Vote totals:
Yes:
50%
No:
0%
Neutral:
50%
DEBATE: BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
The winner-takes all system is unfair
In the current system all votes for the losing candidates are ignored. This means that parties with only a slight majority of votes can end up with a vast majority of seats. Smaller parties may never get enough votes in one place to win a seat but may get hundreds of thousands of votes across the country, yet they are still ignored. Even the third largest party in this country, the Lib Dems, suffers. The Lib Dems got 17 per cent of the votes in 1997 but ended up with 7 per cent of the seats. The Green Party got 15 per cent of the votes in the elections for the European parliament but ended up with no seats at all.
Winston Churchill said that democracy is the most unfair political system of all – apart from all the rest. The same is true for the first-past-the-post system. It isn’t perfect, it does have faults, but the alternatives are far worse.
With them, small parties can hold the larger ones to ransom if they make the difference between governing and not. As such the views of a small minority can wield a disproportionate amount of power, to the cost of the majority who oppose them.
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
Parties often win elections with a minority of the vote
No government has been elected with a majority of the vote for over forty years. Therefore, the majority of people in this country are governed by a party they did not vote for and, presumably, with whom they do not agree. The views of opponents are ignored until the next election.
Unless a government gets overwhelming public support their majority will be such that it will only take a few defectors to defeat motions in the house. Even Tony Blair suffered a defeat and that with a huge majority of MPs. The alternative is for all kinds of backroom dealing to take place where group A agrees to vote for group B on bill C provide B votes for A on bill D. This is an anathema to democracy but an inevitability of PR
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
Encourages more voting
One of the reasons people feel disenfranchised from politics is because they think their vote doesn’t count. They don’t agree with Labour or the Tories or the Lib Dems on every issue so feel the best option is to vote for none. A system of PR changes this completely because each vote counts. Smaller parties emerge and provided they have appeal can capture an element of power. This breathes new life into democracy and will encourage all forms of political action.
There is no evidence that more people vote in countries with PR than in countries with first-past-the-post. In fact, the image of shady, self-interested, small party politicians, with no mandate for change, feathering their own nest is more likely to put people off politics than encourage their participation.
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
PR allows extremist parties to get seats in parliaments
It is true that, under proportional representation, extremist parties are more likely to gain seats in parliament. However, parliament is supposed to be representative of all of its citizens. All citizens of the UK are entitled to a voice. This is part of being a democracy. You cannot pick and choose who may be represented and who may not.
A proportional electoral system is more likely to return seats for smaller parties. Amongst these smaller parties, it is likely that we will find parties on either extreme of the left-right spectrum (the BNP being the most obvious example). It is not beneficial to the country to have extremist groups like this in parliament.
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
PR creates weak, stagnant, governments
Compromises are an essential part of government, and it is right that be so. Compromises ensure no single party or personality can dominate the agenda, they ensure that the majority of different views are taken into consideration. And if that means governing is harder and takes longer, so be it. The decisions made are with us for years, if not decades, to come. It is right they be subject to the most rigorous review.
Any political system which depends upon the support of various different parties in order to get anything done will be bogged down with an inordinate amount of in-fighting and horse-trading. Witness the situation in Italy where they seem to hold elections every other year and nothing gets done in-between. Which is not surprising when you consider the amount of negotiating that must be done in order not just to ensure that bill A passes, but that it does so without ensuring bill B will fail.
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
PR is more complex for voters to understand
People already abstain from voting, and in huge numbers. It would be a shame if some old people can’t work out the system but we shouldn’t abandon something because it is too difficult. Besides, younger people should have far fewer problems understanding what’s required and they are both the people least likely to vote right now and the people we most need to get voting.
PR can be very hard for people to get their head around, older people especially. It can be very difficult to explain the complexities of the voting and the importance of first, second and even third place. Experience shows that when people feel they don’t understand something they will abstain – and if people abstain from voting this could be disastrous for democracy.
BRITAIN SHOULD INTRODUCE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
The first-past-the-post system is transparent
PR does not need to be opaque. It surely cannot be beyond our ability to create a system of representation which takes all views into account but which is not something only political scientists can understand.
And if it is complex then that may be the price we need to pay to moving from a system which is fundamentally unfair to one which is more representative.
Any opaque system of representation, such as PR, makes it harder for people to hold their politicians to account. After all, how do you know who not to vote for if you’re not sure what the effect was of your last votes. First-past-the-post is simple and easy and anyone can follow it. We know if Labour win and Labour mess up we’ll vote someone else next time.
