Proportional Representation: A Better Alternative: We The People
The last article in the “We The People” column was a response and comment about PR by the Thunderdragon, following the ministerial rejection of Proportional Representation for General Elections. The article argued against PR for General Elections.
This is a response (also published at Make My Vote Count) from Lewis Baston a research officer with the Electoral Reform Society, looking at the recently published report of the Government’s Review of Voting Systems for UK General Elections, and arguing in favour of PR. The ERS itself published an “alternative review.”
Government Review of Voting Systems published (quietly)
It may not have been the first thing on many people’s mind last Thursday - the resignation of Peter Hain did rather grab the headlines - but in the longer term an announcement smuggled out by the Ministry of Justice might turn out to be the most significant political development of the day. At long last the government’s Review of Voting Systems was published.
The Review was a long time in gestation. It was promised in the 2001 and 2005 Labour manifestos as a watered-down version of the discarded 1997 pledge that there would be a referendum on the electoral system. It was also shamefully ’spun’ on the day as if it had rejected the case for electoral reform, which a look at the contents reveals it manifestly did not.
What was actually in the government’s review?
The Review is significant because it is an official rejection of many of the arguments made in favour of keeping the current ‘First Past the Post’ system. In its own words:
- “We do not find a difference between PR systems and FPTP in terms of delivering stable and effective government … in the experience of the UK, coalition governments can be just as stable as single-party governments.”
- “One of the main benefits of PR, and in particular STV, is that voters have a greater degree of choice in elections and a greater chance of their vote counting in terms of who gets elected.”
- “We do not find, on balance, any evidence to suggest that voters find one voting system easier or more confusing than another voting system.”
- “In conclusion, FPTP has the simplest direct relationship between representative and constituent. STV also allows for a direct relationship, but there are a number of potentially competitive representatives and greater choice for the electorate.”
It also, cautiously, endorses some arguments made in favour of electoral reform, pointing to a significant (5 per cent or so) boost to turnout in countries with PR systems, and better representation of women and minorities.
Why FPTP is broken beyond repair
Way back in 1997, the government set four criteria to assess electoral systems:
- broad proportionality
- stable government
- voter choice
- a link between the representative and a constituency
We might also add the ability to give fair representation to women and the diverse strands of society.
FPTP fails on most of these counts.
- It produces increasingly unrepresentative results, notably a government elected with a comfortable parliamentary majority on 35 per cent of the vote, and the strong possibility of a party winning more votes and fewer seats than its main rival.
- While it can produce stable majorities, it does not necessarily do this - it often does not in Canada and may not do it in Britain in future. Governments with a weak base of popular support are more likely to generate popular protests while in office and see their policies reversed by their successors.
- FPTP also offers no real voter choice - the national result being decided by a small and unrepresentative group of swing voters in marginal seats, and local results often foregone conclusions for the biggest party’s single nominee. When the parties are talking to the same small group, it is not surprising that many people think they are all the same and not relevant to their own concerns.
- While there is a direct link between MP and constituency, how much to electors (as opposed to politicians) value it? Only about a third of MPs have the support of more than half their local voters, and none at all the majority of their electorate.
FPTP’s record at representing society is shocking, and would be worse without Labour’s internal policies of ‘twinning’ and all women shortlists.
Politics needs real diversity and choice
As well as all the nuts and bolts arguments, there is a broader sense in which FPTP is a system whose time has come and gone. Most countries abandoned it long ago. Britain is a diverse and complicated society now, and FPTP systematically creates a parliament that does not give everyone an equal voice in the national conversation.
In the interests of and equal and plural society, we need to change the way parliament is elected. A larger and larger proportion of electors are opting out of the forced choice between Conservative and Labour government. In 1951 80 per cent of the whole electorate voted for one of the two big parties. Politics was seen then as a two party competition for government. In 2005 the two party share was down to only 41 per cent of electors. So there has been a collapse in the popular foundations for British government under FPTP.
Parliamentary representation is a public service; it is there in the interests of the customer, i.e. the voter. Most public services, we are told, are improved by choice and competition, but somehow parliament seems immune. An MP, sitting comfortably for a single member seat, is a monopoly provider of a public service. One of the most intriguing developments in the debate in recent years has been the development of a new Conservative case for reform. Right-wing Conservatives such as Douglas Carswell like the idea of multi-member constituencies precisely because competition raises standards, and MPs would be obliged to take more note of what their constituents want.
Reshaping politics
PR does tend to mean coalition politics, although it is perfectly possible for stable blocs to appear and parties to alternate in government - as in Sweden and Norway. Single parties can win too - if they have enough support from the public. But coalitions are not necessarily weak or unstable. In Scotland, the Lib-Lab coalition put through innovative public policies on issues such as the smoking ban, long term care, tuition fees and local government.
