Reform UK's Richard Tice demands 'fairer' voting system
Richard Tice has championed a move away from the First Past the Post System
Reform UK leader, Richard Tice, has called for the UK’s First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system to be replaced with a more proportional model.
Appearing on GB News, Tice insisted that a more proportional system is needed to ensure that “every vote counts and every vote is equal”.
First Past the Post
FPTP is a Simple Plurality system, meaning for a candidate to be elected they just need one more vote than the person in second place.
As there are 650 constituencies in the UK, each General Election there are 650 mini-elections in which the candidate with the most votes wins and becomes that area’s MP.
This seem fair enough right? The person with the most votes wins. So why is Richard Tice calling for this is be changed, and changed to what?
Distorts the results
The leaders of smaller parties such as Reform regularly criticise the FPTP system as it tends to underrepresent smaller parties whilst overrepresenting larger parties.
For example, in the 2015 General Election UKIP received 12.6% of the national vote. In a proportional system this result would have secured the party over 80 seats. However, due to the workings of the FPTP system UKIP only won a single seat.
Whilst smaller parties can often have a considerable support base across the country, they tend to struggle be the largest party in any constituency, which is required for success under the FPTP system.
As a result, they can end up with little-to-no seats in Parliament despite having a respectable share of the vote.
As well as underrepresenting smaller parties, the FPTP system overrepresents larger parties. Larger parties often have areas of highly concentrated support, which helps win seats.
This can be seen in the results of the 2019 General Election in which the Conservative Party’s vote share is much lower than the proportion of seats they won.
Due to the FPTP system, the party managed to secure an 80 seat majority from less than half of the public vote.
Wasted Votes
In addition to misrepresenting the views of the people in Parliament, FPTP also leads to a vast number of wasted votes.
In the FPTP system any vote that is not for the winning candidate is in effect ‘wasted’ as it is does not affect the result of the election. Neither does any excess vote for the winning candidate.
Once the winner has surpassed the second-place candidate, any further votes do not impact the result in any way.
A study from the Electoral Reform Society found that over 70% of votes in the 2019 were ‘wasted’ and did not impact the result. This means that 70% of voters, over 22 million people, could have stayed at home and the election result would have been identical.
The Electoral Reform Society state on their website that “First Past the Post is brutal in denying millions of voters any representation at all.”
Proportional Representation
There are other, more proportional voting systems available to use. The term ‘proportional representation’ (PR) is an umbrella term used to refer to a range of systems and does not simply refer to ‘pure’ PR in which x% of votes = x% of seats.
PR systems are commonplace globally, especially in European states. Countries including Sweden, Germany, and Italy all use a form of PR in their elections.
What’s stopping the UK from following in the footsteps over a hundred countries worldwide by using form of PR?
Politics lecturer Dave Toomer spoke about whether we may see electoral reform any time soon.
As Dave Toomer said, a hung parliament may be the only way for electoral reform to stand a chance. However, this is somewhat of a catch-22 as hung parliaments are usually rare in FPTP systems as smaller parties tend to struggle.
Having said that, the closest the UK has come to electoral reform did occur during the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition as Nick Clegg’s Lib Dem’s secured a referendum on introducing the Alternative Vote system.
The referendum took place in May 2011, with the public opting to stick with the FPTP system.
As explained by Dave Toomer, there is little motivation for the parties that benefit from FPTP to change the system as it would negatively impact their own results.
Coalitions: A pro or a con?
PR systems tend to lead to coalition governments as parties rarely receive over 50% of the vote. Even Tony Blair’s New Labour only received 45% of the vote in their landslide 1997 victory.
Some regard this is a positive as it promotes consensus within government and allows for a range of voices to be heard in an executive that is more representative of the population is serves.
Others worry this would lead to indecisive and inefficient governments that are not, to quote Theresa May, ‘strong and stable’.
This concern comes from bills being harder to pass in PR systems as party political debate can occur in the executive as well as in the legislature.
Richard Tice image available here.
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