Our voting system is broken
First Past the Post voting is causing chaos. It simply can’t deal with the multi-party politics we have today.
With five parties now polling in double digits, elections are becoming a lottery where the majority of voters are ignored.
At the last General Election, the Labour government won a whopping 63% of the seats in Parliament on just 34% of the vote.
Some polls suggest the next General Election will be even worse. It’s likely possible to win a majority in the House of Commons with little more than a QUARTER of the vote.
This isn’t how democracy is supposed to work.
The May 2026 local elections in England showed just how urgent change is. We saw Councillors up and down the country being elected despite winning vote shares nearly as low as 20%. Here's some examples -
Enough is enough. It’s time to scrap this rotten voting system.
It’s time for a new voting system
Proportional Representation voting has been backed by the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members and trade unions. Nearly 100 Labour MPs have backed an amendment calling for a National Commission on Electoral Reform. Now we have a Prime Minister who is a strong backer -
“There is nothing more unstoppable than an idea whose time has come, and PR's time has come” - Burnham, October 2025.
He's not alone in thinking that. The latest British Social Attitudes Survey showed that 53% of the public now want to change the voting system for Westminster.
Support for change has been building for decades. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already use systems of proportional representation to elect their governments. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections, which Unlock Democracy helps run, now has over 150 members from Labour, Lib Dems, Independent, Green Party, Plaid Cymru and the SNP.
Andy Burnham must lead the way and establish a National Commission on Electoral Reform to look into options for changing our voting system.
The Commission should bring together experts and citizens to expose the problems with our broken voting system, and recommend a system fit for the future.
If you agree, please sign our petition.