Why we don’t need electoral reform

Since the General Election last year there has been much talk about our voting system. Many have come to the conclusion that the current voting system, First Past the Post (FPTP), is an out-dated model and has resulted in the least proportional result possible. They have come to the conclusion that the whole system of FPTP needs scraping and replacing with a voting system which provides proportional representation. I do not believe that we should travel down this route.

The first claim of those who advocate a form of PR is that it is not fair that we have a system which results in a party gaining 4 million votes and only receiving one MP. But far from being a disadvantage of FPTP, the ability of it to keep out those on the political extremes is a key benefit of our current voting system. People do not want MPs representing them who resemble an angry man in the pub, someone who has a great ability to argue against ideas however never having anything constructive in the way of policies themselves. FPTP achieves this wonderfully. This is highlighted by the fact that only one constituency returned a UKIP MP and that MP is probably one of the greatest local representatives in parliament. However, this does not stifle the voice of the 4 million that voted for UKIP. They have exactly what they wanted, a referendum on our future in the EU.

With the implementation of a form of proportional representation, we lose the ability to kick out unpopular politicians. This is because they can achieve high places on their party’s lists and get in no matter what the public think of them. This is best shown with Vince Cable. At the 2010 General Election he signed the pledge to vote against any increase in tuition fees and despite this he was the cabinet level minister responsible for bringing in the £9,000 fee. This was a large abuse of his constituents trust and under our FPTP system his constituents punished him and kicked him out of office. I am under no doubt whatsoever that he would have featured at the top of his party’s list and would still be in parliament today if we implemented PR.

Proportional representation eliminates the people’s ability to pick their government and instead puts the governance of the country down to who is best at conducting deals behind the scenes. The Danish elections are a perfect example of this. The ruling party, the SDs, managed to increase their vote share and increase the number of seats they hold. In spite of this, the party that finished in a poor third, losing 7% of their vote and a quarter of their seat total from the last election managed to form a deal which saw them into government. I do not believe that these deals which do not take into account the wishes of the public are democratic or provide the most stable of governments. Indeed we have to go back to 1974 to find the last time the party that lost the public vote managed to form the Government in the UK. Even then that Government only managed to last 8 months before another vote was called.

A key advantage of the current system is that it provides the most accountability to the people. The tight link that is created by having one MP to one small, specific population means that they can truly keep a close eye on their representative. In a system of proportional representation there will be more MPs to a larger area. By asking people to spread their scrutinising eyes across many MPs you will reduce the amount of overall attention given to every MP. This makes for more freedom for them not to act in their constituents’ interests but in their own or even party interests in an attempt to move further up their party list.