How has it only been two full weeks of the election campaign? Is it just me that feels like it’s been going on for months? Mind you, they do say a week is a long time in politics. And what a week it’s been. Somehow, the arguments about the Conservatives’ lies about Labour’s £2000 tax hike feel like a million years ago following the disastrous PR blunder of the Prime Minister’s premature exit from the 80th-anniversary commemorations of the D-Day landings.
In what has been, let’s face it, an absolutely disastrous election campaign for the Conservatives so far, all the polls continue to show that we’re on course for a change in government. But that’s not all I think the polls show. Both Labour’s and the Liberal Democrats’ mantra for this election is ‘change’. And boy, how much the country is crying out for change. A change that, despite the Conservatives’ protests, can only come about from Keir Starmer being handed the keys to Downing Street.
Change.
It’s a funny concept when it comes to politics, isn’t it? One of the questions in last night’s seven-way leaders’ debate on the BBC was all about politicians making promises they never keep once in office. It’s one of the tropes that plagues British politics – in fact, all politics probably. The common belief is that nothing ever really changes apart from the man or woman at the top. But this time feels different. I genuinely think this election could be the last fought under our current electoral system.
Let me explain why.
The Conservatives’ position after the election
Opinion polls are just that: opinion polls. And to regurgitate politicians’ favourite line: ‘the only poll that matters is the one on election day’. Of course, that’s true, but it’s nothing more than a way of either not seeming complacent or reassuring your campaigners that it’s still all to play for. However, every single opinion poll since the election campaign began shows that not only are we headed for a Labour majority government, but the scale of that majority will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the United Kingdom.
Majorities of more than 300 seats have become common projections based on the many MRP polls conducted by almost all of the major polling companies. And in a growing number of polls, the Conservatives are supplanted as the second-largest party by the Liberal Democrats, paving the way for the centrist party to form His Majesty’s Official Opposition.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Since the 1920s, after the defeat of the Liberal Party’s David Lloyd George, the two main parties have been Labour and the Conservatives. Should Sir Ed Davey become Leader of the Opposition, it would mark a seismic shift in the political fabric of these isles (I love that phrase, thank you Stephen Flynn for bringing it into ‘common’ parlance).
The most successful political party in history, owing its success in no small part to our first-past-the-post electoral system, would be relegated to the position of ‘minor party’. We’ve seen throughout the 20th and 21st centuries how FPTP makes it almost impossible for smaller parties to enjoy success when it comes to the number of seats they win, regardless of whether they enjoy success in terms of vote share. How possible would it be for the Conservatives, as the third party, to regain their position as the Opposition and later party of government under FPTP?
The second reason why I think that this election could spell the end of FPTP is the sheer scale of Labour’s potential majority.
The scale of Labour’s potential majority
Our democracy only works when we have strong government and strong opposition. If we take the latest poll from Redfield and Wilton, Labour’s majority would be 364, with opposition parties only taking 143 seats. Whichever way you look at it, that’s not democratic.
A House of Commons with this sort of make up would give Labour a blank cheque to do pretty much whatever they wanted, with no real credible prospect of opposition parties being able to make amendments to legislation, or hold the government to account. Not to mention, with a majority of that size, Keir Starmer wouldn’t even need to worry about keeping all his MPs on-side. He could realistically face several rebellions and still get his programme for government through with a sizeable majority of support from his own benches.
The problem with first-past-the-post
I’ve probably written more blogs on the topic of electoral reform more than any other during the 14 years I’ve been offering my thoughts online to the three of you of that read. But that’s because it’s one of the issues I care so deeply about. Most people switch off when you mention electoral reform, first-past-the-post, proportional representation, or single transferrable vote. The truth is, however, that it’s not just a topic for those political anoraks like me that have nothing better to do with their lives that listen to LBC all day, every day, and refresh their Twitter feeds every three seconds the minute a political story breaks on the news.
The fairness and representativeness of our democracy matter to every single voter in the country. In recent years, the talk of tactical voting and the emergence of campaign groups dedicated to ensuring one party’s defeat (or victory) has become impossible to ignore. Why? Because while people might not necessarily understand why, they know that more often than not, their vote is wasted.
In those seats where it’s currently a toss-up between two parties, voting for any other candidate will have no bearing on the result of the election in that seat, and more broadly across the country. First-past-the-post is a winner-takes-all system. There’s no room for nuance. Take the 2015 General Election results as an example. The Scottish National Party won 56 seats with only 4% of the vote, whereas UKIP won 12% of the vote and only one seat. Because the number of votes cast for parties is spread geographically, the proportion of votes can’t translate to a proportional number of seats in a system that is based entirely on the results in a single constituency.
This means that huge swathes of the country are left completely unrepresented. How does that do anything for the feeling of political engagement or representation? It’s no wonder the far-right has been on the rise in the UK over the last ten years.
The journey to proportional representation post-2024
Let’s take our poll from earlier as the actual outcome of the election. Labour have a supermajority, the Liberal Democrats are the official opposition, the Conservatives are in third place, despite winning more votes than the Liberal Democrats, and Reform UK are the sixth-largest party despite coming third nationally in terms of vote share.
Democratically, it’s a mess. Here’s how I think proportional representation could come about after the 2024 election:
- The Conservatives in third place will have to consider that the only chance they have to regain their position as a party of government is to embrace proportional representation
- If, as some predict, Nigel Farage becomes leader of the Conservative Party in some right-wing coup, it’s inevitable that they will adopt PR – Farage has always supported electoral reform
- As the Official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats, who have always supported proportional representation, will be in the strongest position (in terms of House of Commons arithmetic and media coverage) to make the case for electoral reform in the face of an overwhelming and undemocratically large government majority
- All of the smaller parties in the House of Commons, including Reform UK, the Green Party, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru, already support proportional representation
- The Labour Party at its conference in 2022 backed proportional representation, despite not being adopted by Keir Starmer as party policy
Perhaps the most interesting point to consider is that, despite winning a supermajority under FPTP, moving to a system of proportional representation might actually benefit the Labour Party in the long run.
The left-wing coalition of parties in the UK consistently outperforms those on the right.
If by some miracle, the Conservatives did manage to regain power under FPTP, it could see Labour out of office for another 14 years, something which no political party wants to consider. If Labour were to back proportional representation, they could cement their position as the largest party in the House of Commons indefinitely.
Sure, they’d have to rely on the support of smaller left-wing parties (proportional representation is designed specifically to encourage coalition governments), but they’d be sure to consistently be in a position to form a government in one way or another. The Conservatives, even if they won a greater number of seats, would have a more limited number of options when it came to forming a government – the Democratic Unionist Party and Reform UK would be the only likely candidates.
If Starmer is serious about change, he needs to adopt electoral reform. And I think, given pressure from those within his party, the pressure from the Lib Dems (potentially) in opposition, and the Conservatives coming to the realisation that proportional representation might be the only chance they have to become a party of government again, I think it’s entirely plausible that it will happen.