El Cid Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 PR was used for the EU elections, because it was the best voting system to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wing Commander Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 20 hours ago, FIRETHORN1 said: I don't consider myself to be particularly thick and unintelligent, but I must admit that I really don't understand how Proportional Representation works. when it comes to deciding election results. Can anyone explain it to me, in the simplest terms possible? For example, I don't understand how Reform can poll 4 million votes in this current election, yet end up with only 4 seats in Parliament - yet the Lib/Dems, who polled a lower total of 3.2 million votes, have won 71 seats. This just doesn't seem fair to me. Surely, the more votes you get, the more you should win a seat in Parliament? I think that the first-past-post system must surely be fairer. Or am I just being naive? The Lid Dems targeted winnable seats very efficiently with their local campaigning which is why they gained so many more seats with a lower share of the vote than Reform UK. Reform UK haven't the same resources as the Lib Dems with them being a very new party so they couldn't match them. The Green party concentrated on very few winnable seats which has resulted in them now having 4 MPs. The smaller political parties are just going to work more smarter with their campaigning in future elections because the Labour party will not change the voting system when they have been the biggest ever beneficiaries of the current voting system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie Bynnol Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 14 minutes ago, El Cid said: PR was used for the EU elections, because it was the best voting system to use. Which version of PR was that? Was it the same as other EU countries? It certainly benefited the extremists, but how accountable were they- were they seen to represent all their constituents? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m williamson Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 15 minutes ago, Annie Bynnol said: Has anybody mentioned which type of PR they want? Has anybody mentioned that the people of the UK have voted against PR already? Some types of PR advantage small local parties, sometimes ethnic minorities. Some return extremists who wield disproportional power in the inevitable coalitions. Most allow urban areas to dominate. Many lead to the creation of fewer but enormous constituencies with multiple representatives. Do we really want more MPs? Many return members to a Parliament who have no constituency and are no responsible to the public. + Who decides what PR we get? Who decides changes to a PR system when it is in place? The people of the UK have not voted against PR they voted against AV which is not a true PR system. The voting system judged to be the fairest representing the wishes of the people the closest is PR+STV. https://citizen-network.org/library/global-ranking-of-electoral-systems.html Some object to PR+STV because it rarely ever provides one party with an overwhelming majority. To me that's one of it's major advantages. We've seen what happens when a party gets an unassailable majority. We now have a different party with a massive majority. Hopefully they won't lose the run of themselves as the Tory's did. If the ruling party has a check kept on it and has to persuade rather than dictate that is an advantage in the running of the country. It means that when a different party is elected they don't need to go wild trying to change everything because they were at least in part agreement with the policies in place. Germany has had PR since WW2 and has prospered. The Republic of Ireland has had PR+STV since 1922 and has prospered. https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/which-european-countries-use-proportional-representation/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altus Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 46 minutes ago, Wing Commander said: The Lid Dems targeted winnable seats very efficiently with their local campaigning which is why they gained so many more seats with a lower share of the vote than Reform UK. Reform UK haven't the same resources as the Lib Dems with them being a very new party so they couldn't match them. The Green party concentrated on very few winnable seats which has resulted in them now having 4 MPs. The smaller political parties are just going to work more smarter with their campaigning in future elections because the Labour party will not change the voting system when they have been the biggest ever beneficiaries of the current voting system. The Tories have been the biggest beneficiaries of our current electoral system (although Labour do to a lesser extent). The progressive parties have almost always beaten the (small c) conservative ones when it comes to votes. Until this last election, the progressive vote has largely been split across different parties whereas the conservative vote has been concentrated on the Tory Party. Labour might be persuaded to introduce PR. The Tories will never do so. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*_ash_* Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 20 minutes ago, altus said: The Tories have been the biggest beneficiaries of our current electoral system (although Labour do to a lesser extent). The progressive parties have almost always beaten the (small c) conservative ones when it comes to votes. Until this last election, the progressive vote has largely been split across different parties whereas the conservative vote has been concentrated on the Tory Party. Labour might be persuaded to introduce PR. The Tories will never do so. Absolutely no chance. Why would they? They will be in power now for at least 2 terms. Why risk it? Even if not for this, the best they could hope for in PR is coalitions, as if PR came into force, far more smaller parties would emerge. It would risk what the tories did with the Libdem coalition and that didn't really work well for either party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altus Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 1 hour ago, *_ash_* said: Absolutely no chance. Why would they? They will be in power now for at least 2 terms. Why risk it? Even if not for this, the best they could hope for in PR is coalitions, as if PR came into force, far more smaller parties would emerge. It would risk what the tories did with the Libdem coalition and that didn't really work well for either party. There's a lot of support for PR in the Labour Party. You have to remember that most people in this country vote for progressive parties. Most Labour members realise permanent coalitions of progressive parties is better than minority (of votes) Tory governments getting in most of the time under FPTP because the progressive vote is split. Hard left Labour members are usually against PR because it will mean their dreams of building a socialist utopia will never happen - but that's never going to happen anyway. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wing Commander Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 2 hours ago, altus said: The Tories have been the biggest beneficiaries of our current electoral system (although Labour do to a lesser extent). The progressive parties have almost always beaten the (small c) conservative ones when it comes to votes. Until this last election, the progressive vote has largely been split across different parties whereas the conservative vote has been concentrated on the Tory Party. Labour might be persuaded to introduce PR. The Tories will never do so. No chance Labour will support PR. The only way it will happen is if the smaller parties have changing PR in election manifesto and a hung parliament occurs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Cid Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 4 hours ago, Annie Bynnol said: Which version of PR was that? Was it the same as other EU countries? It certainly benefited the extremists, but how accountable were they- were they seen to represent all their constituents? The United Kingdom, historically up until its exit from the Union, was split into constituencies representing Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and each of the regions of England. Northern Ireland used the single transferable vote while the other constituencies used party lists. Before 1999, England, Scotland and Wales used first-past-the-post. Historically, only First Past the Post (FPTP) was used for all elections in Scotland, but this changed in 1999 both with the introduction of D'Hondt elections to the EU Parliament and the inception the same year of the devolved Scottish Parliament. Two of the devolved legislatures in the United Kingdom - the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd - use the Additional Members System (AMS).[2] AMS has been used for every Scottish Parliament election since 1999, with the most recent being in 2021. Local council elections in Scotland were reformed to be held under Single Transferable Vote (STV), which has proven to be proportional, unlike FPTP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wing Commander Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 A Flourish election chart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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