Hello friends.
There's a quote commonly attributed to Winston Churchill that goes “democracy is the worst
form of government... except for all the others that have been tried from time to time”.
And this, for me at least, remains a brilliant summary of the attitude a lot of people within
the United Kingdom have to both their government and the means by which we elect it.
Because simply put, a lot of us aren't fans of either.
Taking a quick glance at the most recent General Election in 2015, one of the most troubling
statistics would be the truly abysmal voter turnout: just 66.1% of the people eligible
to vote actually turned out to do so.
And that's not even the worst its been in recent years.
In 2001, just 59.4% of the population came out to vote, meaning that almost half of the
country didn't have their say in the make-up of the parliament elected to govern them.
Its easy to dismiss such people as uninformed or even lazy, but this is making excuses for
an increasingly serious issue with British politics.
Polls demonstrate that the most common cause of this voter apathy isn't that people who
choose to vote don't care; it's that they've lost faith in the idea that their vote matters,
that they no longer believe the electoral system Britain uses will represent them.
And honestly?
Looking at our electoral system it's hard to blame them for coming to this conclusion.
The United Kingdom utilises the First Past The Post system, sometimes referred to as
'Winner Takes All'.
It's been our method of electing governments since the 19th Century, and its increasingly
showing its age.
Breaking the UK up into 650 constituencies, parties put forward candidates to run for
office.
Voters within these constituencies get a single vote, and whichever candidate gets the most
wins and takes a seat at parliament.
Whichever party achieves the highest number of seats becomes the new government in Westminster,
the second-largest party standing as the official Opposition.
Proponents of FPTP argue that its an efficient, easy to manage system that has stood the test
of time and produces strong governments to ensure decisive leadership in Britain.
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with those people, however.
FPTP is horrendously unrepresentative, and ensures that no matter the outcome a lot of
people are left feeling disenfranchised and without a voice in parliament.
One candidate takes a constituency seat, even if the majority of people didn't vote for
them; if you're one of those people who didn't vote for the winning candidate then tough
luck, chum.
If this wasn't enough, FPTP comes with two further serious flaws ingrained within its
systems.
These are the issues of 'tactical voting' and 'the spoiler effect'.
People aren't stupid, after all, and most are all too aware of the fact that only two
parties (Tories and Labour) are ever likely to win through this system.
As such, FPTP forces people to vote for which of these two parties they dislike the least,
rather than which party they actively support.
It's an aspect of realpolitik referred to as 'tactical voting', and it doesn't make
for a well-liked government.
No-one is ever going to be enamoured with a parliament made up of the best of a bad
bunch, after all.
Say, however, that you're an adamant third party supporter and you're intent on casting
your vote towards the political group that best represents you and damn the consequences.
It's a respectable stance to take, but in truth it creates further problems.
There are a finite number of votes to be cast within an election, and they have to go somewhere.
A third party that manages to generate a decent number of votes draws these votes from one
of the two larger parties and makes their opponent even more likely to win on a much
smaller margin.
Remember, you don't need a majority to win in FPTP, you just need the most votes.
This is the issue known as the 'spoiler effect' or 'vote splitting', and it helps to account
for why so many people have become so disillusioned with British politics.
This disenfranchisement carries on all the way up to the highest reaches of Westminster,
given that the majority of people in this country didn't actually vote for the party
that is now governing them.
To demonstrate this, let me do my best to breakdown the General Election of 2015.
In it, the Conservatives took 331 of the 650 seats in parliament and claimed the role of
governing party, with Labour taking 232 seats and becoming the official opposition.
Or, to put it another way, the Conservatives received around 36% of the total votes in
the UK and still received around 50% of the seats, with Labour taking around 35% of seats
from around 30% of the total votes thrown their way.
Not too bad so far, but here's where things get silly.
The Scottish National Party, despite receiving only 4.7% of the popular vote, nonetheless
took 56 seats in parliament, or 8.6% of the seats, which means the FPTP system essentially
doubled their deserved takings.
By contrast, the Liberal Democrats received around 2.4 million votes (almost one million
more than the SNP) yet only took eight seats.
This isn't even the worst example of the highly skewed results that FPTP creates.
