Win-Win: The Political Case for Labour to embrace Proportional Representation
“I hold nobody more responsible for the Tories getting into power again than the Lib Dems; I’ll never forgive them” an ex-colleague told me after the 2017 election. We were drowning our sorrows at another lost election. Since then, I’ve heard the same sentiment echoed by plenty of Labour members and supporters. God knows I’ve felt a degree of this myself.
There are a couple of problems right at the core of it though:
- It’s pure entitlement to believe that Labour alone is the party to oust the Tories.
- The belief that Lib Dem voters should switch to Labour (under the guise of pragmatism) whilst not willing to do the same (because the Libs are viewed as morally defective sell-outs) undermines a productive alliance.
It doesn’t work. If it did, tactical voting would be successful.
The Tories are riding high in the polls despite 120k Covid deaths, back-handed contracts to produce PPE and rife incompetance. Alongside self-destructive Labour infighting and Scotland ever-looking like it’ll break away from the union, us Labour members and supporters have to eat some serious humble pie if we truly care more about keeping the Tories out of government more than winning power alone.
Our current system isn’t fit for purpose
Theresa May lost her gamble in 2017 and made a deal with a party infested with creationists and homophobes. And yet she won over 42% of votes; more than Cameron’s 2015 majority-winning victory of 37%.
If you’re dismayed at this, remember: last time a single party won more than 50% of the votes and 50% of the seats in a UK general was in 1880.
Not to get too technical, but that’s bonkers, isn’t it?
Before the ‘well actually’ brigade take to their keyboards I’ll say it clearly: yes, I know how First Past The Post (FPTP) functions. I wouldn’t say FPTP works though.
Our current electoral system was conceived in a different age. For most of our country’s ‘democratic’ history, those allowed to vote usually only had two choices; the Tories and Whigs or Tories and Liberals. With only two choices, FPTP is suitable because the MP elected receives the majority of votes.
That’s a world apart from where we are now. It isn’t unusual to see half a dozen parties on a ballot in a UK general election seat. Isn’t it time our system caught up with this reality?
Most of the UK’s newer elected bodies caught up and use some form of Proportional Representation (PR) For example: The Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly and, the mayoralty of some major cities like Liverpool and London. Not to mention the leadership races for party leaders in most UK political parties, including Labour and the Tories.
This article is not about the various benefits of PR, such as a government to require consent from the majority of the population; it is purely about the political benefits to Labour to finally embrace some form of PR.
What am I proposing?
In 1992 Kiwis went to the polls to answer two questions. The first was whether or not to retain their FPTP system. The second was which system they would want to replace FPTP with if it had to be changed.
The Kiwis chose a Mixed Member Proportional System; the same system which is currently in place in Scotland and Wales. This was pitched directly against FPTP at another vote in 1993.
That process is all I’m proposing Labour put forward.
This isn’t a re-hash of the willfully poor AV referendum. This would have been an imperfect improvement on our current system, but an improvement nonetheless. Before landing a lack of change at the feet of the Tories or Libs, remember that Labour held a comfortable majority for over a decade and could have implemented PR in some form but chose not to.
The real question: is keeping the Tories out more important to you than ‘winning’ elections?
I don’t mean for this to sound petty or like a game. Keeping the Tories out means preventing conservative policies from being implemented on a populace, the majority of which doesn’t support them.
A fully proportional voting system (not the system mentioned above) would have kept Johnson out of Downing Street despite Labour’s worst election in living memory. It would have also kept Thatcher out of power. There has not been a potential right-wing coalition capable of locking Labour out in the same way. Even at UKIP’s high-water mark in 2015 and when Cameron won a majority (on 37% of the popular vote) they didn’t win a combined 50% of the public vote.
The huge assumption here is not whether Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid and SNP would be willing to work with Labour; it’s that Labour would be willing to form a government with them. Something to note: this even works with only English seats (with the exception of the 2015 general election).
The double-edged sword is that landslide Labour victories of Atlee in ’45, Wilson in ’66 and Blair in ’97 wouldn’t have happened. They would, however, have easily been able to form large working majorities. This seems to me to be the only downside, politically speaking, for Labour to not back electoral reform; a ‘pure’ (whatever on Earth that means) Labour government is unlikely.
If you hate Starmer you aren’t just saddled with the Tories
Most political parties are broad churches, but none to the same degree as Labour or the Tories. For the disheartened Labour voter who can’t bring themselves to vote for the party under Starmer’s leadership, they’re currently stuck in a difficult bind: do they hold their nose and vote Labour or do they vote for another party to send a message?
Under a more proportional system, this voter could ‘punish’ Labour without doing what my ex-colleague accused Lib Dem voters of doing: helping to roll the carpet out for the Tories. In addition, depending on the electoral system, this voter could have an electable alternative such as UK equivalents to Podemos, Die Linke or the Vänsterpartiet.
Two of the myriad of potential outcomes of a proportional system being:
- The support for the two major parties to be negatively impacted
- An increase in the likelihood of coalition governments
The disillusioned Labour voter could back one of those more left-wing parties and there is a real chance they can represent their views in parliament or even in government.
But couldn’t the Tories do the same and lock Labour out?
Like they did with the DUP? The maths doesn’t work to the UK right’s favour under PR systems. Meaning fewer ‘wasted’ votes would see an increase in votes and seats for Reform UK (or the next reincarnation of Farage’s brand of politics), and we know that these voters are more likely switch from the right than from the left.
This would decrease the votes for the Tories, thereby decreasing their seats. The party is then stuck in a position where they have to decide who to try and form a coalition with. They couldn’t simply play the ‘Labour is in the SNP’s pocket’ line when they themselves would have to form a coalition (not that any newspapers played on the fact that Theresa May’s Tories were in the DUP’s pocket).
Instead, the party would face internal conflict with those on the never-ending mission to rebrand the Tories to try and appeal to younger voters. By forming a coalition (or entertaining it in public) with Reform UK, they’re likely to undermine this by making themselves unpalatable to the very young professionals they need to win the support of. My assertion is that under a system where coalitions are the norm, the Tories would be more likely to saddle up to the centre than to the right; as we generally see (though not always) in other PR countries. This, whilst not desireable, is the better outcome; putting the brakes on the Tories.
We have to be honest with ourselves on the Left
The solution isn’t perfect, and the system of PR might not be ‘perfect’ in the sense of % of votes = % of seats. I would rather vastly increase the likelihood of a Labour-led government than risk decades of Tory rule only to have a Labour-only government every 20 years.
These are some difficult pills to swallow for everybody if we’re to get close to a working majority without the Tories:
- Keir Starmer is not the second coming of Jesus.
- Jeremy Corbyn was not the second coming of Jesus, despite the lovely beard.
- If a somebody was not a fan of Jeremy Corbyn they are not automatically a Tory or morally defective.
- You cannot win over a majority of the electorate whilst calling them names.
- The electable left in the UK is more fractured than the electable right.
- The Lib Dems are not just Tories with a different colour rosette despite how morally superior thinking so might make you feel.
- It is the Labour Party, not the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid or Greens, who are currently unwilling to commit to a coalition to keep the Tories out.
- Labour is currently not willing to make a clear stance on supporting electoral reform and hasn’t supported votes on PR in parliament.
There’s something to patronise and offend everybody there, myself included.
One more thing…
We know the rules of the game. We know they aren’t representative. We know the left suffers more than the right.
The choice is simple: we either embrace a future where coalitions dominated by the left are the norm (but this will involve compromise) or we maintain the status quo.
That’s before we’ve even got started on the impact of PR when combined with allowing votes for 16 years olds as well.
That, however, is a story for a different day.
