With the 2023 local election results declared, the First Past the Post system used across England has once again failed to reflect the views of voters about who runs their local community.
Voters in England are being let down by their local democracy. In this year’s election, some parties secured 90% of the seats up for election to the council despite receiving less than half the vote.
These local councils are just a few examples of results where voter choices have been ‘distorted’ by England’s winner-takes-all First Past the Post system.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. We are calling for a fairer local electoral system that more accurately reflects people’s wishes.
Both Scotland and Northern Ireland use a fairer voting system, the Single Transferable Vote (STV), which avoids random results like these. As a result, voter choice has more than doubled, uncontested seats have become a thing of the past, and the rotten boroughs that once plagued Scotland were undone.
It’s time to scrap First Past the Post and finally to fairly represent us all in local government. Will you share our petition for fair votes in England’s local elections? https://ers.tools/local-democracy
There many forms of PR, but all of them deliver results, in terms of people elected, that better reflect the views of all voters. Not just some of the voters. PR is used effectively in Scotland and Wales to vote in their devolved governments. This does not result in stagnation. It may oblige coalitions and two or more parties working together. Stagnation only happens when some of the elected politicians decide not to engage - such as in Northern Ireland and the DUP’s game playing after they failed to gain the majority of the votes and seats in Stormont. So its not a failure of the PR mechanism, it is is a failure of some politicians.
You can’t go wrong with a preferential system of voting, every vote counts.
I don’t know where people get the idea that proportional representation leads to stagnation. No party has had control of the upper house in the Federal Government of Australia since the 1990s (I think it was). The NSW Government hasn’t had a majority in the lower house for at least two terms.
If anything it is better because they have to negotiate to get some bills through, in my opinion it leads to far better government and outcomes. Most bills just sail through anyway it is only contentious bills that need tweaking.
We still don’t have the full picture of how many people were stripped of their right to vote in May’s local elections in England due to the new voter ID laws.
We’ve long warned that this unnecessary policy would be a messy and expensive distraction – posing a real risk that genuine voters would lose their democratic right to vote.
This week, two pieces of evidence have emerged that back up our fear. Firstly, some Councils have started publishing some numbers, and they make for shocking reading.
In Walsall, 1,240 were turned away, 473 returned with ID, so 767 didn’t get to cast their vote. In Bradford 1,261 were turned away, 763 returned, and 498 didn’t get to vote.
Secondly, in a startling admission Jacob Rees-Mogg – who until recently was a government minister defending this policy – shared his views on what he thought Voter ID was meant to achieve versus his concerns at what actually happened. Click to watch what he had to say below.
Taken together, these examples are yet more reasons why the government should reverse this ill-fated policy. It is likely that for millions of voters their next polling day could be a General Election and we don’t want to see a repeat of the confusion and vote-denying that we have just witnessed.
Following yesterday’s events, seven new Lords are strolling into parliament for life as two MPs saunter out. What connects all of yesterday’s events is the corrupting power of First Past the Post on our nation, institutions and politicians.
Boris Johnson’s resignation list demonstrates just how discredited and partisan the honours system has become.
It is clear that any restraint has collapsed when it comes to the honours system, and it has no place in a modern democracy. It’s time to end this rotten system of patronage and replace the unelected Lords with a smaller elected chamber, where the people of this country - not former prime ministers - choose who shape the laws we all live under.
The extra new peers being stuffed into the bloated second chamber mean that Mr Johnson has personally created more than 70 new lifetime appointments to the Lords, which already has around 800 members. Our polling found that 61% of British people were opposed to these appointments, but the the British people have to say.
Will you share our call for a smaller elected chamber?
These latest peerages mean that Mr Johnson has been the most partisan ennobler since 1997, with almost two thirds of his appointments sitting as Conservative peers.
It represents a shameful new low that the list was shoved out mere hours before the former Prime Minister himself resigned from parliament.
I agree with you 100%. Britain can never claim to be a democracy while this anachronistic arm of government exists. I am amazed that their heads are not on spikes.
While at it why not abandon the House of Parliament to be a tourist attraction and build a purpose built parliament building in the centre of the country?
