UK Politics General Discussion

[Matt N]

The right-wing are very well known to be hypocritical idiots at the best of times. The mental gymnastics many perform is often outstanding.

To be fair, I’m not sure hypocrisy is necessarily exclusive to either side of the political spectrum; not everyone with a certain political view will necessarily be a hypocrite. I’ve seen examples of hypocrisy among left wingers at times as well.

 

[flyingguitar]

To be fair, I’m not sure hypocrisy is necessarily exclusive to either side of the political spectrum; not everyone with a certain political view will necessarily be a hypocrite. I’ve seen examples of hypocrisy among left wingers at times as well.

there is some truth, but in america at least it is very clear hypocracy that goes on, typically with the right wing where the republican part will chant about how bad X issue is but then not vote for a bill that fixes X issue because the democrats published it, where the democrats are much more willing to vote for a bill pushed by republicans.

It is quite clear to me at least that in America most of the higher ups of the right wing or republicans are just bullies who win by insulting their opposition and blocking them where possible then turning around and saying that the democrats haven't solved any problems (even though it was them who was stopping the fixes)

I think they will try to bring that here, but whilst there are defiantly people who will work with it our political system is much more different, we have checks for power such as PMQ's, requirement not to lie to parliament, ethnics and the house of lords (the house of lords isn't the best systems and there are better systems, but they are there to act as a protection if X party pushes through a bill that would destroy the country they should stop it.)

whilst not perfect the fact that the ruling party is in control (unlike America where you have to control 3 institutes to make a law, so if a combative party wants to block you it is very easy for them) I think will help quite a bit allowing the part to actually solve the issues they clamed to want to solve (and thus get reasonable criticism if they don't)

TBH the one worry I have is that the Tories will see reform and then look at the success of the right wing in America, France, Germany etc and will move towards right wing talking points such as complaining that X thing says them rather than he/she or what ever BS pointless argument and the people who have always voted for tory, so vote for tory again and they are able to spread the BS, but hopefully in that senario the lib dems would take over as the more middle party and they get squeezed in between libdems and reform.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

I think they will try to bring that here, but whilst there are defiantly people who will work with it our political system is much more different, we have checks for power such as PMQ's, requirement not to lie to parliament, ethnics and the house of lords (the house of lords isn't the best systems and there are better systems, but they are there to act as a protection if X party pushes through a bill that would destroy the country they should stop it.)

We don't actually have checks and balances in our system, unlike the US which actually does. Parliament is sovereign, full stop.

PMQs carries no weight and doesn't have an impact on anything, aside from being sport for political fanboys. The requirement to lie isn't strictly enforced and whilst it breaches the Ministerial code, action is rarely taken.

The Supreme Court can make a ruling and Parliament can pass a law to undo it, to suddenly make it legal. We saw Rishi Sunak threaten this just months ago.

The House of Lords isn't a back stop because of the Parliament Act. The House of Lords can veto an act, just as they did with the Fox Hunting ban, and the Prime Minister can use a clause in the Parliament Act to push it through and make it law anyway.

Even Charlie boy can't do anything about Parliament. Every Act passed by Parliament must be given Royal assent, as the government is formed in his name, but he cannot veto any legislation passed by Parliament.

Parliament has the supreme legal authority in the country and can create or end any law without being overruled by any other body or institution.

 

[flyingguitar]

We don't actually have checks and balances in our system, unlike the US which actually does. Parliament is sovereign, full stop.

We do have check but they aren't really legal check more checks against public opinion.

The by the same logic US dosn't really have checks:
The supreme court is basically republican controlled (It isn't really a check on power though, as a political party can go around them)
The congress and the senet isn't really a check either (currently at least) with just 2 parties it is either a road block not allowing you to do anything or a free pass allowing you to do anything.

PMQs carries no weight and doesn't have an impact on anything, aside from being sport for political fanboys. The requirement to lie isn't strictly enforced and whilst it breaches the Ministerial code, action is rarely taken.

I didn't mean legal check on power, but I meant more a method of bringing up issues that matter, there is nothing even close in the US it is all show boating but the fact the essentially every week you will be grilled on your decisions will add some checks. in the US each division is divided so nothing really gets discusses if there is an issue and companies will bribe lobby the politicians to focus on the company

The House of Lords isn't a back stop because of the Parliament Act. The House of Lords can veto an act, just as they did with the Fox Hunting ban, and the Prime Minister can use a clause in the Parliament Act to push it through and make it law anyway.

True, but as we saw with the Rwanda stuff they were able to push it back and essentially protected the UK from risking a lawsuit with the EU human rights court (I think it was them, wasn't it supposed to be breaking their law) the main reason they didn't stop it was due to the fear of overruling the public vote (ish)

The Supreme Court can make a ruling and Parliament can pass a law to undo it, to suddenly make it legal. We saw Rishi Sunak threaten this just months ago.

so can the US government.

