I have always been a supporter of a fairer voting system. It is seems absurd to me that the United Kingdom has had general elections where the losing party has achieved more votes than the winner, or where whole regions return over 90 per cent of members of parliament for one party, despite that party getting less than half the total votes cast. In the modern era, British politics often looks fairly ridiculous trying to squeeze a multiparty democracy into an electoral system designed for just two parties. But why should progressives, and particularly Labour progressives, favour such a change?

It is a harder argument than it should be. Our electoral system operates as a sort of two-party cartel, but that means there are obvious advantages if you are one of those two parties. For many colleagues the only question they are interested in is how Labour can recreate the kind of power it had after 1945 or 1997. However, below I present three arguments as to why Labour should embrace this cause:

First, electoral reform is a one nation project. First past the post forces political parties to act rationally, putting scarce resources into constituencies they deem marginal. There is frankly no incentive to seek votes outside of these constituencies. This creates a two-tier system of political engagement, with voters living in marginal constituencies experiencing a very different kind of political campaigning to everyone else. It is also arguable that these areas receive a disproportionate share of public spending and infrastructure projects, such is their importance in general elections. This simply cannot be right.

Second, electoral reform might save the union. Labour ignored the West Lothian question for too long, for the obvious reason that the idea of Scottish MPs not being able to participate fully in Westminster makes the prospects for achieving Labour governments much more difficult. As a result the issue has been decided by the Conservative party acting unilaterally. Whatever the future holds – be it Scottish independence or an English parliament – England will need an electoral system which better represents the spread of opinion that there is across the nation. English representation elected solely under first past the post is a recipe for resentment and disaffection, especially in the north.

Third, electoral reform redistributes power from political parties to the public. Some people claim the increased likelihood of coalition or minority government transfers power to politicians – this is nonsense. The very existence of a mechanism that gives a political party a majority when the public are not willing to do so is undemocratic. Allowing political parties to claim – rightly – that a vote to the left of Labour or to the right of the Tories risks letting in what those voters really do not want (such as a Tory MP for a Green voter, or a Labour MP for a United Kingdom Independence party voter) gives a politician power over the electorate. And of course, all the major political parties are themselves coalitions – it is just that their internal manoeuvring is largely kept hidden from the public (or not, in the case of Labour right now).

I see electoral reform as integral to Labour’s historic mission to achieve a fairer, more prosperous society, where not just wealth but power is more evenly distributed. Crucially, I also believe it may now be essential to attract sufficient support to achieve that mission, under whatever system we have. In addition electoral reform is a patriotic, as well as progressive, cause that Labour should embrace.

———————————–

Jonathan Reynolds is member of parliament for Stalybridge and Hyde. He tweets @JReynoldsMP

———————————–

Photo: Mykl Roventine