py_megapixel
Established Member
There's a fundemental problem with any proposal to move away from FPTP, which is that it is always in the interest of the largest parties to reject it!
There's a fundemental problem with any proposal to move away from FPTP, which is that it is always in the interest of the largest parties to reject it!
If - and it is a big "if" the Liberal Democrats were to win a general election though, they must for the long term future change the voting system one would have thought.There's a fundemental problem with any proposal to move away from FPTP, which is that it is always in the interest of the largest parties to reject it!
If - and it is a big "if" the Liberal Democrats were to win a general election though, they must for the long term future change the voting system one would have thought.
IMHO you are being too cynical. After all these years they would have to otherwise they would have zero credibility for at least two generations.Wouldn't that depend on whether it was to their advantage or is that too cynical of me?
Yes. I had not realized this but did some research.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.
IMHO you are being too cynical. After all these years they would have to otherwise they would have zero credibility for at least two generations.
Yes. I had not realized this but did some research.
Would PR solve all the anomalies one wonders?
Would PR solve all the anomalies one wonders?
I posed the question in 1982 to a Liberal (SDP were around but had not merged yet) colleague - actually my boss. It seemed as Liberal/SDP could form a majority with the by-elections etc they were winning. His answer was "We would have to get PR on the statute books even if we win on FPTP. We would absolutely have to" .
No system is perfect, but it can be pretty good. The Nordics all use Leveling seats to make sure the number of MPs a party gets is as close to its share of the vote as possible. In Sweden e.g., 310 of the 349 seats in the parliament are regular seats with each constituency given a number of seats to fill. Usually around 10-15 but it varies from 2 to 39. The other 39 seats are then distributed according to a mathematical model to make sure underrepresented parties get extra seats.
What might help is if we get a Hung Parliament where a potential coalition partner demands the introduction of PR, or at least a referendum on it. Not conceding to the poor AV referendum in 2011, while the 2017 Hung Parliament was more of a "bung Parliament", where the DUP weren't hooked on demanding that system change.There's a fundemental problem with any proposal to move away from FPTP, which is that it is always in the interest of the largest parties to reject it!
One problem with PR is that minority, often extreme, parties can exert excessive influence. They agree to support one party to form a "stable" coalition only if the coalition government party will favour some of the more extreme viewpoints.
Personally I would like to see some type of hybrid system, maybe half the seats decided by first past the post, but the other half decided by some form of regional PR (e.g. regions of roughly equal population comprising areas of England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) - but with a proviso -- any party must receive at least 5-10% of the votes in a region before it qualifies to get any seats.
It's pretty rare for systems to not have a 5% threshold, even if only implicitly because few systems allocate more than 20 seats to an individual block. It's also pretty rare that extreme parties manage to have a significant say in government - occasionally they are dragged in in return for one of their more palatable policies being accepted, or given lip service. The main risk is that they get more publicity and to look more official than they might otherwise achieve, but that seems far-fetched in the UK given the amount and quality of coverage Farage was able to get in the UK for no elected presence at all.One problem with PR is that minority, often extreme, parties can exert excessive influence. They agree to support one party to form a "stable" coalition only if the coalition government party will favour some of the more extreme viewpoints.
Personally I would like to see some type of hybrid system, maybe half the seats decided by first past the post, but the other half decided by some form of regional PR (e.g. regions of roughly equal population comprising areas of England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) - but with a proviso -- any party must receive at least 5-10% of the votes in a region before it qualifies to get any seats.
One problem with PR is that minority, often extreme, parties can exert excessive influence.
This is very opinionated, but one can argue that the extremes have taken over the main parties already. In this case I think Momentum hijacked Labour (although for now under Starmer their influence has dropped), while the ERG and other strong Brexit supporters seem to have a great influence in the Tory Party now, to the point that some very "Conservative" MPs lost the Whip last year, with arguments that "the Conservative party left them". There maybe other examples of extreme minorities influencing moderate parties in recent years, but these seem the most prolific at the moment.One problem with PR is that minority, often extreme, parties can exert excessive influence.
