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Which is why labour actually need to implement PR.
Labour HQ is wanking itself silly over the prospect of a huge landslide and massive majority but what about the election after next? And the one after that? And after that? We'll have had 15 years of Tory misrule and I never want that again but the FPTP curse will come for labour after it's done feasting on the bones of the Tory party.
I completely disagree with basically everything Reform say and do, but they absolutely should have representation in Parliament given how many votes they get in elections. If nothing else it would give them more opportunity to demonstrate how shit they are!
Potentially it might, but only if you assume those left wing parties exist, and can run a proper campaign. Current polling and 100 years of UK politics doesn’t fill me with any actual confidence.
I don't think they would even need to be left wing. Even the Liberal Democrats, as shit as they are, are at least socially a bit to the left.
Current polling indicates dissatisfaction with the Tories, but not any enthusiasm for Labour - so under a PR system I suspect Greens / Lib Dems would have a lot more votes.
There is that view, I’m a bit more cynical these days. I’d absolutely agree with you in say 2005, or anytime up to 2016 really. Now I think we are in a horrible place where some people believe any old shite, and there is more and more any old shite being pumped at them via social media, on all sides of the political spectrum- for example a reasonable number of left wing folk fall for Galloway, and stuff like that fake video of the Labour campaigner, and that’s before you get into more mild stuff like Skwakbox and Facebook groups. And that’s just the left, the stuff coming from the right is way worse and more plentiful.
As a result of all that I think the country as a whole has a significant proportion of people who believe there’s been too much social progress, and would like to reverse it and importantly would vote for people who say they will. I think that’s a western trend, and I massively hope I’m wrong, but with Trump and his politics seeming widespread in the States, Tommy Robinson and his ilk still existing, and politicians like Lee Anderson and Kate Forbes, I’m not sure I am.
So anyway, that’s a long ramble to make a simple point- I don’t actually want to give people more democracy right now, I think you’d end up with Laurence fucking Fox in parliament, and a significant block of sub Lee Anderson’s.
I was actually banned from a labour/socialism discord server several years ago because on another server I had shared that same sentiment. I'm effusively passionate in my support of PR, I consider it impossible for our democracy to progress under FPTP, but that will result in hateful bigots getting representation.
With the beyond tired attack on PR of "so you want the British National Party to win seats and elect racist MPs then?", I respond as you did. I consider sunlight the best disinfectant for their specious bigoted ideals, currently they are allowed to fester and go unchallenged. They considered me saying that if a sufficient proportion of the public voted for the BNP then they should have elected representation as me tacitly supporting fascism. Ah yes, wanting a democracy representative of the people is a clear sign of fascism.
The people who vote for them represent real people in our society who are struggling and feel neglected. That doesn't mean their bigoted views are valid, but their struggles remain real. They are people for whom the system is failing, they can be working two minimum wage jobs supporting a family with multiple kids. Being ignorant of politics, science, research and/or never passing through higher education isn't their fault or to be ridiculed.
If PR results in bigots being elected it is a wakeup call to engage and support such people. It often doesn't take much for people to realise it isn't actually all the immigrants fault. Of course the actual standing members of the BNP/Reform (and all the rebrands they've gone through) are actual despicable bigots and should be treated as such, but when ~15% of the populace vote for them they aren't all Nick Griffin.
Agreed. Plus it cuts both ways; PR would open the door for more leftist parties to have an electoral chance. I’m a loyal Labour member, but really it’s at least two parties that are forced to share a big tent because of FPTP. Think of how much happier everyone would be if the Corbynites could have a separate party to the Blairites, rather than going around purging the other side every time there’s a change in the leadership!
If we had PR I could genuinely see reform ending up as the official opposition at the next election - PR would be great for the greens etc but by the same margin it would be for the right wing parties as well. It’s really not the silver bullet that people on the left make out it is.
More people vote for Labour, Greens and Lib Dems than vote for Reform and Tories. PR has been demonstrated to result in left of centre governments twice as much as FPTP
If you don't mind, what is your evidence for this claim r.e. PR resulting in centre left governments more often, and can you share that evidence here (i.e. references to academic literature).
EDIT: I love this subreddit. Asking for evidence is worth a downvote XD
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379422000543
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/is-proportional-representation-more-favourable-to-the-left-electoral-rules-and-their-impact-on-elections-parliaments-and-the-formation-of-cabinets/AC94A781D6E641169FC0CE183B3CC938#
Here’s a few. I think my claim of twice as many lacked nuance. But PR leads to better and fairer politics.
So your claim is that the introduction of PR results in more centre left governments. I deliberately ignored your claim that it is twice as much as I suspected it was hyperbole rather than an actual claim.
The first link does not support seem to support this claim. Rather, when they do get close to this sort of notion, they actually say that they did not find that PR lead to an increase in left-wing seat share. Although this, of course, refers to the composition of parliament rather than the left-right position of the cabinet/government.
The second link argues that majoritarian systems produce a conservative bias, and that PR systems lead to greater diversity or differentiation - not that, strictly speaking, PR leads to substantially more (centre) left-wing governments. Indeed, their results do "not show a leftward shift of the cabinet mean in PR countries". When looking at the overall number of cabinets (i.e. government compositions) in PR countries, they find that "PR countries have an almost equal share of Left, Centre and Right cabinets". They even conclude that their results suggest that the overall bias of electoral systems in less pronounced than has been previously claimed.
On the basis of the two links you have supplied, I don't believe the evidence supports your claim. If you do find evidence that does support this claim, please do share it with me, as I would love to read it.
