Petition to Change Our Electoral System

Dear readers,

As you know from previous posts around the General Election, the issue of electoral reform is something I care very deeply about. This morning I began an online petition to prompt the government to debate the issue in Parliament. I support a system of proportional representation by the Single Transferrable Vote; this has been a key policy of the Liberal Democrats (and formerly the Liberal Party) for over 20 years and something I think the British public need to be made aware of.

The statistics from the last General Election clearly support the case for introducing Proportional Representation:

Scottish National Party                            1.4 million votes               56 seats

Liberal Democrats                                     2.4 million votes               8 seats

The Green Party                                         1.1 million votes               1 seat

UK Independence Party                            3.8 million votes               1 seat

This isn’t a petition against the fact that the SNP won a huge amount of seats, this is a petition to make every vote cast on election day count. The Alternative Vote referendum in 2011 was a joke and the British publish rightly rejected it. This country needs to catch up with the rest of Europe and needs to realise that we no longer have a two-party system. Over 7 million voice have been completely ignored by the first-past-the-post system, which is why I urge you to click the link in the email below and sign my petition. I need at least five signatures to get the petition live on the government’s website, so please sign and share with anyone who would support this cause. John Cleese explains how unfair the FPTP system is and points out how a Single Transferrable Vote system would work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSUKMa1cYHk.

We have seen in the media this week the power of an online petition: the Commons took note of the petition to aid the thousands of refugees fleeing the Middle East and has called an emergency meeting to debate the crisis.

This cause may not be a humanitarian or moral one, but our governments of recent years have grown complacent and we need this to change.

Please follow this link to add your name to the petition, and share with your friends, family and associates: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/107887/sponsors/iMFpUXSSVTbGNHPLxC9z