UK voting system

[61653 HTAFC]

I like having single member/constituency, it makes election night much easire to comprehend! However, it simply isn't fit for the purpose and needs attention. We did have a vote in 2010 and rejected AV; but maybe one day there will be a system where if The Raving Railways Party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% of the seats in Parliament. It would mean virtually every parliament is hung, but other countries manage.

The AV referendum, much like the regional devolution referendum in the North East under Blair, seemed to me as if it were designed to produce a "status quo" outcome and thus extinguish any calls for constitutional reform.

 

[takno]

There's something to be said for voting against constitutional reform if it isn't perfect. The Scottish and Welsh hybrid systems are a good example. The list system hasn't prevented Labour being in power for 20 years while the North and West routinely votes Tory and Plaid Cymru, but the system ensures that while the South refuses to vote anything but Labour it will only ever mean a smattering of members. Be careful what you wish for and all that.

I don't have any specific issues with the system in Scotland. I don't much like the outcome, but it's reflective of what the people of Scotland appear to want for the moment.

I'm also specifically rather disappointed with the Green Party's propping up the government in return for essentially nothing, and they certainly won't be getting my list vote again, but that's definitely not a constitutional matter.

 

[scotrail158713]

I don't have any specific issues with the system in Scotland. I don't much like the outcome, but it's reflective of what the people of Scotland appear to want for the moment.

I'm also specifically rather disappointed with the Green Party's propping up the government in return for essentially nothing, and they certainly won't be getting my list vote again, but that's definitely not a constitutional matter.

Have to agree. The Scottish Government isn’t always exactly what I want, but at least I know it’s representative of what the Scottish population want as a whole.

 

[najaB]

The Scottish Government isn’t always exactly what I want, but at least I know it’s representative of what the Scottish population want as a whole.

Which is pretty much how it should be - if everyone is somewhat unhappy with the election result then it's probably the right result!

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Look what happened before the last general election when we had a minority government. It was chaos in parliament. Not sure I want to see that again.

The real losers in recent years under FPTP have been UKIP who polled many millions of votes, many more than the SNP, but only ever had one seat.

 

[Domh245]

I'd much rather the 'chaos' with the degree of compromise it brought, with proper scrutiny of bills in the commons and MPs following their principles than things being bulldozed through by a party that doesn't represent the majority of voters. I fully agree about UKIP though, much as I dislike them and their policies, to win such a high vote share whilst having no MPs is a disgrace

 

[najaB]

Look what happened before the last general election when we had a minority government. It was chaos in parliament. Not sure I want to see that again.

Minority governments are a problem - which is why coalitions are so prevalent in other countries. Shame they are anathema in the UK.

The real losers in recent years under FPTP have been UKIP who polled many millions of votes, many more than the SNP, but only ever had one seat.

They may well have polled millions of votes nationally, but what was their highest percentage of votes in any area?

Edit: Rather than "many millions of votes", it appears that they only received more than a million votes in one election. Looking at the Wikipedia page for the 2015 election highlights the problem with FPTP:

Lowest winning vote share

Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP won the seat of Belfast South on 24.5% of the vote.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

As also happened in 1951 but to the other party.

I never knew that. One learns something new every day

 

[brad465]

FPTP is an absolute disgrace that became unfit as soon as political parties became established (so the 18th/19th century?). If a party wants a majority of power it should have to win a majority of the electorate, which hasn't happened in our lifetimes, Tory or Labour.

As well as being grossly unfair to minor parties, this system I believe is behind why we are so divided today: all that needs to be done by those in power is stoke up divisive ideas to strengthen their own base and they have done enough for a parliamentary majority, which is typically 35-45%, this is completely wrong and is damaging our way of life and reputation internationally.

This system is also why all those election "pacts" happened in 2019, for the left parties it was the best way to get one of them in a given seat (although without Labour on board achieved very little), while on the right the Tories effectively coerced the Brexit Party into standing down in most seats to avoid splitting the vote and putting someone else in (there were also allegations of electoral fraud due to potential peerage bribes to get candidates to stand down). This is also why before 2015 Cameron said "Go to bed with Farage, wake up with Miliband".

