A voting system game of chicken - who will blink first?

We live in a country where politics has been dominated by a two-party system for a hundred years. And the only thing that changed a hundred years ago was one party replaced another party in that two party system. 

And the voting system we’ve used all that time is designed to work with our two-party system party. It has nurtured, protected and effectively seen off challenges to it. It has survived because, at the end of the day, voters have been willing to put their faith in one of the two parties that the system protects.

But in the 2024 General Election, the two-parties in the system only won 58% of the vote between them. The system still did its job - giving those two parties 532 of the 650 seats, but it represented the most serious threat the two-party system has seen in 100 years. 

In the 18 months that have followed, that threat has increased exponentially. Current polls show the two parties of the two-party system now polling under 40% between them. In this year’s Welsh and Scottish elections, it looks likely that Labour and the Conservatives will finish in 3rd and 4th place, or possibly worse. 

The most recent YouGov poll had Reform UK in first place with 26% of the vote and the Liberal Democrats in 5th place on 14%. In Wales, Plaid lead Reform UK, in Scotland, it’s the SNP leading Reform UK. Multi-party politics is here and looks like it’s here to stay for a while.

But that brings us back to our voting system. It simply doesn’t work for multi-party politics. 

Labour won its whopping majority in 2024 on just 34% of the vote thanks to the First Past the Post voting system. Two-thirds of the seats on barely one-third of the vote. A government with a landslide majority that two-thirds of the country did not vote for!

Now we regularly see projections for the next election that show that our next government could win a majority with as low as 27% of the vote. A government that nearly three quarters of the people opposed. 

Does this really sound like democracy? 

Last May, we saw the West of England Mayor elected with 25% of the vote. The turnout was just 30%, which means that they were elected with the support of just 7.5% of eligible voters. They now control a budget of hundreds of millions of pounds and set policy for an area of around a million people.

Welcome to First Past the Past voting in an era of multi-party politics. We even saw a council election where the ‘winner’ was elected with less than 20% of the vote.

And people wonder why trust in our politics is so low. It’s the equivalent of going into a restaurant and asking for the largest steak, and then being given a vegan salad instead. Except there you can send it back to the kitchen, unlike an election where once it is over, you’re stuck with whatever First Past the Post threw up to you! 

There’s two possible ways out of this. First we could set up a National Commission for electoral reform to look at replacing our current electoral system. 

There is strong public support for changing the electoral system - last year’s British Social Attitudes survey showed 60% in support. Recent polling presented by Sir John Curtice shows that Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Reform UK, Green, SNP and Plaid voters ALL back changing the voting system.

With a system of proportional representation (PR), people will get what they actually vote for. Win two-thirds of the vote and you secure two-thirds of the seats. Sounds pretty fair doesn’t it?

With the multi-party politics we have now, PR is the only way you can translate votes into seats. 

The other way out of this mess is that voters need to go back to voting for one of two parties - it could be the same two parties as they have for the last hundred years, or a different mix. Then First Past the Post can carry on doing its thing.

Either the voting system needs to change, or voters need to go back to two-party voting. These two options are driving straight at each other, like a democratic game of chicken. Which will blink first?

Another First Past the Post election could see our next government elected on barely a quarter of the vote - a vote share that would have lost every single General Election that’s ever happened in the UK. How could the ‘winner’ plausibly claim any kind of mandate, on such a small share of the vote?

How will the other three-quarters of the population who voted against them feel about democracy should this happen?

We’re pretty sure that these aren’t questions we want to have to deal with - especially at a time where democracy is under attack around the world. 

Voters don’t show any signs of wanting to return to having to pick one of two parties. They seem to like having more to choose from - that can only be good in a democracy.

May’s elections will add to the urgency when we see First Past the Post failing electors in English local elections, while in Wales and Scotland, voters can be more sure of getting an outcome much closer to what they actually vote for. 

Britain is known for keeping calm and carrying on - this shouldn’t apply here. Our electoral system can’t cope with the politics we have. Failure to tackle this risks our democracy and our future.

We need electoral reform now.