A Proportional Representation Proposal...
Posted May 31, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC
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I would split it up into smaller electoral areas based roughly on Counties, this gives MPs more focus on a certain area. So Leicestershire currently elects 11 constituency MPs, but now it would be 11 MPs elected proportionally. You could base it off of the old NUTS 2 areas layed out here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUTS_statistical_regions_of_the_United_Kingdom
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Yeah I like that, goes someway to compensating the loss of constituencies. Good shout.
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Interested to see peoples opinions on this idea for a UK Proportional Representation system. The positives imo are that it maintains a fair level of representation of regional parties (e.g the SNP, Plaid, NI Parties) which might disappear under a national PR system.
The main disadvantage would be losing constituencies, which I like as they make MPs more accountable to local people. But keeping constituencies and introducing PR in the UK is arguably unworkable, since the SNP (for example) routinely earn 50-odd seats with only 4% of the national vote, a similar problem is present with the Northern Irish parties.
The 10% to qualify for seats could easily by 5% or anything other %. What I'm interested in are peoples opinions on effectively having 12 separate elections in each region of the UK.
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Wales, Scotland and NI are not regions, and Plaid, the SNP and NI parties aren't regional parties.
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You could do a mixed-member system like they do already in the Welsh and Scottish elections. That way you’ll still have the constituency aspect of FPTP but also have additional members elected to fix the disproportionality.
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The issue with that system in the UK is that your either have to massively reduce the number of constituencies or nearly double the number of parliament seats.
I suppose the first of those two options might be better than abandoning constituencies completely.
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I agree. There would have to be a reduction in the total number of seats, and of course that would be very difficult to do without accusations of gerrymandering (e.g: combining a Labour marginal with a solidly Tory seat), but I’m sure that if an independent commission was set up they’d be able to have a few recommendations. A reduction in seats doesn’t necessarily have to be upwards of 60%, it all depends on how many additional member seats you’ll need to fix the disproportionality. I know elections vary, but they’d probably be able to find an average from the last few.
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Aren't you effectively banning regional parties everywhere except England if you set the threshold too high? Seems dodgy.
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I should perhaps have been more clear, to achieve seats from a particular region the party has to achieve 10% in THAT REGION, not nationally as I think you might have inferred.
My bad for bad prose.
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Ah I see. In that case I withdraw that complaint.
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This system is specifically designed to prevent that. If the PR system was across the whole of the UK with a 5% cut off the SNP, Plaid, and all the Irish parties would be excluded. By instead having elections by region, the SNP can easily clear the threshold in Scotland to achieve seats.
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I'd rather see us go down the STV mult-imember constituency route rather than this.
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Very good, ta for that. I do actually agree it would be a fairer system (and could potentially give more prominence to county/local councillors as a regular). Unfortunately, I can’t see either the Tory’s or the SNP going for it, and you’d arguably need a good proportion of each to get behind it (I assume a public referendum would be required).
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Yeah it would need a referendum. The Tories would never want any kind of electoral reform because the current system favours them a fair bit. The SNP like to pay lip service to the idea of electoral reform, but I agree they might change their mind when faced with having their seat total almost halved.
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How would the actual ballot change, in this proposal?
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Either a simple list of party names, or a list of party names with the parties candidates listed alongside in the order the party has placed them for election.
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Unfortunately, that example would never get the support of the SNP. The SNP get near enough double that amount of seats for the same voting % in Scotland. Any proposal that would change that would be shouted down as Westminster imposing its will on the people of Scotland and denying them representation. I’d be interested if there’s any way to break down what parliament would look like following the recent election under that proposed system.
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Here is a projection of this system and the 2019 election.
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SNP support PR, the SNP would lose seats but gain influence. The 2015 result saw the SNP get 56 seat, out of 59 contested, averaging 50.0% of the vote. The Conservatives had a majority. If the SNP had 30 seats and neither Labour nor the Conservatives had a majority
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10% threshold is way too high, it completely destroys the chance of smaller and newer parties coming into being and promotes the same unsustainably big-tent 2-party politics that is rotting our democracy now. The only country I can think of off the top of my head with 10% as a threshold is Turkey, which did so specifically to try and stop Kurdish parties from getting into parliament (though the HDP has since breached it anyway).
While I can get the argument that the Dutch 2% is too low (tbh I like having a fair few small parties myself but I get why people might disagree), 5% is much more reasonable than 10% as otherwise the same parties will become entrenched and out-of-touch as they are now and newer/smaller parties will be left unable to build support, not solving the issue of voter disenfranchisement that we have under FPTP.
I have no problem with the cut-off being 5% rather than 10%. I picked 10% mostly because the roughed this idea in 15 mins and it was the first thing to come to mind.
Although it is worth noting that achieving 10% in a single region isn't as hard as achieving 10% across the whole nation. You're point is a good one though.
That's fair enough, haha.