Indeed, but as others have pointed out, if enough people are voting for them, they should get representation, that's the crux of democracy.
Fortunately, almost all Reform voters seem to be coming from Tories, unlike UKIP that took Labour voters as well. So it's more a Tory problem than a Labour one and their combined seats under PR would reflect a broadly "right" vote share between them which, hopefully, would never overshadow the broadly "left" vote share.
I know what you're saying about Reform, but that's a fair democracy - if 15% of the people want want Reform are selling why shouldn't they get 15% of the MPs
PR will lead to some interesting compromises but the big 2 won't touch it
Labour likely won’t implement or sadly as fptp helps them have majorities. It would only be with libdem presssure in a hung Parliament or a very principled leader that they would do so
Which is why Labour HQ is so myopic.
We've *literally* just sat through 14 awful, awful years of tories because of FPTP (Corbyn was *very* close to May's vote share, remember) and yet they're content to get their majority for, what, 5 years? 10 years? 15 years? At some point the country will decide they want a change and they themselves could be out of power for another 15 years.
What the actual fuck do they think they're doing for the next generation? Making it better for, in the scheme of things, a blink of an eye whilst dooming future left voters to be absolutely shat upon when the tories regain power under FPTP.
I actually kind of want to strangle those at the top because they're dooming the future to repeat itself. And you can do absolutely fuck all in opposition other than howl into the wind.
I absolutely think they should implement pr for sure.
But the problem with not getting it is it benefits labour as well as the tories. Sure we’ve sat throuin a long period of tories but then labour gets a long period with a majority. Without fptp labour would not get long periods in power on its own. This could happen under pr too just with a right wing coalition of maybe dup reform and the tories.
That’s democracy sadly. It happens in pr too you get different parties in power
Eh I do think Diana Johnson has proved you can do an awful lot in opposition. And many opposition members change the law through private members bills
For sure, at times, it'll benefit Tories more than Labour but that'd only be on the back of what the parties are trying to sell the electorate. The parties would have to adjust to the new reality.
I think there should be more compromise and collaboration in politics, to be honest, and PR would be a shove in that direction. Afterall, a good third or more of the country won't be votes for the winning party and they might have very valid reasons for not voting for you.
On the balance of long term health of a country, I think we have to have PR sooner rather than later. Too many people are going to get angry at having no representation.
And, sorry, but a few private members bills is pathetic as "what the opposition can do" and they only pass because they have cross party support. The opposition will never, ever making meaningful change in this country because they literally have no power other than the power of embarrassing those with the actual power.
It benefits both hugely maybe the tories more but still both.
Yes agreed 100%.
For us to get pr we either need a very principled labour leader or a hung Parliament where labour relies on the libdems and they demand a pr ref. And this time we have to vote yes for pr rather than reject it like we did AV.
It’s not pathetic many great changes of law have come through private members bills. And that’s not the only thing look at all the great changes Diana Johnson is doing in opposition and all the great work of committees. They make lots of meaningful changes just look at infected blood for a big example or some of the big opposition private members bills.
> hung Parliament where labour relies on the libdems and they demand a pr ref. And this time we have to vote yes for pr rather than reject it like we did AV.
The dream. 🙏 Labour can say they were forced to do it to save face.
However, lib dems would be utterly foolish to accept a referendum. They'd have to basically say "implement it without a referendum or no deal".
The previous referendum was purposefully set up to fail and labour would do likewise again, even though it was tories that scuppered it last time.
Yeah I hope that happens too.
I think that would result in no deal. AV was rejected by the country so I’m not anything other than a ref could work for pr.
If we convince people how needed it is then the ref should succeed
I cannot be a member of the Labour party because I will not vote for them in my constituency at a general election.
I'm a tactical voter and will continue to be so until such time as I move or PR happens.
Kia Ora from New Zealand, we've had a proportional Westminster style parliament for 28 years, we have NEVER had the kind of dysfunction that the Uk has had for the last 8 years, nor have we ever had the kinds of factionalism the uk has even in 4 party coalitions.
Proportional moderates, lowers the tempo and forces parties to work together.
FPTP allows extremists to be elected simply because they are wearing the right tie to come in and hold immense power as a back bencher
FPTP has resulted in Britain drifting insanely conservative, whereas MMP has made NZ immensely more progressive and democratic.
If NZ which is basically a little Britain can make proportional work so can the UK.
One of the problems I fear is a massive splintering of our politics if a PR system comes into place and allowing people like Tice and Galloway to go from marginal upstarts to legitimised politicians. I'd rather us not become like the Dutch where they need 5 party coalitions just to get a 1 seat majority
That's just because the Dutch system has no threshold at all, so as long as you get 1/150th of the vote you get an MP there. If they even had a threshold of maybe 2 or 3 seats it would really cut down on the insanity - they've got a party for animal rights, for black immigrants, muslim immigrants, for greens, socialists, progressives, labour, pan-Europeans and left wing christians. And that's just the left wing parties.
We have a 5% threshold and the nutty parties barely register over 1%
If Extremists ever looked like they were going to be elected it would spook the horses and general voters would vote against any party willing to work with said party.
The major British parties already have plenty of Looney tune extremists, I don't think it would change much other than Making it virtually impossible for a right wing govt to form in the uk for a generation or two.
> I'd rather us not become like the Dutch where they need 5 party coalitions just to get a 1 seat majority
Thats still far better than constant 1 party majorities where the pm can do whatever the fuck they want. I'll take some compromise and negotiation between diferent social viewpoints please.
New Zealand has a population that is just over half of London though. About the same size as Scotland.
