We The People: Proportional Representation
Another instalment of my We The People column over at Wardman Wire. I’m delaying what had been intended to be the first posts for this column yet again because this story caught my eye, and I felt in the mood to write about it. So here it is:
The Proportional Representation voting system has been rejected by ministers because it wouldn’t boost turnout:
The report said PR had resulted in more parties being represented in the devolved administrations but also had a tendency to produce coalition governments.
If PR was introduced in Westminster elections, constituencies could be represented by more than one MP, said the review.
But there is no guarantee PR would increase turnout in a general election or make Parliament more diverse, the report says.
It also warns that it could cause complications between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.” (BBC)
What Is PR?
Very basically, PR is a voting system by which seats in the legislature is supposed to be very closely matched to votes. In a pure PR system, a party who gets 35% of the votes also gets 35% of the seats. Of this, this isn’t always possible in real life, where there are often minimum vote percentage requirements for a seat - examples of this is the 4% minimum in Sweden and the 1.5% limit in Israel - hence votes don’t always equal seats.
The idea behind PR is to equally distribute seats according to votes, to make the legislature a ‘true reflection’ of the voter’s intentions. But what it also does is almost certainly mean that there isn’t a majority.
A Bad Thing For The UK
PR would be a bad thing for the UK. It simply would not work within our political system. To replace the plurality [first-past-the-post] system we use with proportional representation would be a disaster. We need to have a party with a majority in parliament for our government to work. We have a parliamentary system, and thus the government is inextricably linked to parliament. It is from parliament that it gains it’s legitimacy and power.
The ‘Westminster model’ political system requires effective government. If there is no majority held by one party in parliament, the government cannot govern. The very oppositional nature of our political system that goes with it ensures that. Coalitions do not work - Britain has never had a coalition government outside of wartime, even when the opportunity has arisen…
Read the rest here.
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