General British politics discussion thread

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121957358#Comment_121957358

They should go more "anti woke"

Its clearly working 🤣

VinLieger

The other good thing is if these results occur it might finally fully display the disgusting undemocratic nature of first past the post. That poll shows Labour on 45% of the vote with a seat majority of 72%...

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960381#Comment_121960381

The worst element of FPTP is that many constituencies are safe seats that mean that a sizeable % of the voters ae effectively disenfranchised. Plus a candidate might win the seat with just 30% of the vote.

Single seat STV would change British politics forever.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960407#Comment_121960407

Belfast South has been won on 24.5% (in 2015) due to how splintered the vote there; low 30s are common enough.

FPTP also allowed the Unionist mass resignation and re-election stunt in 1986. Three of them got back in with less combined votes than the combo of whoever else was running against them from SDLP+SF+WP.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960407#Comment_121960407

I lived in the UK in 2010 and, to my surprise, realised that I could vote in their general election as a local resident and Irish passport holder. I was living in a safe Lib Dem constituency. Such a boring experience. There was a long list of names on the ballot paper, that I would have loved to lash into with my preferences, but all I was allowed to do was to put a single measly "X" in one of the boxes.

There wasn't even any excitement about the count or result as it was already a foregone conclusion.

I can see why it leads to voter apathy in so many "safe seat" constituencies.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960730#Comment_121960730

I lived there during the AV referendum and, while it wasn't ideal, heartily voted for it. Alas it failed miserably on the back of the "you're too stupid to understand this simple system" campaign.

One of the more interesting things I read during it correctly pointed out that "First past the post" would in fact be a better description of single seat STV as there is an obvious post of 50%+1, something lacking in the actual FPTP system.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121964865#Comment_121964865

It was also partly turned into an anti-Clegg campaign since the Tuition Fees stuff was still raw. History may have been very different if Labour hadn't been so spiteful.

blackwhite

The current system favours both Labour and Conservatives, so whilst Labour took no official position they were quite happy to follow any actions that damaged its chances.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965121#Comment_121965121

It actually favours Tories more than Labour. Labour tend to be concentrated in industrial areas while the Tories are more spread.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965121#Comment_121965121

Of course. However Robin Cook summed up what it meant in reality: "a system which once every generation, every 30 years, gives us an opportunity to get in with a majority the way the Conservatives do".

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965285#Comment_121965285

The current system in the UK forces what would otherwise be distinct parties to coalesce under a single-party umbrella. Both the Tories and Labour are the primary beneficiaries of that.

If they moved for a form of PR then Labour would splinter into 3-4 distinct parties and none of their leadership (regardless of the party wing they hail from) wants that dilution of power. (Same applies to the Tories also).

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965624#Comment_121965624

I'd say the Tories would have their splits too, the euroskeptics that birthed Ukip were the John Redwood faction of the Tories.

I'd imagine the likes of Beaverman would have her own far right group too.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965692#Comment_121965692

I doubt there will be that much fragmentation. If the UK does go for PR it is likely going to be AMS and it will be setup to have a relatively high threshold.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965294#Comment_121965294

It's quite remarkable that since 1979 there have only been two changes of the main party of government!

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965624#Comment_121965624

Obviously polling isn't gospel, but looking at some polling tonight it seems Reform will get 12% of the vote but probably won't win a seat. You don't have to like their politics to look at that and realise the system is not fit for purpose.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121971366#Comment_121971366

One could possibly suggest that Reform not getting a seat is a positive outcome from FPTP

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121971366#Comment_121971366

The status quo suits the two biggest parties - so it’s going to take another coalition scenario before there’s a chance of it being considered again

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121971366#Comment_121971366

UKIP got one MP and 12.6% of the vote in 2015.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121971405#Comment_121971405

Moreso the Conservatives. Their vote is more spread out across rural constituencies whereas Labour's vote is concentrated in cities and towns. I think it's only the UK, France, and Belarus that still use this system in Europe.

“The UK stands almost alone in Europe in using a ‘one-person-takes-all’ disproportionate voting system. If we exclude the authoritarian state of Belarus – “Europe’s only remaining outpost of tyranny” – France is the only other European country to use a ‘one-person-takes-all’ system (the Two-Round System).”
Michela Palese, Electoral Reform Society, December 2018

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121971671#Comment_121971671

France uses a rerun for votes that do not yield a winner with 50%+1. So the top two candidates get to run off, meaning one gets over 50%+1 of the votes. So it is a modified FPTP.

In the UK, this does not happen. If there are five candidates, and say the candidate with the most votes gets 32%, then they get elected. Now the party with the largest vote has not achieved 50% of the popular vote since 1932. Most form a Gov based on 42% or so of the popular vote. Sometimes, 42% is enough for a landslide. Thatcher got 42% in most of her wins. According to polls, Labour are heading for 400 seats with less than 50% of the vote.