Parliament has the supreme legal authority in the country and can create or end any law without being overruled by any other body or institution.

The check we have aren't really the legal checks, but are more about checks against the public, for instance if a law is very unpopular then MP's are likely to side against it due to wanting to get voted back in, the MP's are much more local and it means you can talk to them much easier one MP per 70,000 or so vs the US where you have like 500,000 per representative and only one person per state in congress (meaning like one per 30million in some states!) it means your voice is much less likely to be heard but also due to the mixed system with state and federal stuff it is much harder pin the blame and much harder to vote out. this can be seen with london, where they had worse elections because the ULEZ (didn't labour lose 2 epecial elections due to it or something)

MP's will much more often vote against the party, you saw this during the lis truss era when MP's were voting against them in the US only like 1 or 2 vote against the party and they will get kicked out

I did say we don't have a perfect system but I would argue that this system prevents the bullying we are seeing from the US where one party can just shut down and refuse to help, then blame the other one to score points.

this is also ignoring the fact of how the US is probably less democratic than us, you can argue that the Lord of houses should be voted in, but the US has the same problem with the supreme court (and most courts TBH, which is very evident now) and due to their system of congress only having one person per state places with more people (such as California) has much less of a voice compared to people from smaller states, also the electoral system is similar.

 

[Matt N]

I’d actually argue that in presidential elections, the American voting system is possibly fairer than ours, or at very least no less fair. Admittedly, it does occasionally bring out some weird results where the popular vote loser wins, but much of the time, the elected president was voted in by at least 50% of the population. In the recent one, Trump got 49.9%, and that was one of the closest elections in recent years.

Biden comfortably cleared 50% in 2020, for example, as did Obama in his two victories.

With ours, on the other hand, Keir Starmer has 63% of the parliamentary seats and absolute control with 34% of the vote. I’m not necessarily a supporter of proportional representation per se, as I’m unconvinced that it doesn’t have equal issues of its own, but I think our current voting system is definitely somewhat odd in how vote share doesn’t correlate that closely with seats in many cases.

 

[flyingguitar]

I’d actually argue that in presidential elections, the American voting system is possibly fairer than ours. Admittedly, it does occasionally bring out some weird results where the popular vote loser wins, but much of the time, the elected president was voted in by at least 50% of the population. In the recent one, Trump got 49.9%, and that was one of the closest elections in recent years.

I would say not, the big problem with america is it isn't fair like if you live in one state your vote is worth like 30 times the amount vs another state also the boarders for regions is often drawn by the acting government, meaning they will often group people who vote one way into one county, then if other people vote for them they will spread them over more county's to gain more points to win it can be very unfair.

With ours, on the other hand, Keir Starmer has 63% of the parliamentary seats and absolute control with 34% of the vote. I’m not necessarily a supporter of proportional representation per se, as I’m unconvinced that it doesn’t have equal issues of its own, but I think our current voting system is definitely somewhat odd in how vote share doesn’t correlate that closely with seats in many cases.

I would argue this is more based on the fact that our democracy is very healthy with lots of competition with actual third parties (reform and lib dems) who actually pose a threat the us only has 2 options evil VS more evil but we have on most ballots atleast 4 (mine had 6!) if we had 2 political parties it would end up equalling to the percentages, but our system allows for smaller parties to exist and actually get seats (this year saw smaller parties get a huge amount of seats) and it allows for issues to need to be taken seriously (if X party dosn't stop a local problem Y part can step in and win that).

Edit: I also think this election people knew labour would win due to the polling, so wanted to try to vote for another party because there was little risk

 

[Thameslink Rail]

2016 US Election
Donald Trump 46%
Hilary Clinton 48%
Donald Trump still won

 

[flyingguitar]

2016 US Election
Donald Trump 46%
Hilary Clinton 48%
Donald Trump still won

yes Ignoring the recent vote any republican president since 1992 hasn't won the popular vote

 

[Matt N]

2016 US Election
Donald Trump 46%
Hilary Clinton 48%
Donald Trump still won

In fairness, that was only the 5th ever time in nearly 250 years of American presidents that the elected president didn’t win the popular vote, and the 2000 election, the last occasion before 2016, was the first in quite some time. Occasions like 2016 are weird anomalies rather than a general rule.

