This month marked a year since the landmark general election in 2024, which saw Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party sweep to power in a landslide after 14 years of Conservative government. Campaigners have been raising awareness on the disproportionate nature of the election; however, this is something which the new electoral reform has failed to address.
A victory for Labour at the last election was widely predicted ahead of last year’s campaign. With the Conservatives trailing in the polls since the Partygate scandal and then Liz Truss’s disastrous Budget, it was largely assumed that Keir Starmer would be taking up the reins of power. But whilst there was no doubting this genuine shift against the Conservatives, the results remained far out of step with how most people had voted overall.
A stacked system
The voting system used in the UK, known as First Past the Post (FPTP), has long been criticised for entrenching a two-Party system in the UK. With seats in Parliament allocated on the basis of how well Parties have performed in each UK constituency, rather than in the overall share of votes nationally, it has come to be the case that so-called ‘marginal’ seats can have a disproportionately large impact on the final results in an election, whilst votes cast in supposed ‘safe seats’ are essentially wasted.
With the exception of the US, most other Western democracies use a system of Proportional Representation, allocating Parliamentary seats in line with the overall national vote. As such, it is far rarer that any one Party will win an overall majority entirely on its own, meaning there is a much greater tendency towards building coalitions with smaller parties.
In the UK meanwhile, votes are allocated in such a way that the two leading parties can gain a far more substantial number of seats than is be reflected in the actual popular vote. At times, this has actually affected who has come out as the winner, as was seen in the elections of 1951 and 1974, neither of which were won by the Party with the largest popular vote.
Looking back
The 2024 election has been widely described as perhaps the most disproportionate in UK history, as Labour was able to double its share of seats on the basis of just a 1.6% actual increase in votes.
The combined vote share for the two main parties – Labour and the Conservatives – was in fact at the lowest seen since the introduction of universal suffrage, with 42.6% of voters siding with smaller parties. According to a review by the Political Studies Association, had the results of the election actually been proportional to the votes cast, then Labour would have won 200 less seats than they actually did, whilst parties like the Greens ought to have received as many as 43 MPs, instead of 4.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Party, Reform, which captivated so much of the media’s attention in the run-up to the campaign, won 14.3% of the overall vote but similarly received only 5 seats in total. This was at the same time as the Liberal Democrats, so often themselves the victims of FPTP, were able to win 72 MPs on 12.2% of the vote.
Calling for change
This month saw groups across the country holding a Democracy Action weekend on the anniversary of the 2024 election, in order to draw attention to this historic imbalance.
Cross party campaign group Make Votes Matter gathered in cities across the UK on 5 and 6 July to demand electoral reform. The weekend included a ‘Rally for Real Democracy’ held in Manchester. The rally celebrated the pivotal role played by the city in fighting for British democracy, it being held on the same site as the infamous Peterloo massacre of 1819, when armed cavalry ran down Mancunians protesting against so-called ‘rotten boroughs’. The rally also paid tribute to the formative role of campaigners in the Suffragette movement.
The rally featured speeches from local councillors, calling out the unfairness of the current system and demanding real change. This was followed by a subsequent gathering in London.
A step in the right direction
In the two weeks since this rally was held, there have been indications from the Labour government that, at some levels, change is needed.
Mayoral elections had been changed from a system of supplementary voting to FPTP by the Conservatives back in 2023. Labour have now announced that Mayoral elections will revert to the previous system. Whilst not still truly proportional, this move away from FPTP has been welcomed by campaigners, who have described it as “a vital course correction” away from a system that they argue patently fails voters.
The government has also announced plans to extend the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds, making good on the pledge in Labour’s Manifesto to give representation to teenagers and young people. Whilst some have condemned the wisdom of this, supporters point out that these are people who may already have stepped out into the workplace, started families, or made crucial life choices decisions on university or their careers. Crucially, many other countries already give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote, as does Scotland. This move by the government will mark the most significant change in the franchise since the 1960s, when Wilson’s government brought the voting age down from 21 to 18 for men and women.
But is it going far enough?
Both of these changes however will stop short of any substantial change to the ways in which general elections are counted. Whilst the government has seemingly decided that FPTP is evidently unfair when it comes to mayoral elections, no similar changes seem planned for electing the government.
Whilst Starmer had previously talked about the need for reform when first running for Labour leader, he has since been adamant on this not being something Labour will pursue. Despite support from numerous Labour MPs and members, it was not part of their manifesto at the election, and a motion by the Lib Dems to pursue electoral reform was then blocked back in December.
It’s a dance that the Labour Party has gone through before, having frequently made tentative commitments towards changing the electoral system in the periods whilst out of office, only for this to then be promptly dropped once its then worked out for them again. Changes to the voting age have the power to be an incredible step in the right direction for enfranchising people. But if the government genuinely cares at all about democracy, then change to the system itself is vitally needed.
As pointed out by Make Votes Matter in their reaction to the upcoming reforms; “this isn’t democracy fixed.” The group has made the point that it’s young people who get let down most by the current voting system, noting that “if every vote doesn’t count, what’s the point in counting more of them?”
A vote for real change
It is vital that the current government let go of the short-term self-interest which they have previously operated by. If they are set on bringing through these changes to how we vote, then they should use the opportunity to take this further, and further push through genuine reform to the electoral system. FPTP may have benefited them this time around, but the next election may well go very differently – especially if the new left-wing Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana happens to split the progressive vote.
Labour has a choice: to embrace a fairer, more representative system, or continue with the undemocratic, zero-sum game we’re presently stuck with, with every election being all or nothing, with voters forced between their genuine preferences or the tactical vote, and with too many voices being left unheard.