STV would give rise to coalitions that would be more democratic. STV is simple for the voter - 'Put the candidates in the order of your choosing, starting at one for your first choice.' It is only complicated for those gaming the system, like political parties.

CelticRambler

Although there's no discussion here (in France) about whether or not to reform the current system, the two-round system always a token gesture towards representative democracy, in the expectation that the second round would pit a mainstream Left candidate against a mainstream Right. Up until the end of the 90s, the first round was your opportunity to cast a protest vote, safe in the knowledge that only the two serious candidates would go through to the "real" election.

And then Jean-Marie LePen threatened the status quo by being just a little bit too attractive to a few too many protest voters. Ironically, it was Emmanuel Macron's slightly-right-of-centre that ended up breaking the system, effectively wiping out both the mainstream Left and mainstream Right in one go.

I doubt that GB is ready to put a brand new party into power at the expense of the Tories and Labour, but I think we're not too many electoral cycles away from some fundamental change. If the Tories can be relegated to third or fouth place by a combination of fair play Lib Dem victories and parasitic Reform UK protest votes, that could well open the way to a discussion on electoral reform in the near-ish future - say three elections from now, if/when the Lib Dems demonstrate that they're not—too-bad-actually-sort-of-alright as an opposition party, and maybe deserve a chance at being in government.

hotmail.com

Will changing the voting system in Britain change anything in Britain.

Probably not.

They look at our system and just see messy coalitions that take ages to form.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121971671#Comment_121971671

I would not be surprised if PR for national elections (as it currently is for MEPs) is going to become a condition for EU membership. Sources tell me the UK won't be allowed to rejoin while it uses FPTP.

breezy1985

The French system is no comparison. In France it is a nationwide vote and every vote is equal.

In the UK a city voters vote counts for less because they are normally in a larger constituency and if you are in the minority in a solid red/blue constituency your vote counts for nothing.

I lived in a 93k constituency so my vote was work half of a Wrexham voters and my candidates 40k surplus was more than the entire voting figure of some constituencies who end up with the same 1 MP as me.

ArmaniJeanss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972168#Comment_121972168

French legislative election system (i.e., elections to parliament, a general election) is a different concept to what you describe, which is the nationwide system for electing the president.

Their parliamentary elections are quite similar to the UK FPTP - single seat constituencies with the possibility of safe seats. (Obviously the run-off between top 2 or 3 is important).

The disparity in size of constituencies (and hence the differing importance of a single vote) is really just as bad as the situation in the UK. Click to sort by no of voters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_constituencies_of_the_National_Assembly_of_France#Metropolitan_France:_539_constituencies

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972137#Comment_121972137

They look at our system and just see messy coalitions that take ages to form but that deliver conspicuously better government that the UK enjoys. But you're right; they'll probably manage to ignore the last bit.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972381#Comment_121972381

Ah sorry it's the Presidential one I thought we were talking about.

Am I right looking at the list that it's the rural constituencies that are bigger in France ?

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972475#Comment_121972475

Did you miss the economic collapse 15 years ago.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972631#Comment_121972631

Are you suggesting that PR-STV caused this? What proof do you have?

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972659#Comment_121972659

No.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972630#Comment_121972630

No. The most overpopulated constituencies tend to be urban or suburban (though there are exceptions, of course).

The constitutional principle in France is that the Departments should be represented in proportion to their population (subject to each Department having at least two members). But most Departments contain more than one constituency, and the tradition was to allow population variation between constituencies with a Department. That might be done, for example, to create socially or economically coherent consituencies (e.g. so that one suburb of a town doesn't find itself cut off from the town and located in a predominantly rural constituency). This was considered permissible so long as it all came out in the wash, so to speak, and the disproportions offset one another so that at Department level, representation was more or less proportional to population.

That, coupled with the fact that they don't redraw constituencies very often, so population shifts can produce disproportions that weren't there initially, led over time to a very wide divergence between individual constituencies. When the constituencies were last redrawn, in 2010, that was the first time since 1986. One of the objectives of the 2010 redrawing was to create greater proportionality between constituencies, and not merely between Departments, but it was still accepted that some disproportion would be permitted.

One other point — when considerin proportionality they look at the total population of a constituency, not the number of voters in it (which is the figure given in the Wikipedia table). In areas of relative economic and population growth there tend to be more non-voting inhabitants (children, immigrants) than in areas of relative decline, and this can also distort the picture. Economically growing districts can appear to be under-represented relative to the number of voters they contain when they are proporationately represented relative to their population.