Changing Britain’s electoral system would benefit Labour and radicalise politics, says Peter Tatchell
Labour defenders of Britain’s corrupt voting system claim that electoral reform is irrelevant to ordinary people’s lives. It’s a middle-class preoccupation, they say. What matters are policies on jobs, housing, education and health. Even those who concede that the first-past-the-post voting system is unfair often argue that electoral reform is not a priority, given the recession and rising unemployment.
How wrong they are. Bad policies flow directly from the way the FPTP voting system allows parties with minority support to form majority governments and then impose unpopular right-wing policies, such as Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax and Labour’s planned cuts in housing benefit.
Most of the British public are left-of-centre on most issues. But majority progressive opinions are often not represented in Parliament by a majority of MPs. Every British government since 1950 has taken power based on less than 50 per cent of the popular vote. None has won majority public support. Voters for progressive small parties, such as the Greens, have no representation at all in the House of Commons.
At the 2005 general election, Labour won 35 per cent of the vote, but bagged 55 per cent of the seats. Of eligible voters, only 22 per cent voted Labour. Yet Labour won a 66-seat majority. This is not democracy. It echoes the gerrymandering and ballot-rigging of two centuries ago, which galvanised the Chartists to campaign for a democratic, representative parliament.
The electoral process is effectively rigged. In 2005, it took an average 26,906 votes to elect a Labour MP, 44,373 to elect a Tory MP and 96,539 votes to elect a Liberal Democrat MP. Not since the rotten boroughs of the 18th century have elections been so corrupt.
This democratic deficit is a direct result of FPTP, which allows the election of MPs and governments with minority support. FPTP enabled Thatcher and Tony Blair to win landslide majorities based on popular votes of only 35 per cent to 44 per cent.
If Britain had a fairer, proportional voting system, we would have never had the right-wing Tory governments of Thatcher and John Major. As a result, we would never had “new” Labour and the ditching of socialism under Blair and Gordon Brown. Recent political history would have been different – and better.
With proportional representation, neither Thatcher and Major nor Blair and Brown would have not been able to form stand-alone governments. Supported by only a minority of voters, they would have had to form coalitions, which would have curbed policy excesses, such as the Iraq war.
If there had been PR in the 1980s, either Thatcher would have had to go into coalition with the Lib Dems and other minor parties, which would have scuppered many of her reactionary policies, or Labour might have been able to form a coalition with the Lib Dems and others, which would have meant no Conservative government in the 1980s – sparing Britain the social destruction of Thatcherism.
Some defenders of FPTP complain that, if we switch to PR, Labour might never again win a majority of seats and form a government in its own right. But if Labour can’t persuade a majority of voters, it doesn’t deserve to form a government. And that goes for the Tories, too. Democracy is supposed to be about the will of the majority. It cannot be reconciled with a voting system that persistently allows parties with minority support to form governments with huge majorities.
If the past three general elections had been conducted under PR, Labour would not have won an overall majority of seats. But there would have been Green MPs and more Lib Dem MPs. On many issues, these two parties are to the left of the present Labour Government. They would have had a radicalising influence. Blair and Brown would have been forced to depend on Lib Dem and Green support; probably resulting in no post office closures, Trident renewal, national identity cards, expanded nuclear power, privatisation of public services and no British troops in Iraq.
With PR, the Tories might never rule alone again – thereby preventing a repeat of Thatcherite extremism. We would see the election of MPs representing the Greens and radical left parties, as happened under Scotland’s PR system. This would shift the political centre leftwards.
Labour would be radicalised, because it would have to rule in coalition with radical left, Green and Lib Dem MPs – who, despite their flaws, are more left-leaning than Gordon Brown on many issues. Labour could end up more or less permanently in power as part of a radicalising coalition. This is infinitely preferable to having the Tories in government.
A democracy requires a parliament that reflects the people’s will: where the proportion of seats won corresponds to the proportion of votes cast. This means finishing the parliamentary reform process begun by the Chartists. We need a new Chartist movement to secure PR and a representative parliament.
The Scottish Parliament election system is a practical example of a fairer electoral process. Electors vote for both a constituency MP and for a party list. This combines the accountability of single member constituencies with additional “top-up” MPs based on the total list vote received by each party – thereby ensuring proportionality between the number of votes cast for a party and the number of seats it wins.
This system works in Scotland, so why can’t we have it at Westminster?
The “Vote for a Change” campaign is calling for a referendum on voting reform to be held on the same day as the next general election. Polls show that a majority of people want a fairer electoral system. It would benefit Labour and the left. Gordon Brown should let the people decide.
For more information about the fair votes campaign, visit: www.voteforachange.co.uk and www.petertatchell.net