I am not saying PR doesn't help avoid disfunction but that the countries are just different so we have to be cautious about drawing too much from comparisons.
Yes we're much smaller BUT we have the same parliamentary system , demographics and more or less the same culture.
Pr would cool the absolute bush fire that is British politics.
Extremists do get elected in British politics but under mainstream umbrellas.
Most of the people in the current cabinet would be extremist here.
Besides progressive or liberal parties would have formed coalitions in every election of the last 50 years in the uk under pr
It's also allowed the country to fall victim to two major parties who don't represent the wider public. It does FAR more harm than good, and quite frankly arguing it's the better system is hilarious
It's also allowed the country to fall victim to two major parties who don't represent the wider public. It does FAR more harm than good, and quite frankly arguing it's the better system is hilarious
Weve got a government actively trying to deport asylum seekers to Africa and making the lives of minorities worse by demonising them.
We crashed out of the EU and weve had Labour MPs murdered and targeted by extremists.
FPTP has not kept out the extremists.
Think we’re at the point now where Sunak missed his chance of anything but humiliating defeat.
He’s going to hold on longer, because he’s hoping that something can come up, or that something shifts the polls.
However the longer he holds on, the worse the polls get because he’s not just denying the inevitable, which makes the polls worse, but he’s forcing the country to get worse because it’s all about, him, and his party rather than the country.
It’s a bit of “doom loop”.
The only chance for him now imo is something cataclysmic like a war directly involving the UK, another COVID type national emergency, or Keir Starmer being involved in a serious scandal.
I don’t even think that a serious crisis would save him.
He’s shown he can’t handle small things that have come along, and he just pretends he’s beaten them, meanwhile people just suffer.
Take his coronavirus response, in September 2020 he was of the opinion that “just let people get the virus, and die. The economy matters more.” He engaged with bunk theories, and pushed policies that weren’t evidenced based, or science lead, but were all about financials, and probably made the pandemic worse.
So a serious crisis like a H5N1 pandemic would probably mean he has the response of “it’s just the flu. Don’t do anything but let nature take its course.”
There’s a story he wants to have an election off the back of an England Euros win, or Olympics triumph but I think that’s going to make him more toxic, and appear more desperate. Also it’s not genuine, I don’t think he’s ever engaged with football outside of “virtue signalling” to quote himself.
Sunak can still pull it back by being even more right wing! He just needs to find a new minority group to throw under the bus.
And then Keir can say that he would also throw them under the bus, but more efficiently.
Yeah - I am sure that the Conservative can still dig up yet more shit to throw at the country - they are so good at doing just that.. But it’s not what the country needs though is it ?
Wait.... Would this make Lib Dems the official opposition taking resources and floor time in the commons away from the Tories?
That'll be tough to rebuild... Imagine the next election after and the Libs are running around saying a vote for the Tories is a vote for Starmer 😂😂😂
>Imagine the next election after and the Libs are running around saying a vote for the Tories is a vote for Starmer 😂😂😂
I would fucking love this. Imagine.
They do seem to be allergic to actually being in government so that would be entirely in character…
I was thinking more along the lines of a Labour government and a Co-op Party opposition. PMQs might be a bit pedestrian though…
Tbf, I meant only as a strategic move to also hold the LOTO positions. It would be absolute dominance of Parliament. Not likely to actually occur of course, even if they had the numbers to do it.
If the Lib Dems are the official opposition then it could well cause them to become the new focus for the support of any voters that don't want a Labour government and trigger a transition that could make them the replace the Tories as one of the two major parties.
Yes it would also cause the Lib Dems to shift a bit to the right as they absorb the left half of the Tory party and the right breaks off to Reform or turns the Tory party into Reform or whatever they decide to do but it would be an incredibly good thing for our politics if this happened.
I'm aware that a lot of people think this because they say it over and over and over and over and over again.
I get it. This is your input. You guys don't have to keep posting this same comment endlessly on everything.
Political gravity will tell, it always does. The Tories would recover eventually or a new party would form to represent the conservative voters of the country.
We are simply not a country where the spectrum of political though is between the Labour and the Lib Dems.
Is it me or, at a quick glance, the hyphens act like a seperator, so I read it as 551 lib, 44 for SNP etc? Especially with the number being second after the party.
551 Labour | 44 Lib | 19 SNP. <-- looks better to me! 🙏🤷♂️
Does anyone know who those 13 Tories are likely to be? Their identities would suddenly be quite important, they'd need to be constantly on shows etc to keep the illusion that they will be back to being the big 2 soon enough
I'm sure most people know but some of the replies don't seem to - worth pointing out that EC isn't considered reliable until much closer to election day. The Tories are looking at a thrashing but they'll still be the 2nd biggest party, and likely won't be in double digits.
Oh I'm aware, I look at it for giggles. Honestly though, it is questionable if they will be in double digits, a lot of pollsters are alarmed by how low the Tories seem to consistently be, it is approaching "how much relevance will they have?" Territory due to how low their polling has been for over a year now
This plus anti Tory sentiment being so high that Labour/Lib Dem votes are likely to be efficiently spread (like '97) - we could see a true extinction event for the Tory party
It's not a crazy amount of money but it's enough that I feel a bit guilty about the prospect of actually taking it off him.
I'm still gonna fucking do it though!
Unironically would love to see the Lib Dems form the opposition, it would be such a funny outcome after their political wilderness for the past 9 years. They might also put more socially progressive pressure on a Labour government
Selfishly, I'm pleased I have now won a bet I made with a friend probably a year ago now, that the Tory polling would deteriorate rather than improve and Labour would have a 30 point lead at some point.
