be possible for Tory/UKIP/DUP but would be the tiniest of margins. 

The moral of the story seems to be with PR, we would almost certainly taken a very different course with Brexit, even if we would likely still had to face the vote anyway. 

For those worried about the voice of Farage et al being given in parliament; well the media gives them that voice without accountability which to me is worse. If Farage is an MP, he has to be accountable, actually has to try and justify his existence. The fact that he would have to attend commons rather than do his GB News show or whatever means he is going to get frustrated very quickly. They also do not get that share of the vote come through. The most was UKIP in 2015 but that was then the anti EU voice was strongest and the votes for UKIP/Brexit Party shrunk after that and the centre-left would have taken control of the situation. 

To me, any of these outcomes would have taken us on a far better path.

 

edit: added data instead of bar charts

Edited June 4 by cyrusr
Added data

[Anthony]

15 hours ago, cyrusr said:

For those worried about the voice of Farage et al being given in parliament; well the media gives them that voice without accountability which to me is worse. If Farage is an MP, he has to be accountable, actually has to try and justify his existence. The fact that he would have to attend commons rather than do his GB News show or whatever means he is going to get frustrated very quickly. They also do not get that share of the vote come through. The most was UKIP in 2015 but that was then the anti EU voice was strongest and the votes for UKIP/Brexit Party shrunk after that and the centre-left would have taken control of the situation.

This is a key point for me. People with these views exist, and we have to deal with them. In the current system they don't have to be dealt with in parliament, which means 'they' can pretend the issues don't exist and ignore them, and they fester and grow. If Farridge had been spouting his bollocks in the Commons, he'd have been utterly destroyed. Maybe.

A second addition to the pro PR argument, which I'll admit is idealistic, is that everyone deserves a voice, and a democracy should provide that. If people don't have a voice, then the democracy loses some legitimacy, which opens a crack for authoritarians (Trump, Putin etc) to leverage. Now then, just before Brexit, where did Aaron Banks get a big wodge of cash from again?

[Mr_Dogg]

16 hours ago, cyrusr said:

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/publications/lessons-not-learnt-the-2015-2017-2019-general-elections/

 

So in this is sets outs what the outcomes would be in the last 3 general elections if they were done under different forms of proportionate representation (Party List PR, Alternative Vote, Single Transferable Vote, Additional Member System) although I am not sure why they do different methods for each election. The bar charts didn't copy correctly but here is the data instead: -  

Seat projections under different voting systems, General election 2015 (Great Britain)

Party	FPTP	STV	AV	List PR
Conservative	331	276	337	242
Labour	232	236	227	208
SNP	56	34	54	30
Lib Dem	8	26	9	47
Plaid Cymru	3	3	3	5
UKIP	1	54	1	80
Green Party	1	3	1	20
Total	632	632	632	632

 

In short, it would have unlikely had a massive impact on 2015 election (either Tories outright or in coalition with UKIP) so that would have likely led to Brexit vote anyway. 

Seat projections under different voting systems, General election 2017 (Great Britain)

Party	FPTP	STV	AMS	AV
Conservative	317	282	274	304
Labour	262	297	274	286
SNP	35	18	21	27
Lib Dem	12	29	39	11
Plaid Cymru	4	3	4	2
Green Party	1	1	8	1
UKIP	0	1	11	0
Total	631	631	631	631

In 2017, in all of the PR options, it would have likely led to some combination of Labour/Lib Dem/SNP coalition and likely change the future as to how Brexit was dealt with. 

Seat projections under different voting systems, General election 2019 (Great Britain)

Party	FPTP	STV	AMS	List PR
Conservative	365	312	284	288
Labour	203	221	188	216
SNP	48	30	26	28
Lib Dem	11	59	79	70
Plaid Cymru	4	5	5	4
Green Party	1	2	38	12
Brexit Party	0	3	12	11
Others	0	0	0	3
Total	632	632	632	632

In 2019 again both the Party List and Alternative Members system would lead to coalitions of Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/Greens. With the Single Transferrable Vote it might be possible for Tory/UKIP/DUP but would be the tiniest of margins. 

The moral of the story seems to be with PR, we would almost certainly taken a very different course with Brexit, even if we would likely still had to face the vote anyway. 

For those worried about the voice of Farage et al being given in parliament; well the media gives them that voice without accountability which to me is worse. If Farage is an MP, he has to be accountable, actually has to try and justify his existence. The fact that he would have to attend commons rather than do his GB News show or whatever means he is going to get frustrated very quickly. They also do not get that share of the vote come through. The most was UKIP in 2015 but that was then the anti EU voice was strongest and the votes for UKIP/Brexit Party shrunk after that and the centre-left would have taken control of the situation. 

To me, any of these outcomes would have taken us on a far better path.

 

edit: added data instead of bar charts

Interesting but how is this worked out when the ballot doesn't cater for it?