Today sees the launch of a new parliamentary group on electoral reform, which is upping the pressure on the government to take action on the UK’s failing electoral system. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections has seen over 100 MPs join, more than half of which are from Labour. The APPG has launched with a new report, Free but not Fair, on how changing the county’s distorting First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system would be a vital step in restoring the public’s trust in politics, which has slumped to historic lows. The report also calls for a “national commission” to be set up to help decide which system of proportional representation (PR) should replace the current system.
Polling commissioned by the APPG also shows that 64% of the public think the problems with the current electoral system need to be addressed before the next election.
This comes after the UK has just witnessed the most disproportional election in its history, with Labour winning 63% of seats with just 34% of the vote. Meanwhile, the Greens and Reform received just over 1% of the seats in the Commons on a combined vote share of over 20%.
The fact so many MPs have joined the APPG is a real show of strength for cause of electoral reform in Parliament.
It is also significant that so many Labour MPs have joined as it shows that there is robust support in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) for PR even though the party benefited disproportionally from FPTP at the last election. This further displays the now significant support for PR at all levels of the party, after Labour members and affiliated trade unions combined to vote through a motion at the 2022 Labour party conference committing the party to supporting electoral reform for Westminster.
‘Even an extreme party can win a thumping majority under FPTP’
Following the launch, one supportive Labour MP on the APPG, Alex Sobel, a former shadow minister, was quoted in the Guardian arguing to scrap FPTP as it is handing parties massive parliamentary majorities on increasingly small shares of the vote.
He said: “The popular vote a party needs to win a majority has been steadily falling for decades, and now first past the post has delivered a landslide on just a third of the vote. Are we really comfortable with a situation where a party – even an extreme party – can win a thumping majority with, say, just three out of 10 votes? Because if things continue, that’s where we’re heading.”
APPGs play an important role at Westminster
APPGs play an important role in Westminster politics as they allow groups of MPs and peers to come together to examine specific topics, from nuclear energy to Scotch whisky and golf to woods and trees. Only parliamentarians can sit on APPGs, but members of the public can attend their meetings. While smaller APPGs can be run by MPs, larger ones tend to be assisted by outside groups with expertise in the area under consideration. For more on how APPGs work, see our previous blog here.
In the last parliament, the ERS supported the APPG on Electoral Reform, which we co-organised with Make Votes Matter. That APPG wound up at the end of the last parliament, so we are now supporting colleagues at Fair Vote to pick up the mantel of electoral reform in parliament.
Read about the new APPG in the Guardian