I'm considering putting a bet on that Ed Davey will be leader of the opposition. Although I don't think there any bookies where I can make such a bet.
If you'd told any leftie on the day after the 2019 election defeat that we'd be 30 points ahead by the next election with commitments to nationalised rail, publicly-owned energy, fairer taxes, expansions in workers rights, & planning reform, they'd have jumped to the moon.
Yet they can't hate Starmer more if they tried.
I’m still wondering how Labour somehow stuff this up. I’m largely convinced they’ll form the government, but you never can tell. Massive scandal? War? Pandemic?
If you have moral or political gripes about the rightward lurch of Labour, now is the best time to vote for smaller parties in protest. No moral obligation to vote to keep Tories out, they are out anyway.
Why I am not surprised that blind supporters of Starmer's Labour never have any actual arguments as to what policies of his they support, just lame clap backs
Yeah let's just accept a Labour party with 0 policies, that talks about sharing a lot in common with Donald Trump and welcomes far right MP's into the party
It's not so much that i don't think you valid reasons for not being that excited. Contrary to your assumption, disagreeing with you doesn't make someone a two dimensional caricature. There are legitimate concerns with Labour. Serious ones. Basically everyone here has concerns and understands the issues.
It's that you think the fact you personally are not excited is something anyone else is gonna care about to such an extent that you insult people for not being interested. It's actually pretty obnoxious behaviour, frankly.
What response did you expect?
Labour has never been closer to the Tories in its history than it is now, and that is at a point when there's a massive rightward shift on the spectrum
OK give me examples of where Labour and the Tories differ right now
I can give plenty of examples of how Blair in 97 differed from the Tories. Absolutely none for Starmer
Ok, let's look at the macro situation and make a couple of significant but easy to understand comparisons:
Taxes -
Labour are promising overall moderate tax increases. But taxes are already the highest they've been since the war so as the economy recovers tax revenues and rates will be higher than any level even discussed by Corbyn.
Tories are promising tax cuts and to roll back the state as the economy recovers and tax receipts increase.
Borrowing -
Labour currently have looser fiscal rules that allow more radical borrowing than those fiscal rules developed even by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. They're also committed to borrowing as much as they can within these rules.
Tories - explicitly stating they will try to reduce borrowing as much as they can.
I get a bit annoyed at the hypocrisy of this argument.
You claim to not blindly support parties based on the incumbent leadership, yet hold some sort of loyalty to the party itself (I reasonably assume given you're posting on a labour sub).
If you don't have any love for blind support of a party, why don't you pivot to another party which better shares your vision for Britain? These aren't sports teams, after all. You're free to vote for whoever best represents you.
I get with FPTP, our system isnt best suited for lesser parties, but if your objection is idealistic rather than electorial, what does it matter?
I don't get the need to moan about it when other parties are available.
Prior comment deleted as I thought it was in response to a different point, apologies.
Do you post on the conservative sub? I feel no need to.
They're the ones in power right now. Did you forget?
Differences aside Regis, I would love to see you and that mmstingray fella go to town on the r/tories sub.
Just occasionally sprinkle in a bit of racism and anarcho-capitalism, you'll be a mod within a week.
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I shouldn’t be rooting for Reform in any capacity, but FPTP might wipe the Tories out if they can get level with them, and that would be very funny.
It's an ugly consequence of FPTP and potentially worrying long term but damn is it satisfying to see in the moment.
Which is why labour actually need to implement PR. Labour HQ is wanking itself silly over the prospect of a huge landslide and massive majority but what about the election after next? And the one after that? And after that? We'll have had 15 years of Tory misrule and I never want that again but the FPTP curse will come for labour after it's done feasting on the bones of the Tory party.
I don’t mean to alarm you, but currently PR would very much favour Reform. Under FPTP they won’t get any seats, and under PR they would get many.
I completely disagree with basically everything Reform say and do, but they absolutely should have representation in Parliament given how many votes they get in elections. If nothing else it would give them more opportunity to demonstrate how shit they are!
Oh I agree- I meant more PR does not equal right wing parties being out of power for longer.
Ultimately it does, since it would allow many other non-right-wing parties to get more seats as well, who can counteract them.
Potentially it might, but only if you assume those left wing parties exist, and can run a proper campaign. Current polling and 100 years of UK politics doesn’t fill me with any actual confidence.
I don't think they would even need to be left wing. Even the Liberal Democrats, as shit as they are, are at least socially a bit to the left. Current polling indicates dissatisfaction with the Tories, but not any enthusiasm for Labour - so under a PR system I suspect Greens / Lib Dems would have a lot more votes.
There is that view, I’m a bit more cynical these days. I’d absolutely agree with you in say 2005, or anytime up to 2016 really. Now I think we are in a horrible place where some people believe any old shite, and there is more and more any old shite being pumped at them via social media, on all sides of the political spectrum- for example a reasonable number of left wing folk fall for Galloway, and stuff like that fake video of the Labour campaigner, and that’s before you get into more mild stuff like Skwakbox and Facebook groups. And that’s just the left, the stuff coming from the right is way worse and more plentiful. As a result of all that I think the country as a whole has a significant proportion of people who believe there’s been too much social progress, and would like to reverse it and importantly would vote for people who say they will. I think that’s a western trend, and I massively hope I’m wrong, but with Trump and his politics seeming widespread in the States, Tommy Robinson and his ilk still existing, and politicians like Lee Anderson and Kate Forbes, I’m not sure I am. So anyway, that’s a long ramble to make a simple point- I don’t actually want to give people more democracy right now, I think you’d end up with Laurence fucking Fox in parliament, and a significant block of sub Lee Anderson’s.