Perhaps add an English Parliament and reduce the powers of the nation’s parliament to external affairs only. It seems strange that Ireland and Scotland have their own parliaments but England’s governance still has to take heed of all their voices.
If you are going to do reform why not make it a big reform?
The recent days have seen the national focus pulled onto the House of Lords through the public row between Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson over the latter’s resignation honours list.
Shadowy dining clubs and millions of pounds in donations. This is the realm of ‘unincorporated associations’ one of the least-regulated areas of political finance in the UK.
HOLAC is an independent, advisory, non-departmental public body. Separate from the Lords, it was established in May 2000 to ensure some transparency in the process of appointments, as part of a series of reforms enacted by the then Labour government.
This thread needed to be re-kindled as the thread about the labour party conference was being swamped by this issue, rather than labour party conference issues. And even then, as above, the issue of PR as opposed to FPTP voting was being drowned by other complaints: secretive funding, favouritism in the upper house appointments, etc.
A recent post on the labour party conference thread moved onto problems with the civil service. What has that got to do with PR?
But, more notable, is that this thread died from lack of interest or contributions after only 10 posts. That is disappointing as electoral reform is very much needed. But lack of interest is surely not a reason to hijack another thread!
That was not intended, not making any excuses either.
Cannot understand why voters wish to keep an unfair system, absolutely believe that British politics has become fragmented, dominated by internal disagreements. FPTP does not reflect social divides.
Why do so few voters think the current set up is acceptable? Good question, who knows? But here are my guesses:
As most voters are either Labour or Conservative supporters then they understand that taking away FPTP means reducing the chances of their party gaining power.
This is not seen as an interesting topic compared to pressing today’s issues.
They believe the claim by politicians (who want to keep FPTP) that PR creates a more fractured political landscape and increases the likelihood of coalition governments, and that coalition governments are inherently weak (even though there is no evidence of that)
There was referendum on this a few years back and the proposed form of PR was rejected (even though very few referendums decide specific models and mostly offer a yes/no vote about a concept - Brexit, independence, etc.)
There are potential complexities arising from moving away from FPTP and this scares or confuses people (does the role of a constituency MP change, do constituencies change, does it mean MP’s are more removed from their local area, etc.)
Lastly, we would need to vote in a party that explicitly sets out to introduce such a reform. Tell me which party will do that and also succeed in getting into power? Its all very well dismissing all parties and all current politics but that is walking away from the challenge and will change nothing.
Humiliated by politics and so called ‘Honourable Members’.
Any new party would get my vote if their first pledge was to choose candidates with experience outside of politics, no nepotism or cronyism, all ministerial posts conversant to individual ability. Local to the area they represent. Clarity on donations, who and how much donated.
I don’t believe that is correct. What it will mean is that the extremists in either party will go off to form their own party and the major parties will move toward the centre.
The main political battle will still be between the two major parties who will more truly reflect the aspirations of the majority of voters. The major parties may not be able to govern in their own right and may have to govern from minority BUT in my experience that is a good thing, it means they have to negotiate controversial issues with the cross bench.
First past the post is an absurd system and never gives you a parliament that reflects the will of the people.
However first the UK needs to become a democracy with an elected upper house, that seems to me the more pressing issue. Britain cannot champion democracy when it still clearly is not one itself.
Thanks. I think you expanded on and confirmed my point, adding additional insight. And you are right, FPTP is absurd and not significantly better than the rotten burghs of the 18th century.
Plus the point about the UK’s upper chamber is well made. I’m not sure if changing that is a dependency for other changes but the archaic and favouritism riddled set up for the Lords does need to be addressed.
The European Court of Human Rights? The court that aims to apply rulings on breaches to human rights as set out in the European Convention of Human Rights? The court that takes on abuses to individuals when attempts to address such issues within the domestic judiciary has failed? Where, typically a state or the constructs of a state (such as police, government departments, etc.) have acted unlawfully against an individual but the state suppresses all efforts to address this unlawful act?
Is that the suppressor of freedom that you see?
