Newcastle – Could proportional representation be a catalyst for greater political engagement?
With turnout at elections dwindling, and a growing divide between the public and our leaders, the Newcastle group met to discuss whether the time has come for a new electoral system in the UK.
In the aftermath of the general election, when Labour won 63% of the seats with 33% of the vote on a turnout of under 60%, we tackled the question of whether proportional representation (PR) could improve our democracy. We started the evening with a straw poll that found 29% in favour of PR, 7% against and 64% undecided.
PiPs member Paula Watson provided an informative and thought-provoking introduction to this complex topic. She began by reminding us that people have given up life, liberty and family to fight for universal suffrage. We should therefore treasure democracy, but the recent election turnout in some Newcastle and Gateshead constituencies was as low as 25%. How did it come to this?
An experienced political campaigner, Paula has often encountered objections that ‘there’s no point voting, they’re all the same, Labour/Conservative always win here’ and acknowledged that there is some truth in this. Voters in marginal seats have a more powerful voice because politicians focus on pleasing them while ignoring voters in safe seats – this is not democracy.
The first past the post (FPTP) system favours the established parties, making it hard for newcomers to break through. Reform got over 14% of the vote in the recent election but gained only 5 seats – that’s 821,322 votes per seat, compared to Labour’s 23,615 votes per seat. In contrast, the success of the Farmer-Citizen Movement in the 2023 Dutch election shows how quickly a new party can gain influence under PR.
The 2024 UK general election will never be held up as a great example of democracy, said Paula. The Liberal Democrats gained 12% of the vote and won 72 seats, while the Green Party gained 7% of the vote and won only 4 seats. Depending on your political views, these results might please you, but Paula stressed that if you truly believe in democracy, like free speech, you must uphold its values whether it’s in your favour or not.
Advocates of FPTP claim that it delivers a stable government and clear results, in contrast to the post-election power-sharing deals we see in European countries. Paula argued that anyone who thinks the UK has had a strong and stable government over the last decade hasn’t been paying attention! Our large parties are really coalitions of multiple factions who negotiate their competing interests behind closed doors. Wouldn’t it be more democratic to have multiple smaller parties, each with a clear public mandate, and to see the negotiations and pacts carried out in plain sight?
Some fear that PR would fuel extremism. Paula explained that real extremism is rare and has never found enough support to flourish under a PR system. A system which leaves people feeling they have no voice or representation is far more likely to fuel extremism.
Paula also addressed the myth that the UK has already rejected PR. A majority of 68% voted against switching from FPTP to Alternative Votes in 2011, but Alternative Votes is not a system of PR and would do nothing to improve the chances of smaller parties.
So how could electoral reform be introduced? Paula believes that a referendum would be necessary – you can’t argue for better democracy whilst bypassing democracy. She stated that the best way forward might be to begin with local government, where PR could be trialled with relative simplicity and would help smaller parties to gain recognition for supporting their local community. When people see the improved power of their vote in local elections, it could lead to a stronger call for change at a national level.
The introduction provoked a lively and wide-ranging discussion. We all agreed that the current political situation was not ideal and that we would like to see far greater engagement and wider representation in politics, but various views emerged on what the problems with the existing system were and how they should be tackled.
The pros and cons of several voting systems were discussed with reference to how they are performing in different European countries. Italy’s political fragmentation and instability may be exacerbated by PR (although there are other contributing factors) but this is just one possible system. The mixed model used in Germany is considered fairer than the Westminster system and is already used to elect the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.
One bone of contention was the suggestion that voting should be compulsory, as it is in Australia. Some favoured this as a solution to low turnout, but others felt that would be a serious infringement of liberties and would tackle the symptoms rather than the causes. Electoral data show that countries that use PR do have higher average turnout than those that don’t.
We agreed that electoral reform alone would not solve our political problems; there needs to be better teaching about politics in schools, less bias in mainstream media coverage of politics, and the civil service needs to be prevented from obstructing policies they disagree with. Some felt that one election every five years was not enough and that a Swiss-style system of more frequent elections and referenda could improve democracy, although this has been shown to contribute to voter fatigue and reduced turnout. We all agreed that postal voting should be severely restricted!
At the end of the evening we took another straw poll and found that the proportion of attendees in favour of PR had increased from 29% to 57%. There were still a few undecided and against, but all agreed that the discussion had given them food for thought and that, one way or another, we must find a way to treasure our democracy once again.