We definitely need some form of PR system in; countries like Germand and New Zealand have shown that coalition Governments can govern better than us with our archaic system. By coincidence this Saturday there is a day of action organised by the group Make Votes Matter to demand PR:

Home - Make Votes Matter

www.makevotesmatter.org.uk

 

[GRALISTAIR]

If it was UK wide Scotland would have to wake up to the fact that there may be a few less SNP MPs without FPTP - possibly a few more conservative MPs.

 

[takno]

If it was UK wide Scotland would have to wake up to the fact that there may be a few less SNP MPs without FPTP - possibly a few more conservative MPs.

That's fairly dependant on the form of PR used. The point is a bit moot anyway, since the current distribution of votes in Scotland is likely to have changed reasonably substantially by the time any PR-based election ever happened.

 

[scotrail158713]

That's fairly dependant on the form of PR used. The point is a bit moot anyway, since the current distribution of votes in Scotland is likely to have changed reasonably substantially by the time any PR-based election ever happened.

Is it though? We’ve got a form of PR in Holyrood and the SNP are still in power, and have been for the last 13 years.

 

[takno]

Is it though? We’ve got a form of PR in Holyrood and the SNP are still in power, and have been for the last 13 years.

I was anticipating a bit of a fall in the Tory vote with their second non-entity leader since Davidson, a possible Labour on the assumption that Leonard will give and get lost sooner or later. The SNP have to contend with the possibility of Sturgeon going and there being absolutely nobody of any presence to take over, as well as the ever-present threat of in-fighting causing a Labour-style collapse.

It could all go the other way of course. Scottish politics over the past 50-odd years has swung more wildly than virtually anywhere in England. It's certainly not worth changing (or not changing) the electoral system to try to entrench a position if you might still get overrun at the next election.

 

[najaB]

Is it though? We’ve got a form of PR in Holyrood and the SNP are still in power, and have been for the last 13 years.

Maybe my maths is wrong, but 13 years would take us back to 2007 - where the SNP was the largest party but didn't have a majority. It's only since 2011 that they have had a majority.

 

[takno]

Maybe my maths is wrong, but 13 years would take us back to 2007 - where the SNP was the largest party but didn't have a majority. It's only since 2011 that they have had a majority.

They don't have a majority now. There was only one administration when they did

 

[najaB]

They don't have a majority now. There was only one administration when they did

Ah, right. True, they're two short. And with ~46% of the overall vote that is just about right.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There's something to be said for voting against constitutional reform if it isn't perfect. The Scottish and Welsh hybrid systems are a good example. The list system hasn't prevented Labour being in power for 20 years while the North and West routinely votes Tory and Plaid Cymru, but the system ensures that while the South refuses to vote anything but Labour it will only ever mean a smattering of members. Be careful what you wish for and all that.

It's only worth voting against a reform for not being perfect if there is an extremely good chance that rejection of the reform would lead to a better reform being offered instead. That wasn't the case for the 2011 AV referendum - for which it was pretty clear that rejection of AV would be taken by both the Conservatives and most of the Labour Party as a green light to permanently continue the present stupid system.

Besides, much of history seems to suggest that democratic change is usually gradual. Systems improve incrementally. Look for example at how the franchise was extended from a minority of the population to virtually all men and women, not in one go, but over the course of many acts of Parliament over many decades. Or how gay rights have progressed since gay sex was first legalised in the 1960s - once again, it wasn't a single change that made the system perfect, but lots of incremental improvements over several decades. For that reason I personally would be very reluctant to reject something that represents an improvement on the current system (and I did vote Yes to AV, even though I would much rather a proper PR system).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Aug 2020 ==

Look what happened before the last general election when we had a minority government. It was chaos in parliament. Not sure I want to see that again.

I don't think you can blame that chaos entirely - or even mostly - on the Government being a minority one. The chaos happened to a large extent because the Conservative leadership at the time for whatever reason wasn't prepared to make the compromises necessary to get majority support from MPs - instead, actually alienating quite a few of its own MPs, which meant it would have ended up losing Parliamentary votes even if it had a notional majority.

2010-15 is a better example of what happens when you get no party with a majority in Parliament AND politicians who are mature enough to be able to deal with that situation appropriately. Personally I didn't like quite a bit of what that Government did, but you can't deny it was a perfectly stable Government that actually achieved quite a lot.

The real losers in recent years under FPTP have been UKIP who polled many millions of votes, many more than the SNP, but only ever had one seat.