One problem with PR is that minority, often extreme, parties can exert excessive influence. They agree to support one party to form a "stable" coalition only if the coalition government party will favour some of the more extreme viewpoints.
Though they use Party List which wouldn't fit the UK democratic tradition of having a local MP as you have much larger constituencies with a much larger representative diaspora and MPs who can often be quite remote from many even quite sizeable communities.
Correct, it is based on party lists. And that means it will probably be an MP in your constituency that you actually voted for. I honestly can't see the benefit for a tory voter in having a local momentum MP, or how a labour voter can benefit from an ERG MP.
I assume you mean with FPTP, because you don't get that direct link of a "local" MP with Party Lists
No I meant with party lists. As someone living in a country with party lists, what kind of direct link am I missing?
You have a good chance of a direct link under proportional representation with multi-member constituencies. FPTP and single-member comstituencies means that a very large proportion of the electorate cannot feel that they have any representation of their political views at all, even if the local member migh tbe very good at acting as a glorified local ombudsman for all over administrative complaints.I assume you mean with FPTP, because you don't get that direct link of a "local" MP with Party Lists
You have a good chance of a direct link under proportional representation with multi-member constituencies. FPTP and single-member comstituencies means that a very large proportion of the electorate cannot feel that they have any representation of their political views at all, even if the local member migh tbe very good at acting as a glorified local ombudsman for all over administrative complaints.
that seems far-fetched in the UK given the amount and quality of coverage Farage was able to get in the UK for no elected presence at all.
That notwithstanding, it's clear that the Westminster voting system as it stands has never prevented him from getting his message in the media, so concern over other electoral systems allow a voice and a platform to people like him shouldn't be a reason to oppose them.Having a Brexit Party MS I have to question that. She was elected standing for UKIP, at a time when the last MEP election had returned more UKIP members than of any other party and we were in the final stages of the EU referendum campaigning. UKIP had two elected MPs, both Tory defectors who both won subsequent elections standing as UKIP candidates. After UKIP, the Brexit Party became the largest party in the European Parliament.
And that's without mentioning that Farage himself was an MEP for 20 years, nor mentioning all the UKIP and Brexit Party councillors.
Depending on the size of constituency you could live in a small village and all your elected representatives live literally hundreds of miles away (not uncommon in some countries for most MPs to be based entirely in the major cities) with FPTP you have a clear local representative even if you didn't necessarily vote for them.
Correct, but they can also live all over the constituency. And even in first past the post there can be some large constituencies.
The one thing I’ve always struggled with to understand in multi-member constituencies is who to write to if there is a problem.I think I'd favour constituencies electing about 10 members, which would be roughly equivalent to a county, so that any interest commanding more than about 7.5% of the vote in that constituency would be represented. Currently if you have a single member constituency it's clear who your MP is but in many constituencies less than 50% voted for them. This system also allows voters to vote for people not parties, although it might be possible for people to vote for a party list under such a system
Again AMS presents a good solution. Everybody gets their own FPTP MP, representing a constituency 50-100% larger than now (and potentially no bigger at all if you increase the number of MPs a bit), and then you have a pool of party list members. The way these work across relatively small regions in Scotland means that effectively you have your own MSP to contact, and then probably a regional MSP from your preferred party to contact if you get no joy from them.The one thing I’ve always struggled with to understand in multi-member constituencies is who to write to if there is a problem.
Currently many councils have the worst of both worlds with both wards with more than one Councillor, but still having FPTP.
With a recent issue I had locally I ended up writing to all three Councillors (fortunately they are all the same party, yet despite coping in all 3 to the original email got a reply from each one indicating what they had all done), on top of that I then wrote to the London Assembly members; of which I not only have one "local" (he represents nearly 650,000 people), but also 11 London-wide members, in this instance quite whom (if any) I should communicate any problems to is unclear.