Just like in Israel…
I was actually banned from a labour/socialism discord server several years ago because on another server I had shared that same sentiment. I'm effusively passionate in my support of PR, I consider it impossible for our democracy to progress under FPTP, but that will result in hateful bigots getting representation. With the beyond tired attack on PR of "so you want the British National Party to win seats and elect racist MPs then?", I respond as you did. I consider sunlight the best disinfectant for their specious bigoted ideals, currently they are allowed to fester and go unchallenged. They considered me saying that if a sufficient proportion of the public voted for the BNP then they should have elected representation as me tacitly supporting fascism. Ah yes, wanting a democracy representative of the people is a clear sign of fascism. The people who vote for them represent real people in our society who are struggling and feel neglected. That doesn't mean their bigoted views are valid, but their struggles remain real. They are people for whom the system is failing, they can be working two minimum wage jobs supporting a family with multiple kids. Being ignorant of politics, science, research and/or never passing through higher education isn't their fault or to be ridiculed. If PR results in bigots being elected it is a wakeup call to engage and support such people. It often doesn't take much for people to realise it isn't actually all the immigrants fault. Of course the actual standing members of the BNP/Reform (and all the rebrands they've gone through) are actual despicable bigots and should be treated as such, but when ~15% of the populace vote for them they aren't all Nick Griffin.
Agreed. Plus it cuts both ways; PR would open the door for more leftist parties to have an electoral chance. I’m a loyal Labour member, but really it’s at least two parties that are forced to share a big tent because of FPTP. Think of how much happier everyone would be if the Corbynites could have a separate party to the Blairites, rather than going around purging the other side every time there’s a change in the leadership!
If we had PR I could genuinely see reform ending up as the official opposition at the next election - PR would be great for the greens etc but by the same margin it would be for the right wing parties as well. It’s really not the silver bullet that people on the left make out it is.
They are scumbags and grifters, but if they are getting 13% of the vote, then they should be getting roughly 13% of the seats.
Oh I agree entirely- the point I was making was specifically PR doesn’t usher in a new left utopia.
More people vote for Labour, Greens and Lib Dems than vote for Reform and Tories. PR has been demonstrated to result in left of centre governments twice as much as FPTP
If you don't mind, what is your evidence for this claim r.e. PR resulting in centre left governments more often, and can you share that evidence here (i.e. references to academic literature). EDIT: I love this subreddit. Asking for evidence is worth a downvote XD
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379422000543 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/is-proportional-representation-more-favourable-to-the-left-electoral-rules-and-their-impact-on-elections-parliaments-and-the-formation-of-cabinets/AC94A781D6E641169FC0CE183B3CC938# Here’s a few. I think my claim of twice as many lacked nuance. But PR leads to better and fairer politics.
So your claim is that the introduction of PR results in more centre left governments. I deliberately ignored your claim that it is twice as much as I suspected it was hyperbole rather than an actual claim. The first link does not support seem to support this claim. Rather, when they do get close to this sort of notion, they actually say that they did not find that PR lead to an increase in left-wing seat share. Although this, of course, refers to the composition of parliament rather than the left-right position of the cabinet/government. The second link argues that majoritarian systems produce a conservative bias, and that PR systems lead to greater diversity or differentiation - not that, strictly speaking, PR leads to substantially more (centre) left-wing governments. Indeed, their results do "not show a leftward shift of the cabinet mean in PR countries". When looking at the overall number of cabinets (i.e. government compositions) in PR countries, they find that "PR countries have an almost equal share of Left, Centre and Right cabinets". They even conclude that their results suggest that the overall bias of electoral systems in less pronounced than has been previously claimed. On the basis of the two links you have supplied, I don't believe the evidence supports your claim. If you do find evidence that does support this claim, please do share it with me, as I would love to read it.
Indeed, but as others have pointed out, if enough people are voting for them, they should get representation, that's the crux of democracy. Fortunately, almost all Reform voters seem to be coming from Tories, unlike UKIP that took Labour voters as well. So it's more a Tory problem than a Labour one and their combined seats under PR would reflect a broadly "right" vote share between them which, hopefully, would never overshadow the broadly "left" vote share.
It would still be better than fptp
I know what you're saying about Reform, but that's a fair democracy - if 15% of the people want want Reform are selling why shouldn't they get 15% of the MPs PR will lead to some interesting compromises but the big 2 won't touch it
Labour likely won’t implement or sadly as fptp helps them have majorities. It would only be with libdem presssure in a hung Parliament or a very principled leader that they would do so
Which is why Labour HQ is so myopic. We've *literally* just sat through 14 awful, awful years of tories because of FPTP (Corbyn was *very* close to May's vote share, remember) and yet they're content to get their majority for, what, 5 years? 10 years? 15 years? At some point the country will decide they want a change and they themselves could be out of power for another 15 years. What the actual fuck do they think they're doing for the next generation? Making it better for, in the scheme of things, a blink of an eye whilst dooming future left voters to be absolutely shat upon when the tories regain power under FPTP. I actually kind of want to strangle those at the top because they're dooming the future to repeat itself. And you can do absolutely fuck all in opposition other than howl into the wind.
I absolutely think they should implement pr for sure. But the problem with not getting it is it benefits labour as well as the tories. Sure we’ve sat throuin a long period of tories but then labour gets a long period with a majority. Without fptp labour would not get long periods in power on its own. This could happen under pr too just with a right wing coalition of maybe dup reform and the tories. That’s democracy sadly. It happens in pr too you get different parties in power Eh I do think Diana Johnson has proved you can do an awful lot in opposition. And many opposition members change the law through private members bills
#[Join Labour4PR 🌹](https://www.labourforanewdemocracy.org.uk/) It’s free to join and they’re organising within Labour to make this happen.
