Proportional Representation Stands in the Way of the Far Right
In France and now Germany, we are seeing the disturbing rise of far right political parties. But while those parties are getting a lot of headlines, they are not getting hands on power.
The reason for that is that both countries do not have First Past the Post voting systems.
In France for national elections, there’s two-round voting. In Germany, proportional representation is in use. Both countries use PR for European elections.
With First Past the Post voting, whichever party gets the most votes usually wins a majority of the seats. In our recent General Election, Labour won nearly 2/3rds of the seats, despite gaining barely a 1/3rd of the vote.
In France and Germany, National Rally and the AfD (both far right parties) won similar shares of the vote to Labour in the UK, but were only awarded a third of the seats - leaving them well outnumbered after the election
Just look at the difference between these results -
The Insurance Voters Need:
With non First Past the Post voting systems in France and Germany, it is virtually impossible for a party to get a majority of seats without winning the majority of the votes. In the UK, it is all too easy to do exactly that!
The bottom line is that the electoral system in France and Germany is protecting the voters from any one party (of any type!) taking unfettered power without earning the votes to do so. It’s like insurance for voters!
That’s proving bad news for parties like National Rally and the AfD which would threaten democratic values if they were to take control.
No doubt there will be people on the far-right of politics in France and Germany who look at the UK’s electoral system and wish the same system was in place in their nations.
There’s no doubt that, if France had the UK’s electoral system and people voted the same way, National Rally would have won the majority of seats in the French elections. Instead they won around a quarter of the seats.
The Danger of First Past the Post Voting:
While Proportional Representation creates a high bar for winning absolute power, the bar for winning power in the UK’s First Past the Post voting system has never been lower.
In the last 6 General Elections, only one majority Government was elected with more than 40% of the vote. The other three majority governments were elected with much smaller vote sizes :
Tony Blair won a size-able majority in 2005 with a 35% of the vote.
David Cameron won a narrow majority with 37% of the vote.
Keir Starmer won a huge majority with just 34% of the vote.
Only recently, the Reform Party’s new Chair said that 32% of the vote would win a majority for his party.
He’s not wrong to think this either. The First Past The Post system meant that Reform only won 5 MPs this time despite winning 14% of the vote. If Reform won just 1-2% more votes concentrated in the right seats, they could have won more seats than the Conservatives. They would be the official opposition right now.
First Past the Post can help small parties if their support is concentrated. In 2015, the SNP won 56 MPs on less than 5% of the vote. It punishes parties with thinly spread support - in 1983, the SDP/Liberal Alliance won just 23 MPs despite winning more than 25% of the vote.
Millions of people have voted for the Green Party since 2010 and until this election they only had one MP. Even now they only have 4 MPs after winning more than 6% of the vote.
This isn’t how things should work in a democracy.
Unlock Democracy believes in vibrant, inclusive democracy that puts people in charge. First Past The Post voting does the opposite of this.
No party, left or right, extremist or centrist should be able to win a majority of seats without a majority of votes. When 2/3rds of people vote against a party, then that party shouldn’t be able to form a majority Government!
Only First Past the Post allows this to happen and it is a gaping weakness in our democracy.
It’s time to change our electoral system.