Policymaking may be a little slower, but it is better thought out and tends to last. Coalitions often involve both partners, particularly the larger one, getting most of their manifestos through. It may startle people to realise, but manifestos of different parties have a lot of common ground about ends, and often about means as well.
PR, of course, cannot by itself transform the current jaded and dull state of political discourse, or reconnect the disengaged public to politics. The parties themselves, the media - and dare one say it the electorate - also need to change. Fairer voting is, however, a necessary step.
FPTP narrows the terms of debate. It takes options off the table because they frighten the swing voters - clamping down on car use, privatising public services, joining the Euro (or pulling out of the EU), legalising drugs, and other possible policies are simply not discussed. FPTP makes for a tedious adversarial mode of politics.
It is easy to forget that David Cameron started by promising a new style of politics, and less of the ‘yah-boo’. Perhaps Cameron himself has forgotten - as he is now yah-ing and boo-ing with the best of them at Question Time. It is the sort of behaviour that the system encourages, and which turns people off politics.
The debate continues
The most disappointing thing about the Review is the government’s reaction. There was a Written Statement and the government is resisting calls for a parliamentary debate. The government acknowledges that there is a continuing public debate, but will do nothing to accommodate it. There will be a referendum if and when the government decides that there is a case for reform (something that a reading of the Review should prove beyond doubt).
This is not good enough. The Review was a ‘deskbound’ piece of research and the process should now move out of Whitehall and involve the public in a process culminating in the long-delayed referendum. The arguments for change are strong, and electoral reformers are confident that the debate is winnable. We start with over 60 per cent of people agreeing with the broad principle of making seats in parliament more proportional to the votes cast by the electorate.
It would be better and more dignified for the government to take action from a position of strength rather than be forced into it after an election - or still worse glower impotently from the opposition benches while they rediscover the sharp end of Britain’s winner-takes-all politics.
Lewis Baston is a writer on politics and elections and since 2003 has been research officer of the Electoral Reform Society. Before joining the ERS he was at Kingston University as a research fellow (1998-2003) and helped Anthony Seldon write his life of John Major (1994-97).
Tags: lewis baston, proportional representation, pr, general election, ftpt, first past the post, electoral reform society, ers[tags]lewis baston, proportional representation, pr, general election, ftpt, first past the post, electoral reform society, ers[/tags]
Article Series - Proportional-Representation-for-the-UK
- Proportional Representation: A Better Alternative: We The People
I don’t even know where to begin with all this! I could write a book on it (cue jokes about it not being a very good book - granted, but a book all the same). Maybe I’ll do a post on in it in the near future. Suffice to say, PR would be a disaster and solve few of the problems it claims to solve and will create a fair few of its own.
First Fiona Hill MEP on patio heaters, now this. I am fuming! Must. Calm. Down.
> the idea of multi-member constituencies precisely because competition raises standards,
That’s an interesting point I hadn’t thought of in those terms.
Matt
>First Fiona Hill MEP on patio heaters, now this. I am fuming! Must. Calm. Down.
I’m wondering whether the smaller wineglasses are in order to prevent people taking longer to drink them, which would prevent them getting cold in the adsence of patio heaters…
But you post doesn’t even attempt to address one of my main points, Lewis - that PR is undemocratic in a parliamentary system like ours, as it gives the political elite complete power over who forms the government.
TD, could you enlarge on “in a Parliamentary System like ours” - which aspects do you mean, or do you mean a two party system plus LibDems as Kingmaker. I thought that the idea was to change it so that PR would work.
Lewis, I don’t think I am convinced by the example of the stability of the coalition in Scotland - I’m really not sure whether we would become a Germany (stable) or an Italy (unstable), and I’m not sure that I can think of a way of making a prediction with sufficient reliability to take the risk.
Which other country would our politics most resemble under PR, do you think?
Also, could you enlarge (perhaps point me to a reference) on
how you would see things work out between different Parliaments in the UK countries (separate article perhaps to give Garbo another heart attack? :-).
I think I can see a couple of upsides: one might be a greater power for the Lords which, unless it becomes a tar-pit like the Commons, would potentially much improve the quality of our governance; another might be the opportunity to find an MP who agrees with you (but the record of Euro-constituencies doesn’t bode too well for that - and I confess I can’t name all of my Euro-MPs, though one of them may be
Mr Tangerine Man).
BTW Congrats on making the Times front page (even if they did get the details slightly wrong - they do that all the time. cf the Archbishop).
Matt
Matt, I mean the functional aspect: the executive coming from and getting their authority from the legislature. Under PR, it is impossible to have a majority of seats, unless it is weighted so highly as to make any claim to be “proportional representation” a joke. As such, the voters would not choose the government, but only the legislature. Who formed the government would be decided entirely by the political elite. Hardly democratic. And also massively unstable.
Right now we may have only three main parties in the Commons, but PR would open the floodgates to hundreds of tiny splinter groups. Who could then hold the balance of power, and demand adherences to their manifesto way above that which their vote share could otherwise possibly equal. This isn’t democratic either.