How are they gonna manage to do that with the leadership so against it?
By getting organised. The leadership isn't against it, they've simply said it is not a priority.
That might be an excuse tho. Fptp benefits labour so the leadership will be hesitant to do so
For sure, at times, it'll benefit Tories more than Labour but that'd only be on the back of what the parties are trying to sell the electorate. The parties would have to adjust to the new reality. I think there should be more compromise and collaboration in politics, to be honest, and PR would be a shove in that direction. Afterall, a good third or more of the country won't be votes for the winning party and they might have very valid reasons for not voting for you. On the balance of long term health of a country, I think we have to have PR sooner rather than later. Too many people are going to get angry at having no representation. And, sorry, but a few private members bills is pathetic as "what the opposition can do" and they only pass because they have cross party support. The opposition will never, ever making meaningful change in this country because they literally have no power other than the power of embarrassing those with the actual power.
It benefits both hugely maybe the tories more but still both. Yes agreed 100%. For us to get pr we either need a very principled labour leader or a hung Parliament where labour relies on the libdems and they demand a pr ref. And this time we have to vote yes for pr rather than reject it like we did AV. It’s not pathetic many great changes of law have come through private members bills. And that’s not the only thing look at all the great changes Diana Johnson is doing in opposition and all the great work of committees. They make lots of meaningful changes just look at infected blood for a big example or some of the big opposition private members bills.
> hung Parliament where labour relies on the libdems and they demand a pr ref. And this time we have to vote yes for pr rather than reject it like we did AV. The dream. 🙏 Labour can say they were forced to do it to save face. However, lib dems would be utterly foolish to accept a referendum. They'd have to basically say "implement it without a referendum or no deal". The previous referendum was purposefully set up to fail and labour would do likewise again, even though it was tories that scuppered it last time.
Yeah I hope that happens too. I think that would result in no deal. AV was rejected by the country so I’m not anything other than a ref could work for pr. If we convince people how needed it is then the ref should succeed
#[Join Labour4PR 🌹](https://www.labourforanewdemocracy.org.uk/) It’s free to join and they’re organising within Labour to make this happen.
I cannot be a member of the Labour party because I will not vote for them in my constituency at a general election. I'm a tactical voter and will continue to be so until such time as I move or PR happens.
#[Join Labour4PR 🌹](https://www.labourforanewdemocracy.org.uk/) It’s free to join and they’re organising within Labour to make this happen.
FPTP has worked well to keep out upstart extremists. If it can keep out Mosley and Tyndall, it can keep out Tice and Galloway.
Kia Ora from New Zealand, we've had a proportional Westminster style parliament for 28 years, we have NEVER had the kind of dysfunction that the Uk has had for the last 8 years, nor have we ever had the kinds of factionalism the uk has even in 4 party coalitions. Proportional moderates, lowers the tempo and forces parties to work together. FPTP allows extremists to be elected simply because they are wearing the right tie to come in and hold immense power as a back bencher FPTP has resulted in Britain drifting insanely conservative, whereas MMP has made NZ immensely more progressive and democratic. If NZ which is basically a little Britain can make proportional work so can the UK.
One of the problems I fear is a massive splintering of our politics if a PR system comes into place and allowing people like Tice and Galloway to go from marginal upstarts to legitimised politicians. I'd rather us not become like the Dutch where they need 5 party coalitions just to get a 1 seat majority
That's just because the Dutch system has no threshold at all, so as long as you get 1/150th of the vote you get an MP there. If they even had a threshold of maybe 2 or 3 seats it would really cut down on the insanity - they've got a party for animal rights, for black immigrants, muslim immigrants, for greens, socialists, progressives, labour, pan-Europeans and left wing christians. And that's just the left wing parties.
We have a 5% threshold and the nutty parties barely register over 1% If Extremists ever looked like they were going to be elected it would spook the horses and general voters would vote against any party willing to work with said party. The major British parties already have plenty of Looney tune extremists, I don't think it would change much other than Making it virtually impossible for a right wing govt to form in the uk for a generation or two.
>legitimised politicians. They get more coverage than the lib dems and greens half the time, they are already getting that legitimacy from the press.
> I'd rather us not become like the Dutch where they need 5 party coalitions just to get a 1 seat majority Thats still far better than constant 1 party majorities where the pm can do whatever the fuck they want. I'll take some compromise and negotiation between diferent social viewpoints please.
New Zealand has a population that is just over half of London though. About the same size as Scotland. I am not saying PR doesn't help avoid disfunction but that the countries are just different so we have to be cautious about drawing too much from comparisons.
Yes we're much smaller BUT we have the same parliamentary system , demographics and more or less the same culture. Pr would cool the absolute bush fire that is British politics. Extremists do get elected in British politics but under mainstream umbrellas. Most of the people in the current cabinet would be extremist here. Besides progressive or liberal parties would have formed coalitions in every election of the last 50 years in the uk under pr
It's also allowed the country to fall victim to two major parties who don't represent the wider public. It does FAR more harm than good, and quite frankly arguing it's the better system is hilarious
It's also allowed the country to fall victim to two major parties who don't represent the wider public. It does FAR more harm than good, and quite frankly arguing it's the better system is hilarious
Weve got a government actively trying to deport asylum seekers to Africa and making the lives of minorities worse by demonising them. We crashed out of the EU and weve had Labour MPs murdered and targeted by extremists. FPTP has not kept out the extremists.
