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People are rightly losing faith in politics, it’s time for democratic renewal

A new report by the recently established Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge has found that dissatisfaction with democracy has reached an all-time global high. Westminster-style democracies (the UK, Australia,...

Posted 31 Jan 2020

The broken Westminster system is at the root of this dissatisfaction

What we learnt from the ERS / Open Labour leadership hustings

Labour’s leadership candidates backed a range of constitutional reforms at Sunday’s joint Open Labour/Electoral Reform Society hustings, as they were challenged on how to fix Britain’s broken political system. When asked about their views on...

Posted 27 Jan 2020

It will take more than moving the Lords up north to mend our broken politics

The phrase ‘moving the deckchairs’ has never felt so apt. Over the weekend, we learnt that Boris Johnson is mulling plans to move the House of Lords permanently to York. Or maybe Birmingham. Speaking of...

Posted 23 Jan 2020

It takes more than being near the Lords to connect people to them

ERS in the Press: 2019’s electoral reform news roundup

As the year draws to a close, here’s a snapshot of some of the work we’ve been doing at the ERS to put real political reform on the agenda in 2019. January We kicked off...

Posted 23 Dec 2019

Policies for a fairer politics: How we can fix a broken system

This election, the political system is more distrusted by voters than it has been for years. It’s not hard to see why. The sense that people do not feel ‘heard’ is growing: an ERS poll...

Posted 08 Nov 2019

There are popular, vital ideas for change which we know work

The current crisis has been a long time coming – and Westminster’s system is behind it

It’s easy right now to get caught up in the daily drama of politics – to focus on individuals, and the game playing, and to forget that the current political chaos is all part of...

Posted 24 Sep 2019

The last year of political turmoil is the outcome of a system that has been failing for a long time

Why unions are getting serious about the need for political reform

A week before the court case over prorogation reached the Supreme Court, the ERS’ Dr Jess Garland told TUC Congress delegates: “Our constitution is just a set of gentlemen’s agreements, with weak parliamentary checks and...

Posted 19 Sep 2019

Our constitution is just a set of gentlemen’s agreements

An elected House of Lords wouldn’t just be a clone of the House of Commons

The Electoral Reform Society has long campaigned for the House of Lords to be abolished and replaced with a new modern, fairly elected democratic second chamber. We also want to see the one ‘democratic’ chamber...

Posted 10 Sep 2019

Another election under Westminster’s broken voting system is unlikely to get us out of this crisis

Back in May, our Westminster Beyond Brexit report raised a prescient question: “Do we want a democracy that gives the power of an absolute monarch to one party, or a government which is representative and...

Posted 03 Sep 2019

A general election would re-shuffle the parliamentary deck rather than solve the underlying problem

What is the main purpose of the House of Lords?

Even those of you out there who have a passing knowledge of our campaigning work will know we are not the greatest cheerleaders for the House of Lords. Who could blame us? If you asked...

Posted 21 Aug 2019