The Green Party and the UK Independence Party received around 1.1 million votes and 3.9
million votes respectively (which is to say, almost triple the votes received by the SNP
between them), yet only took one seat each.
If this strikes you as unfair, that's because it is.
FPTP is a system geared towards a two-party state, introduced in a time when the only
real political contenders in the UK with the Conservatives and the Liberals.
Yet Britain is no longer a two-party state; the breakdown of votes for the various parties
competing in the 2015 elections demonstrates a wide base of support for numerous different
political entities, but our system does not accurately represent this.
The net result?
People disengaging from Britain's political systems with increasing numbers.
Not only are we as a nation losing interest in general elections, our apathy extends even
further.
Even on the referendum that decided the UK's future within the European Union, we only
managed a turnout of 72.2%.
That is to say, over a quarter of the UK's population who were able to vote in this vitally
important political issue chose not to do so.
When we compare this to the election turnouts of similarly developed nations such as France,
Germany or even Italy, it becomes evident that the UK has an increasing issue with political
engagement.
And though I personally disagree with the notion of not voting because you no longer
care to do so, I can't exactly blame people for becoming so disillusioned with FPTP.
The good news is that First Past The Post isn't the only electoral system out there.
A great number of solid alternatives exist and are in active use both within the UK (for
regional elections) and across the rest of the globe.
In Scotland, for example, we use the Single Transferable Vote system, in which each voter
ranks the candidates in order of preference.
Through a series of rounds the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and
their votes transferred to the remaining candidates as dictated by voter preference, until a candidate
is declared the winner.
It's a proportional system that actually makes sense, given that it produces a Scottish parliament
accurate to the political outlook of the country.
For instance, in the 2016 elections (though similarly plagued by a poor turnout), the
SNP received around 46% of the vote and took around 48% of the seats in the Scottish Parliament.
Similarly, the Conservatives received 22% of the vote and took around 24% of the seats.
In short, thanks to STV the make-up of the Scottish Parliament is far more representative
of the way the Scottish people voted.
Some critics of proportionally representative electoral systems may claim that the UK did
actually have a choice to adopt the alternative voting system of Instant-Runoff Voting in
the 'Alternative Vote Referendum' of 2011, in which the majority of the country voted
against AV in favour of FPTP.
This argument comes with several flaws, given the abysmal turnout of this referendum, but
a crucial aspect they fail to mention is that AV isn't a full proportionally representative
system, still comes with many of the flaws rampant in FPTP (the spoiler effect and strategic
voting still issues), and that most campaigners for electoral reform had been calling for
a better system such as STV.
AV was chosen as the opposing system to FPTP in the referendum precisely because the Conservative
government knew it was a flawed option: it made it all the easier to campaign against
with disingenuous smear tactics such as the 'one person one vote' argument and claims
that AV would give voice to extremist parties.
The Labour Party was only too happy to sit back during all this and refuse to take a
position whilst most other major parties were rallying for electoral reform.
Why?
Because both the Conservatives and Labour benefit greatly from the FPTP system: they
have for decades been the only parties ever likely to successfully form governments under
this system.
They have a vested interest in the status-quo.
If the two largest political parties have no interest in seeking reform for our electoral
system, and if the rest of the parties in the UK lack the political clout to push for
it, then change must come from the people of Britain itself.
We are the ones capable of bringing about this necessary change to try and reverse the
disengagement so many people in this country feel towards politics.
Helping to bring this about can be as simple a task as writing to your MP urging for electoral
reform, to supporting and campaigning for groups such as the Electoral Reform Society,
who have been consistently lobbying for an improved system for electing governments since
1884.
The result of the Brexit referendum has changed the political landscape of the UK, perhaps
permanently, and has laid bare the increasing gulf between the politicians who run the country
and the people who elect them.
There has never been a better time to strive for a means of creating a more representative,
open and accountable government within the country; its a cause that crosses party lines
and ideological standpoints, because a fair electoral system is a keystone of a fair democracy.
No electoral system is perfect, and I certainly am not attempting to claim otherwise.
But just because something will never be flawless does not mean we should stop trying to improve
it.
Democracy may be the worst form of government, after all, but its still far superior to the
alternatives.
Thank you for watching, friends.
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