Despite the downcast weather in Liverpool this week there was an upbeat mood at the Labour conference as the party celebrated its second best election result in its history and a return to government. Yet it was clear there remains strong support in the party for electoral reform from the frequent questions at fringe events and panels about proportional representation and the fact Labour won such a huge majority on such a small share of the vote. The party received 63% of the seats in Parliament on just 34% of the votes.
We had a team down at conference this week meeting with new MPs and making the case for the government to take up the pressing electoral and constitutional reforms needed to revitalise and reinforce our democracy. It was against this backdrop that we held our Democracy Reception on Monday to look over the 2024 election result and assess what it says about the state of our democracy.
Low trust in politics putting ‘pressure’ on system
The reception began with our Chief Executive, Darren Hughes highlighting how the general election had been the most disproportional in British history. He went on to say that it had also seen a number of electoral firsts, such as being the first time four parties had received over 10% of the vote. Darren said it is clear that the public are already voting as if we have a proportional system, and it is time we recognised that fact and reformed our elections accordingly.
He also warned that there is ‘structural pressure’ growing on politics as trust in the system has sunk to the lowest levels on record. The British Social Attitudes Survey found this year that 45% of people now ‘almost never trust’ the government, compared to the number being in the low teens in the 1980s, when the survey started.
Move to proportional representation means New Zealand elections now ‘reflect the will of the people’
Next, we heard from former New Zealand Prime Minister and current leader of the country’s Labour Party, Chris Hipkins, on what it is like to fight elections and govern under PR. New Zealand moved from a First Past the Post system in the 1990s to an MMP (Mixed Member Proportional Representation) system, which we call the Addition Member System (AMS), and is used in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. Chris said he cast his first vote in 1996, the first election to use proportional representation, and while he had shared concerns in the Kiwi Labour party about moving to MMP, it had produced a ‘very stable’ politics over the last three decades.
He said the main shift was that the electoral system now ‘reflects the will of the people’ and has helped ‘restore public trust in politics,’ which had sunk to very low levels in the 1980s in New Zealand. New Zealand also now enjoys comparatively high turnout for general elections, usually over 80%.
Chris also told the audience that moving to proportional representation has also brought a broader stability to politics in New Zealand, as the country no longer has situations where political parties take power on 30% of the vote, meaning ‘70% of people don’t feel represented by them’.
“Odd” that First Past the Post makes voters work out which party they ‘like least’
After Chris, Jill Rutter, from the Institute for Government, spoke about the broader situation of how the political system is working. She said it was ‘odd’ that Britain has an electoral system that often forces voters to work out which political parties they ‘like least’.
Jill said it should also be a matter of concern that there was such a low turnout at the last general election, with on 59.7% of eligible voters casting a vote. Jill noted there was higher turnout in the Brexit referendum than many general elections as people knew their vote would count towards the end result.
Following the event, Chris Hipkins said: “We’ve had proportional representation since 1996 and it’s worked really well for New Zealand. We have been able to keep a really high voter turnout and voter confidence in our electoral system and in our system of government. About 80% of New Zealanders vote in our general elections, which puts us at the higher end of voter turnout around the world.
“We have been able to avoid situations that we had under the previous First Past the Post system, where parties, and in particular the Labour Party, won more votes than their opponents but didn’t form governments as the electoral system ultimately rewarded an outcome that wasn’t actually reflective of the way people voted.”
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