I would argue that the LibDems and the Greens have also lost hugely - not only because they had far fewer seats than they should've done based on vote % (particularly since 2015) but also because they have lost so many votes due to people who would have liked to vote for them feeling that they couldn't because voting for anything other than Labour or Tory would represent a wasted vote under the current system.

 

[najaB]

I would argue that the LibDems and the Greens have also lost hugely - not only because they had far fewer seats than they should've done based on vote % (particularly since 2015) but also because they have lost so many votes due to people who would have liked to vote for them feeling that they couldn't because voting for anything other than Labour or Tory would represent a wasted vote under the current system.

Indeed. I would vote Lib-Dem but it does feel like a wasted vote, so I normally vote Labour or SNP.

 

[edwin_m]

The real losers in recent years under FPTP have been UKIP who polled many millions of votes, many more than the SNP, but only ever had one seat.

Though most of their candidates not named Farage were too stupid to realise it, the main purpose of UKIP was to threaten to split the vote in order to get the Tories to adopt their increasingly extreme position on Brexit. Under our current system a party that splits is doomed, so everyone within the party has to agree to policies many of them don't like and many of their voters probably don't like either. As with Trump and with both main UK parties in 2019, this often ends up playing to a "base" rather than trying to appeal to a wider range of people - essentially dividing the nation becomes necessary to win.

A proportional system allows more smaller parties, which will generally rule as a coalition which probably represents more than 50% of those who voted. So people could choose between the shades of opinion currently represented by the two wings of a big party, making it clear how many voters are Corbynite versus Blairite for example.

 

[Domh245]

A proportional system allows more smaller parties, which will generally rule as a coalition which probably represents more than 50% of those who voted. So people could choose between the shades of opinion currently represented by the two wings of a big party, making it clear how many voters are Corbynite versus Blairite for example.

The end of the 'broad church' parties would be a good thing in my book, even if the coalitions end up resembling them (albeit perhaps being able to reach across the centre rather than going for the extremes)! I suspect that these are in no small part responsible for the rise in prominence of extreme left/right wing views, someone who is (for example) right of centre isn't going to vote for a party tending towards the extreme left over one tending for the extreme right and vice versa. Giving people more parties to vote for seems likely to also drive up engagement with the political process - many people are turned off of politics through not having any one party to support as none match their views closely enough.

 

[Butts]

Indeed. I would vote Lib-Dem but it does feel like a wasted vote, so I normally vote Labour or SNP.

At least your current CONSERVATIVE MP is not a lapdog

New leader of the party in Scotland.

Resigned from the Cabinet over the Cummins affair.

Refuses to back Williamson The Education Secretary in the current row.

Can you not give him a little credit ?

 

[najaB]

At least your current CONSERVATIVE MP is not a lapdog

My MP is SNP, not Conservative.

 

[Butts]

My MP is SNP, not Conservative.

Sorry, have you moved from Elgin then ?

 

[najaB]

Sorry, have you moved from Elgin then ?

Never lived in Elgin.

 

[Butts]

Never lived in Elgin.

Age is a terrible thing sorry, was in not Morayshire ?

 

[najaB]

Age is a terrible thing sorry, was in not Morayshire ?

Nope, my constituency is Dundee West - so quite a ways away. You are correct though that Douglas Ross isn't so bad - for a Tory.

 

[GusB]

Sorry, have you moved from Elgin then ?

I think you're confusing @najaB with me.

 

[Butts]

I think you're confusing @najaB with me.

Yes apologies to Naja B and yourself, it must have been the "B"

 

[najaB]

Yes apologies to Naja B and yourself, it must have been the "B"

Easily done, and not offence taken.

 

[hexagon789]

And of course in 1974 the party with the most votes didn’t even form the government.

And in 1951 Churchill even won a slim majority with less votes than Labour under Attlee. Labour simply won it's safe seats with stronger majorities and failed to win enough votes in marginals.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Aug 2020 ==

I don't have any specific issues with the system in Scotland. I don't much like the outcome, but it's reflective of what the people of Scotland appear to want for the moment.

I'm also specifically rather disappointed with the Green Party's propping up the government in return for essentially nothing, and they certainly won't be getting my list vote again, but that's definitely not a constitutional matter.

I would prefer a more equal split of single member FPTP and "top-up" party list seats as with the mixed-member proportional systems used in Germany and New Zealand.