More than 60 Labour MPs call for review of UK voting system
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgpzp87p11o
Posted by coffeewalnut08
More than 60 Labour MPs call for review of UK voting system
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgpzp87p11o
Posted by coffeewalnut08
14 Comments
> but defenders say it (FPTP) means decisive results and, in theory, more stable government.
Stop laughing at the back.
Always been hard to defend getting 63% of the MP’s from 33.7% of the vote (as happened at the last election).
Just sad that it took this long for them to maybe consider a system that has benefitted both major parties isn’t perhaps fair or democratic.
**”More than 60 MPs are calling for a rethink of the UK’s first-past-the-post voting system, which they have labelled “broken”.**
They are backing a new national commission to examine the current system for elections to the House of Commons and recommend reforms.
Critics have long said the first-past-the-post system means candidates can be elected on a relatively low share of the vote, undermining democracy, but defenders say it means decisive results and, in theory, more stable government.
The new political backdrop of multi-party politics which has emerged in recent years, with smaller parties challenging Labour and the Conservatives, has reignited calls for electoral reform.
First past the post is the voting system for UK general elections and elections to English councils.
This means the candidate with the most votes wins in a constituency and becomes an MP, while the party with the most MPs wins the election.
Reform UK, the Lib Dems, the Green Party, SNP and Plaid Cymru have all argued for a more proportional voting system. This would link a party’s share of seats in Westminster more closely to the share of votes they receive overall. Elections to the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments use a proportional voting system.
The Conservatives want to stick with first past the post.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer supported electoral reform during his bid to become Labour leader in 2020 but has since dropped his pledge and did not include it in the party’s 2024 general election manifesto. Some 64 Labour MPs have now signed up to an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill, calling for a national commission on electoral reform.
The government’s bill [includes extending the right to vote to 16 and 17-year-olds](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2jjvx466o).
The amendment has been tabled by Alex Sobel, the Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley.
Sobel, who is also chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections, urged MPs from all parties to join the “common sense” call ahead of the bill’s expected return to the Commons next month.
“The prime minister in his reset speech said ‘a return to the status quo would not be enough for people’,” he said.
“First past the post is one of the biggest examples of a broken status quo in UK politics.
“A very modest part of any reset would be to accept and announce a National Commission for Electoral Reform.”
The amendment’s signatories include select committee chairs Ruth Cadbury, Cat Smith and Helen Hayes.
In 2022, Labour members at the party’s annual conference [voted in favour of a commitment to introduce proportional representation for general elections](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63036884). Eight out of Labour’s eleven affiliated trade unions also have formal policy in favour of electoral reform…”
I tend to agree with these MPs.
Petition for an electoral review: [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/762149](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/762149) I know these have been done before, but if people who agree can keep putting pressure then it strengthens the argument that things need to change.
funny how they care about this now when they face the sort of election results the conservatives got last time
I’ll be honest if Labour did push this through, alongside decoupling gas from wholesale energy prices, I might actually vote for them again
The last stable government we had was the coalition.
We should move to either ranked choice or STV
Those would require the least amount of effort
I knew someone in labour would eventually hit the panic button on this.
Run offs (France) and PR (Germany) are powerful safeguards against an extreme party winning.
With FPTP. Any party only needs to pull 10 points clear and they will win a massive majority, even pulling numbers in the low 30s.
I bet they still screw up the policy and recommend something stupid like AV again.
The system they implemented in Wales assures no-one gets a majority if they want to take that UK-wide…
What’s up with Labout lately?
Haven’t they got a LFI ring to kiss?
We should replace one third of mps with randomly selected citizens so the balance of power in parliament is always held by a representative group of unaffiliated individuals who don’t need to care about reelection
Labour’s standing in the opinion polls and the threat that they could actually lose a lot of important seats to Reform might be the self centred kick they need to consider actually doing something about the voting system.
I’m not a fan of pure PR, I think having a constituency MP is a good thing, and so is the ability for independents to stand. But we could have either multi-member constituencies with STV, or a list system like Scotland, they’re both proven systems that work well.
PLEASE everyone, do your research on APPROVAL VOTING.
I understand why people want to push for STV, and other PR systems – but the truth is that these are not the silver bullets that they claim to be. I mean, just look at the places that actually use them: what have they solved? They make certain tradeoffs in comparison to FPTP – and, yes, if it was a binary choice between the two, I would obviously also choose STV.
But, Approval Voting doesn’t suffer from things like the ‘center squeeze’ and you get the efficiency of a consolidated government that is massively representative of the true median preference. It’s also more robust against strategic voting – AND it is by far the EASIER sell. It requires the simplest, least complicated, and least amount of changes to the current system – but makes politics far more democratic.
You always get to support your favourite preference without your vote getting split – and parliament could never be taken hostage by fringe / minor parties. We do not need a highly fragmented parliament filled with the most polarising radical voices!
STV is better than FPTP but it does not solve the populist issue! Check out the Center for Election science, and check out their videos on Youtube. I’ve also seen their members posting the most genuinely thoughtful and detailed replies in various online forums just by researching the topic.
I was skeptical at first because I was fond of the idea of STV, but whilst no system is perfect (because the maths and philosophy of democracy is not perfect) – Approval Voting at least seems to require the least risk, have the least amount of downsides, be the easiest to explain, and have the most potential for a positive impact! It also has the least ‘losers’ and incentivises politics to be more inclusive, agreeable, and reasonable!!
The Brit electorate has a Tory fetish – Thatcher, Camo/Brexit, Boris and supremely unimpressed with Labour back in power after two minutes.
There’s nothing voting system reform is going to do about that. Shit, these fuckers were putting up flags everywhere last year like they needed a daily reminder of what the Union Jack looks like.