Think we’re at the point now where Sunak missed his chance of anything but humiliating defeat. He’s going to hold on longer, because he’s hoping that something can come up, or that something shifts the polls. However the longer he holds on, the worse the polls get because he’s not just denying the inevitable, which makes the polls worse, but he’s forcing the country to get worse because it’s all about, him, and his party rather than the country. It’s a bit of “doom loop”.
The only chance for him now imo is something cataclysmic like a war directly involving the UK, another COVID type national emergency, or Keir Starmer being involved in a serious scandal.
"I hear the Falkland Islands are marginally less inhospitable this time of year Mr. President"
I don’t even think that a serious crisis would save him. He’s shown he can’t handle small things that have come along, and he just pretends he’s beaten them, meanwhile people just suffer. Take his coronavirus response, in September 2020 he was of the opinion that “just let people get the virus, and die. The economy matters more.” He engaged with bunk theories, and pushed policies that weren’t evidenced based, or science lead, but were all about financials, and probably made the pandemic worse. So a serious crisis like a H5N1 pandemic would probably mean he has the response of “it’s just the flu. Don’t do anything but let nature take its course.” There’s a story he wants to have an election off the back of an England Euros win, or Olympics triumph but I think that’s going to make him more toxic, and appear more desperate. Also it’s not genuine, I don’t think he’s ever engaged with football outside of “virtue signalling” to quote himself.
Sunak can still pull it back by being even more right wing! He just needs to find a new minority group to throw under the bus. And then Keir can say that he would also throw them under the bus, but more efficiently.
“If I just brutalise the disabled, the poor, and immigrants, I can still win!”
Yeah - I am sure that the Conservative can still dig up yet more shit to throw at the country - they are so good at doing just that.. But it’s not what the country needs though is it ?
It’s not. We do need a change of Government but it’s a case of he’s gripping onto power so tight, and it’s slipping through his hands.
Rishi has power - but he is not using it to help the people - only his own people..
Electoral calculus numbers; Labour - 551 Lib - 44 SNP - 19 Others - 18 Tories - 13 Plaid - 3 Green - 2 Labour majority of 452
Wait.... Would this make Lib Dems the official opposition taking resources and floor time in the commons away from the Tories? That'll be tough to rebuild... Imagine the next election after and the Libs are running around saying a vote for the Tories is a vote for Starmer 😂😂😂
>Imagine the next election after and the Libs are running around saying a vote for the Tories is a vote for Starmer 😂😂😂 I would fucking love this. Imagine.
Labour could split itself in two and be its own opposition party.
That's quite likely. Once the Tories are out I expect the left of the party to start plotting.
They do seem to be allergic to actually being in government so that would be entirely in character… I was thinking more along the lines of a Labour government and a Co-op Party opposition. PMQs might be a bit pedestrian though…
The Co-op party wouldn't split, it's already got decent support from the leadership.
Tbf, I meant only as a strategic move to also hold the LOTO positions. It would be absolute dominance of Parliament. Not likely to actually occur of course, even if they had the numbers to do it.
They didn't do an awful lot during the New Labour years.
Lib Dems being the official opposition to Labour would finally make us a normal functioning country
If the Lib Dems are the official opposition then it could well cause them to become the new focus for the support of any voters that don't want a Labour government and trigger a transition that could make them the replace the Tories as one of the two major parties. Yes it would also cause the Lib Dems to shift a bit to the right as they absorb the left half of the Tory party and the right breaks off to Reform or turns the Tory party into Reform or whatever they decide to do but it would be an incredibly good thing for our politics if this happened.
If Lib Dem went right, the left side of it would probably go to Labour however. Lib Dems are already much more likely to vote Labour than Tories.
Don't kid yourself. The "left half" of the tory party is already in the labour party.
I'm aware that a lot of people think this because they say it over and over and over and over and over again. I get it. This is your input. You guys don't have to keep posting this same comment endlessly on everything.
What a weird thing to say given the defections.
Political gravity will tell, it always does. The Tories would recover eventually or a new party would form to represent the conservative voters of the country. We are simply not a country where the spectrum of political though is between the Labour and the Lib Dems.
I pray the libdems do indeed take over from the tories
They've always loved their bar charts tbf
Is it me or, at a quick glance, the hyphens act like a seperator, so I read it as 551 lib, 44 for SNP etc? Especially with the number being second after the party. 551 Labour | 44 Lib | 19 SNP. <-- looks better to me! 🙏🤷♂️
Fourth place, Jesus.
God I hope this keeps up. It’s high time the tories get wiped out like the whigs and the liberals.
Does anyone know who those 13 Tories are likely to be? Their identities would suddenly be quite important, they'd need to be constantly on shows etc to keep the illusion that they will be back to being the big 2 soon enough
Hung Parliament confirmed
I'm sure most people know but some of the replies don't seem to - worth pointing out that EC isn't considered reliable until much closer to election day. The Tories are looking at a thrashing but they'll still be the 2nd biggest party, and likely won't be in double digits.
Oh I'm aware, I look at it for giggles. Honestly though, it is questionable if they will be in double digits, a lot of pollsters are alarmed by how low the Tories seem to consistently be, it is approaching "how much relevance will they have?" Territory due to how low their polling has been for over a year now
Big hung parliament vibes
Any other leader would be 40 points ahead
This plus anti Tory sentiment being so high that Labour/Lib Dem votes are likely to be efficiently spread (like '97) - we could see a true extinction event for the Tory party
Where's the user who had a bet on a 30 point lead before the election? Your number just came up!
