Who should the reform be for?
It may not be who you think.
Ever since I’ve followed politics, the arguments about changing the voting system, or not, have been based around self-interest.
Which Party will benefit from these changes? The smaller Parties who are disadvantaged by First past the Post. So that’s why they argue for it.
The big two parties like to point hat out, carefully avoiding that the status quo is to their advantage
Since this year’s election, the MPs for Reform have been arguing for, err, Reform. Lee Anderson (Ashfield) wrote this article for his local paper - and I didn’t know when I started this Substack that my first link would be to something he had written
I just don’t remember him making a noise about this when he was Conservative MP. (And, by the way Lee, your complaint about how many Lib Dems were elected this time is wide of the mark. Their result was still behind what they’d have got in a proportional system. Not by much this time, but certainly not ahead)
The problem is the arguments for and against stagnate when its just about self interest for the Parties. Both sides have an point when they question the motivations of the other.
Is it fair that a party with 14% of the vote to get less than 1% of the seats? Well, no, but there are stronger arguments for change.
I believe the case for reform is stronger when we consider;
Fairness for voters
The campaigns we get
The Governments that result
Current elections under FPTP leaves about half the country with little say who the government will be. Granted, which constituencies are safe can shift from election to election, and in the two most recent elections, seats that were previously considered safe did fall - the legendary red then blue walls. The electorate is getting more volatile. but even so, I live in a seat where a Labour win was not in doubt. I had no say in the election result, and that would also have been true if I were a Labour voter.
Political campaigning needs to be cost effective for each party. They need to reach the voters who can influence the result in their favour. That means a voter in a marginal seat will be able to wallpaper their house with delivered literature by the end of a campaign. A voter in a safe seat will be ignored.
Being ignored is one of the greatest causes of political despondency and frustration - This, I would argue, was a greater contributing factor to the Brexit Referendum result than dissatisfaction with the EU.
So elections focus on voters in marginal seats. And who is to say they are ‘typical’ voters. Or if their needs are more important than the country as a whole.
That leads into the type of government we get. It’s true that a more proportional system would lead to more coalition governments. For some people that would be a downside. I regard it as a benefit. It’s a subject that deserves a post of it’s own.
Many more discussion pieces to come
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