Apparently is terribly Blue Meanie of the system to allow the Conservatives to be the one single hegemonic block on the right while the progressives are split between many parties:
Conservative votes are now so efficiently spread that it takes just 38,000 to elect a Tory MP but 51,000 votes for every Labour MP. But because of our first-past-the-post system it needs 336,000 for every Lib Dem MP and a ludicrous 866,000 to elect Caroline Lucas for Brighton Pavilion. It is why we need proportional representation, because this is sham democracy. The Tories even want to remove any kind of transfer-vote element from mayoral contests. To beat the Tories, we need to beat the system, and that means being smart about working together.
Meanwhile the rightwing parties have consolidated, after the Tories swallowed the Brexit party whole. But progressives remain split, competing for the same voters – we divide; they conquer.
And yet poll after poll shows there is a progressive majority. We need to shape and win that majority.
Hmm, an obvious and even simple answer does present itself:
Such negotiations are so much easier when more seats are in play. So ahead of the next election we owe it to progressive voters to offer easier choices by negotiating arrangements that increase the chances of progressive candidates winning, while also ensuring that all parties are more fairly represented at Westminster.
And as we move to a general election in the coming years , we all recognise that the Greens, worst hit by the electoral system, must be allowed the chance to win some seats if their rising votes are going to be used smartly. Underlying all this is the need for Labour to back proportional representation at its September conference.
Well, no, not really.
The answer is that the Greens and Labour and the Lib Dems and the Tankies and yea, even George Galloway, need to merge into the one monolithic bloc of progressives so as to present their vision to the country. In that manner the Tories do.
As to why this doesn’t happen that also has an easy answer. Without the multiplicity of parties then how would every tinpot fascist find their own molehill to piss on the polity from? There would only be the one leader of the one party after all……
It may have been when Starmer was elected Labour leader, or possibly the guy before him, when some politician said that Labour would now unite behind the new face. I remarked to my wife that a united Labour Party would be a first in my lifetime (I’m a boomer).
Do the Green’s still have co-leaders?
Looking at Labour probably what would happen is you end up with multiple co-leaders, each with their own factions behind them fighting between themselves, the only policies they end up with would be the worst ones from each party, Any sane policies from the Lib Dems wouldn’t get a look in as they are incapable of self promotion and communication.
But the Tories are a coalition, and their policies are a compromise derived from interior discussion. Hence the Tory voter has some chance of knowing what he’s voting for. Whereas the Greens want everybody poorer whilst Labour, at least nominally want the poor to become richer. If they form a coalition post election then Heaven only knows what policies they will adopt, but they will be the policies that benefit the respective politicians who will each point at the other whilst explaining to their own supporters why they aren’t getting what they voted for. PR makes politicians unaccountable, and is… Read more »
Voting Tory is proportional representation – the ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ Conservative Party represents Labour, the Greens, various grudge and grievance groups… but alas not Conservatives. There is no hegemonic bloc on the Right, it’s on the Left. An actual Conservative Party would make a nice change.
PR using a party list system makes politicians unaccountable. But PR is a broad category and PR using STV is the exact opposite – it makes politicians more accountable as voters can choose between different candidates of the same party to make sure that the compromises arrived at are the right compromises.
And, of course, these candidates would never compromise their principles when they catch a whiff of the leather seats in a ministerial limo. In your dreams.
Of course they would. But STV makes it easier than FPTP or PR with a party list to get rid of them when they do.
Proportional representation ensures coalition governments held together by minority Parties whose minority policies get foisted on the majority to keep the big Parties in power and their leaders’ snouts in the trough.
People with least chance of winning are most in favour of PR and postal ballots. Of course they could adopt policies that reflect the wishes of the majority, but then that would require them not to be cranks.
Given that voting Tory has put supporters of the Net Zero insanity in power, I can’t see why the left are complaining.
The business model of the Left is complaining, and no doubt they will take to the streets soon to demand Net Negative (to atone for our past sins).
Someone needs to point out a place where PR actually works for any length of time. PR is a disaster for a national government selection process. May be appropriate for the village cemetery committee, however.
It works in Israel: but the disaster is how it works when the Shas, a tiny party whose leader didn’t even live in Israel – he led it from the safety of the USA – put Likud in power on condition that it adopted extremist policies and treated the significant Arab minority unfairly. Started a vicious spiral ending up with Hamas and Netanyahu
Israel is a bad example because the *entire* country is a single constituency.
Surely that makes it a “good” example because PR is working as proposed by its rosy-spectacled advocates?
It’s a bad example because it uses a party list system.
It has worked for a century in Ireland.
They use small-seat STV in Ireland, which isn’t very proportional. STV’s advantage is that it is more representative than FPTP, not more that it is more proportional.
PR gives the third party inordinate power. It also tends to lead to permanent coalitions, stasis and disillusionment.
Caroline Lucas has wet dreams about PR. Colour me unsurprised. What a nasty little fascist she is.
They think voters are troops to direct. “You lot, go over there and vote for the Labour candidate”. Surely, SURELY, the Brexit vote disabused them of that fantasy. In my seat if all the non-Tories stood down to give a Labour vs Conservative contest, I’d hold my nose and vote *against* the Trot. But this is symptomatic of the whole underlying philosophy of the Trot tendency. They fundamentally *LOATH* democratic choice. How *DARE* you stand for election and not stand for our party, TRAITOR! Don’t you understand, the whole point of elections is to get us elected, having other people… Read more »
And it didn’t take 866,000 votes to elect Caroline Lucas, it took 16,000. There’s only a total of 75,000 potential voters to even vote, FFS.
No, he means it would have taken 866,000 in a district of 75,000 to elect her to overcome all the voters who didn’t want her to get elected.
Not being in power suits the Left just fine, look what it did to the Lib Dems, so much nicer to be in perpetual opposition, with no constraint on your daft idealism.
Anything which strangles the Greens is good.
But you’ll have noticed that not being voted into power has no effect on them. Their idiot policies are still crammed down our throats.