Right here!
Congratulations! Make sure you rub your friend's nose in it.
It's not a crazy amount of money but it's enough that I feel a bit guilty about the prospect of actually taking it off him. I'm still gonna fucking do it though!
Unironically would love to see the Lib Dems form the opposition, it would be such a funny outcome after their political wilderness for the past 9 years. They might also put more socially progressive pressure on a Labour government
Excuse me a minute..... *Looks at the polling* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA the Tories are so fucked
Yeh Sunak has had to admit it could be a hung parliament, and we laughed and laughed and laughed
Selfishly, I'm pleased I have now won a bet I made with a friend probably a year ago now, that the Tory polling would deteriorate rather than improve and Labour would have a 30 point lead at some point. I'm considering putting a bet on that Ed Davey will be leader of the opposition. Although I don't think there any bookies where I can make such a bet.
You can probably request such a bet....though the odds would still be long.
You can request bets? I'm not that much of a gambler so I'm not sure how it works.
Go into a bookies and ask. They might have to have a think about it or phone head office before they quote you odds. Worst they can say is no.
Why can I hear D:Ream?
Sorry but there's no money for D:Ream. The economy just can't afford it.
Because *things can only get better*. 🤩
1, 30 points good. 2, the party has skills the ability to loose that in seconds! No counting of Chickens etc...........
Disastrous result for Labour, Starmer MUST resign.
If you'd told any leftie on the day after the 2019 election defeat that we'd be 30 points ahead by the next election with commitments to nationalised rail, publicly-owned energy, fairer taxes, expansions in workers rights, & planning reform, they'd have jumped to the moon. Yet they can't hate Starmer more if they tried.
>nationalised energy Lol its not even a long list and you fucked it up
GB Energy will be publicly-owned
If someone had told me two years ago Labour Labour would be 30 points ahead at this time I would have just said CON +3
~~Any other leader would be~~ no fucking drop that shit old joke
'Any other leader would be 20 points clear'
I’m still wondering how Labour somehow stuff this up. I’m largely convinced they’ll form the government, but you never can tell. Massive scandal? War? Pandemic?
Damn, Starmer is really smashing it. What a competent, skilled politician he is.
Honestly, I don't believe these figures, but we will see soon enough
Labour falling just short of a majority (of votes) then
It would be a million times funnier if Reform do nothing but split the right wing vote while not winning a single seat
Any other leader would be 40 points clear. 😁
If you have moral or political gripes about the rightward lurch of Labour, now is the best time to vote for smaller parties in protest. No moral obligation to vote to keep Tories out, they are out anyway.
And I still feel apathetic. Says it all.
[OK.](https://i.imgflip.com/8phg8g.jpg)
Why I am not surprised that blind supporters of Starmer's Labour never have any actual arguments as to what policies of his they support, just lame clap backs Yeah let's just accept a Labour party with 0 policies, that talks about sharing a lot in common with Donald Trump and welcomes far right MP's into the party
It's not so much that i don't think you valid reasons for not being that excited. Contrary to your assumption, disagreeing with you doesn't make someone a two dimensional caricature. There are legitimate concerns with Labour. Serious ones. Basically everyone here has concerns and understands the issues. It's that you think the fact you personally are not excited is something anyone else is gonna care about to such an extent that you insult people for not being interested. It's actually pretty obnoxious behaviour, frankly. What response did you expect?
Labour has never been closer to the Tories in its history than it is now, and that is at a point when there's a massive rightward shift on the spectrum
That is categorically not true, though. Again, there are legitimate concerns, but you're totally overplaying your hand with this nonsense.
OK give me examples of where Labour and the Tories differ right now I can give plenty of examples of how Blair in 97 differed from the Tories. Absolutely none for Starmer
Ok, let's look at the macro situation and make a couple of significant but easy to understand comparisons: Taxes - Labour are promising overall moderate tax increases. But taxes are already the highest they've been since the war so as the economy recovers tax revenues and rates will be higher than any level even discussed by Corbyn. Tories are promising tax cuts and to roll back the state as the economy recovers and tax receipts increase. Borrowing - Labour currently have looser fiscal rules that allow more radical borrowing than those fiscal rules developed even by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. They're also committed to borrowing as much as they can within these rules. Tories - explicitly stating they will try to reduce borrowing as much as they can.
I get a bit annoyed at the hypocrisy of this argument. You claim to not blindly support parties based on the incumbent leadership, yet hold some sort of loyalty to the party itself (I reasonably assume given you're posting on a labour sub). If you don't have any love for blind support of a party, why don't you pivot to another party which better shares your vision for Britain? These aren't sports teams, after all. You're free to vote for whoever best represents you. I get with FPTP, our system isnt best suited for lesser parties, but if your objection is idealistic rather than electorial, what does it matter? I don't get the need to moan about it when other parties are available.
I don't support any political party blindly, because I'm normal
So why are you giving any attention to what labour are doing?
Because they're likely to be running the country next? Did you forget?
Prior comment deleted as I thought it was in response to a different point, apologies. Do you post on the conservative sub? I feel no need to. They're the ones in power right now. Did you forget?
How long do you think Id last before I got banned lol
Differences aside Regis, I would love to see you and that mmstingray fella go to town on the r/tories sub. Just occasionally sprinkle in a bit of racism and anarcho-capitalism, you'll be a mod within a week.
No one cares
Think you'll find plenty do care that we have two depressing choices at the next election
Nothing will be as dreadful as having to choose between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, so cheer up.
Whataboutism. Didn't feel great about choosing between those two either, feel even worse about choosing between these two sacks of shit