Redefining Democracy: The Urgent Case for Electoral Reform in the UK
The FPTP voting system has long been a pillar of British democracy. However, as we traverse the challenges of the twenty-first century, it becomes evident that this system no longer fulfils the UK’s expanding democratic demands. Employing a more proportional voting system will significantly improve governance and representation while guaranteeing the UK’s democratic institutions maintain the strong and representative nature of its diverse population.
Image: (Wikipedia Contributors, 2020)
FPTP is a plurality election system in which the winning candidate requires only one more vote than their leading opponent to secure a seat (Counts, 2019). FPTP aims to produce a strong and stable government with a clear parliamentary majority, whilst producing quick results as seen in the 43.6% conservative majority votes in the 2019 General Election (BBC, 2019).
Nevertheless, this blog post will explore the numerous disadvantages of FPTP, with a focus on the “under-representation of minor parties that it is perceived to cause,” (White and Hedges, 1999), its unfairness in “allowing parties to win elections with less than 50% of the vote,” (White and Hedges, 1999)and the high number of “wasted’ votes that it encourages, particularly in safe seats.” (White and Hedges, 1999).
The primary issue with FPTP is its tendency to alter results from elections (White and Hedges, 1999). This blog entry defines fairness through proportional representation, which entails “one person, equals one vote” (Johnston, 2001). This disproportionateness leads to an unfair representation of votes. As an illustration, in the 2019 general election, the Conservative Party obtained 43.6% of the vote but captured 56% of the seats in the House of Commons (Baker, Uberoi and Cracknell, 2020). This was further underlined by the deviation from proportionality score, where conservatives obtained a “leadership bonus of 13%” (Dunleavy, 2019). In contrast, the Liberal Democrats received 11.5% of the vote but gained just 1.7 percent of the seats (Baker, Uberoi and Cracknell, 2020).
This mismatch demonstrates a substantial bias: parties with equally distributed countrywide support underperform under FPTP, whilst those with significant concentrated support benefit. This is made clear by the simple fact that FPTP in the United Kingdom was three-tenths of the way to not being a liberal democratic voting system at all (Dunleavy, 2019). Furthermore, this can encourage tactical voting, in which citizens perceive it futile to vote for their desired candidate and instead vote for the contender who is most likely to win.
Diagram from: (BBC, 2019) depicting seats won by each party.
A further concern is that in FPTP systems, the geographical distribution of votes results in disproportionate representation. Parties could be dominant in regions in which they are already potent and underrepresented where they are weak. This system does this by “encouraging wasted votes in safe seats” (White and Hedges, 1999). This is seen below in the case study of the Liverpool Walton Constituency.
| Candidate/Party | Votes | Share | Change | |
| Dan CardenLabour | 34,538 | 84.7% | -1.0% | |
| Alex PhillipsConservative | 4,018 | 9.9% | 1.3% | |
| Ted GrantGreen Party | 814 | 2.0% | 0.8% | |
| David NewmanLiberal Democrat | 756 | 1.9% | 0.3% | |
| Billy LakeLiberal | 660 | 1.6% | 1.6% | |
Image from: (Parliament, 2019)
Liverpool Walton is the epitome of a safe seat in the United Kingdom, historically represented by the Labour Party. For example, in the 2019 General Election, the Labour candidate won the seat by a substantial amount. Labour received 84% of votes, whilst the remaining parties shared 16% of votes among themselves- this can be considered waste seats. Furthermore, a considerable number of the Labour candidate’s votes could be considered wasted. Since the candidate only required over 50% of the total number of votes in addition to one vote to win, votes cast beyond this needed majority did not play a role in winning the seat but rather enhanced the margin of victory. When a significant percentage of votes go to waste, it calls into doubt the voting system’s representativeness. In a representative system, each vote would have an impact on the demographics of the legislature, resulting in a government that better reflects the electorate’s desires.
To summarise, the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system, notwithstanding its historical significance in moulding British politics, currently considerably hinders the democratic representative it seeks to promote. The disparity between the number of votes cast and seats obtained through FPTP alters the political environment, favouring concentrated geographical favour over broad national agreement. This results in some parties being overrepresented while others are woefully underrepresented, as evidenced by the uneven results witnessed in previous general elections. The preponderance of wasted votes in safe seats exacerbates voter dissatisfaction, emphasising the critical need for election reform. Implementing a more proportionate voting system will ensure that every vote counts, more accurately reflecting the UK’s different viewpoints and revitalising democracy for future generations.
Bibliography
Baker, C., Uberoi, E. and Cracknell, R. (2020). General Election 2019: full results and analysis. House of Commons Library. [online] Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8749/.
BBC (2019). Election results 2019: Analysis in maps and charts. BBC News. [online] 13 Dec. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50770798.
Counts, V. (2019). What is First Past The Post (FPTP)? [online] Voting Counts. Available at: https://votingcounts.org.uk/first-past-the-post-html.
Dunleavy (2019). First-past-the-post – normal (disproportionate) service has resumed. [online] Democratic Audit. Available at: https://www.democraticaudit.com/2019/12/16/first-past-the-post-normal-disproportionate-service-has-resumed/.
Johnston, R. (2001). From Votes To Seats: The Operation of the UK Electoral System Since 1945. [online] Google Books. Manchester University Press. Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/From_Votes_To_Seats/mEOCNRPHvlMC?hl=en&gbpv=0 [Accessed 22 Apr. 2024].
Parliament , U. (2019). Liverpool, Walton. [online] UK Parliament . Available at: https://members.parliament.uk/constituency/3582/election/397.
White, C. and Hedges, A. (1999). New Electoral Systems: What Voters Need to Know. [online] Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/sites/constitution-unit/files/31.pdf [Accessed 18 Apr. 2024].
Wikipedia Contributors (2020). First-past-the-post voting. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting.
This is a very good and engaging blog post about electoral system reform. I found the concept of wasted votes in constituencies particularly interesting. I would add to this blog post the attempts at electoral reform proposed by previous governments and how these reforms failed. Peelish (2017) writes an interesting article on this. There have been two previous attempts at introducing electoral reform, one by Labour in 1997 and another by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2011. In 1997 Labour proposed reform in their manifesto with a mixed-member electoral system but due to opposition within his party and the fact Labour itself had been overrepresented in terms of seats in the election, the idea was shelved. (Peelish 2017, p33). The other attempt in 2011 resulted in a referendum for introducing the Alternative Vote system, this referendum failed and only 32.1% of voters voted for the reform (Peelish 2017, p36). This highlights that parties have attempted electoral reform, but this requires support from parliament as well as the public.
I would also add the dangers of proportional representation and how this may allow far-right or far-left parties to gain prominence in Parliament. Reform UK advocated for reform of the electoral system as it would allow them to gain seats they would never win under first-past-the-post.
Peelish, N., 2017. A Theoretical Account of Electoral Reform in the UK.