The only way to have PR in the Commons would be to remove the executive from it entirely, and make it a Presidential system.
PR should, however, be present in the Lords. Second chambers are perfect for PR.
Thank you all for the interest, and the comments.
garbo - it’s clearly correct to note that you didn’t know where to begin, because you didn’t! At least as far as making a substantive argument was concerned.
TD - I disagree, but it’s a respectable argument. Government formation in Belgium, for instance, isn’t pretty. However, it doesn’t work like that in most countries with PR. There are clear choices of government in a lot of them, and electorates clearly chose who was in power after recent elections in a parliamentary context in Norway, Sweden and Ireland. Where there is no real winner, a very close result between the main parties, it is more difficult - but the same is true in FPTP. In the last four elections with a popular vote lead of less than 2 per cent in Britain, the outcome was an unworkably small majority for the ‘right’ party (1964), a workable majority for the ‘wrong’ party. (1951) and two hung parliaments, both of which had the ‘wrong’ party with the most seats (Feb 1974, 1929). I don’t see FPTP as a workable method of the electorate taking control of the executive. PR plus parliamentarism is normal in a world context.
Interesting question, Matt, about what other country we would most resemble under PR. I rather suspect we would be a less consensual version of Germany (I couldn’t see a Grand Coalition emerging here) with two leading but declining parties and several small-to-medium sized parties. Another possibility is New Zealand, which hovers between two parties (2005) and multi party (2002) results. Another, I guess, is Spain with a fairly strong two party core of the system and smaller parties (many regional) with some support. Which leads me to your question about relations between UK governments, which I would like to think about a bit more before writing up - perhaps another piece as you say.
TD - single party government is possible under some PR systems like STV with small seats (certainly a runner for the UK House of Commons in future) - you just need to have a strong degree of public backing. It’s also possible under some less proportional variants, like the Jenkins AV+ system which would have produced Labour majorities in 1997 and 2001 but not 2005, which has a certain intuitive appeal. In practice, a UK House of Commons system will probably be at the candidate-centred, majoritarian end of the PR spectrum, like small-STV or AV+. I simply don’t agree we would get hundreds of tiny splinter groups - the evidence is that PR increases the number of effective parties in the system from 3-4 to 4-5. Systems like small-number STV, German MMP or AV+ are no more (and often less) prone to electing minor parties than FPTP. The kind of minor party that tends to arise in FPTP has a strong parochial interest, which may be worse for policy-making than minor parties with an ideology having a voice in parliament. And to close on a note of agreement, proportionality - probably a higher degree of proportionality than for government-creating chambers - is a good principle for a second chamber.
A quick note to say thank you all for contributing.
Matt
TD says: “As such, the voters would not choose the government, but only the legislature. Who formed the government would be decided entirely by the political elite. Hardly democratic. And also massively unstable.”
this happens under FPTP too. The notion that each party rolls out a long-term executive for voters to select is frankly ridiculous. A pretty good example would be the fact that British voters have never selected Gordon Brown as PM, but of course the list is endless. You cling to this argument as the centrepiece of your attack on PR, yet it simply has no weight.
It is frustrating that the majority of the attacks levelled against PR in Britain tend to be criticisms that could equally be applied to FPTP. We have been conditioned to associate FPTP with very strong government due to the peculiarities of the Thatcher/Blair era. A Brown vs. Cameron election is likely to highlight the massive flaws in FPTP that blighted the pre-Thatcher years.
No, the reason that Gordon Brown can be PM without being voted for is NOT a symptom of FPTP but the wider British political system.
Under FPTP, everyone knows that the government will be formed by the largest party, and vote for their MP accordingly.
Under PR, the only people with any choice over who forms the government is the political elite.
And if you can’t see that, you’re an idiot.
Your argument seems to run something like this:
Under FPTP everyones knows that the government will be formed by the largest party. FPTP allows parties to give the electorate a clear idea of what the executive will look like. This is democratic. PR, on the other hand, leaves the “political elite” to decide things.
There are several problems here. The first one is that the “everyone knows, bla bla bla” statement can be said about anything really. The fact that everyone knows how the system works is hardly something unique to FPTP.
Second, the executive formed under FPTP is only known in the period immediately surrounding the election. History shows that ministers quickly get shuffled around (by the “political elite” of course), until by the end of the parliament, the executive will look very different from the one that FPTP apparently allowed us to give such a clear mandate to.
Third, this “political elite” you keep talking about that exists under PR will have received votes from a far greater proportion of the electorate than is ever likely to happen under FPTP. They are an ELECTED elite, which is the very nature of representative democracy. I simply cannot understand how a PR-elected elite is somehow more sinister and undemocratic than one elected under FPTP.
Strong arguments in favour of FPTP do exist, but yours isn’t one of them. No doubt this is why you have resorted to implying that I am an idiot.