As a general rule, the elected US president wins the popular vote, and quite often, the elected president has over 50% of said popular vote. Biden did in 2020, Obama did in both 2008 and 2012, George W Bush did in 2004, and Donald Trump was within touching distance of 50% in 2024 (49.9%) in one of the closest elections in terms of vote share since the 1800s.

yes Ignoring the recent vote any republican president since 1992 hasn't won the popular vote

This actually isn’t true, as the Republican George W Bush won the popular vote in 2004 (50.7% vs 48.3% for John Kerry according to Wikipedia).

The US system does churn out anomalies every now and then, but our FPTP system does as well (I seem to remember hearing about a historical example in our system of a losing party in terms of vote share managing to win). I admittedly don’t know a lot about the US system at a lower level (e.g. senators, state governors). At a presidential level, I think it generally works and more often than not sees a president elected that more than 50% of the population voted for, which seems fair enough to me.

When was the last time that an elected UK majority government received more than 50% of the popular vote? I can’t think of a recent example, and I think you’d probably have to go back at least a good few decades to find one.

Granted, you’re right to say that it is different here than in the US in terms of popular vote because we’re not quite so binary (more than 34% of the electorate may broadly support a Labour government, for example, whereas you do only have the two options in the US so it is a bit more clear cut), but I think the point still stands, to some extent. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party managed 63% of the seats, an overwhelming landslide in terms of seats that pretty much gives the Labour Party absolute commanding control and gives them a huge mandate to push through their agenda, on only 34% of the popular vote under our system.

The UK’s 2024 election was hugely disproportionate among Western democratic elections, with only one 1990s election in France beating it in some measures of disproportionality and it winning as the most disproportionate election result ever in others.

 

[Dave]

Just to be clear on the American system as there are a few errors/ lack of context in the above comments.

1) Although technically Congress and the states can overrule the Supreme Court, it rules mostly on matters relating to the constitution and that is incredibly difficult to change. Two thirds of both the house and the senate have to agree the change and then three quarters of the states have to ratify it (technically two thirds of states can also propose an amendment). The last one was in 1992 and that was about pay in Congress.

2) The electoral college is a complete fudge actively designed to curb democratic votes. Voting for a single leader is the only time first past the post (total votes) would work and they chose not to do it.

3) Separation of powers is a noble sentiment but it’s long been argued the president was given too much power by the founding fathers (it was after all a nation born out of war), and the judiciary is selected by the president and senate.

4) Although the house of representatives is technically apportioned based on state size, the senate is not. California has the same population as Canada and has 2 senators, Wyoming had around 560,000 people (almost 16 times smaller than the population of London) and has 2 Senators.

 

[Dave]

In fairness, that was only the 5th ever time in nearly 250 years of American presidents that the elected president didn’t win the popular vote, and the 2000 election, the last occasion before 2016, was the first in quite some time. Occasions like 2016 are weird anomalies rather than a general rule.

As a general rule, the elected US president wins the popular vote, and quite often, the elected president has over 50% of said popular vote. Biden did in 2020, Obama did in both 2008 and 2012, George W Bush did in 2004, and Donald Trump was within touching distance of 50% in 2024 (49.9%) in one of the closest elections in terms of vote share since the 1800s.

This actually isn’t true, as the Republican George W Bush won the popular vote in 2004 (50.7% vs 48.3% for John Kerry according to Wikipedia).

The US system does churn out anomalies every now and then, but our FPTP system does as well (I seem to remember hearing about a historical example in our system of a losing party in terms of vote share managing to win). I admittedly don’t know a lot about the US system at a lower level (e.g. senators, state governors). At a presidential level, I think it generally works and more often than not sees a president elected that more than 50% of the population voted for, which seems fair enough to me.

When was the last time that an elected UK majority government received more than 50% of the popular vote? I can’t think of a recent example, and I think you’d probably have to go back at least a good few decades to find one.

Granted, you’re right to say that it is different here than in the US in terms of popular vote because we’re not quite so binary (more than 34% of the electorate may broadly support a Labour government, for example, whereas you do only have the two options in the US so it is a bit more clear cut), but I think the point still stands, to some extent. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party managed 63% of the seats, an overwhelming landslide in terms of seats that pretty much gives the Labour Party absolute control, on only 34% of the popular vote under our system.

The UK’s 2024 election was hugely disproportionate among Western democratic elections, with only one 1990s election in France beating it in some measures of disproportionality and it winning as the most disproportionate election result ever in others.

Sorry Matt but the US is almost a perfect 2 party system so you can’t really compare UK and US voting outcomes (presidential elections have 3rd parties but almost statistically insignificant).

FPTP is naff but the electoral college is also a first past the post system in most states so it’s effectively the same problem. If your candidate doesn’t win your state your vote becomes irrelevant. Hence why many want it to be a simple vote of the population.

 

[Matt N]

I wouldn’t say that either system is particularly fair on paper, but I do question whether the UK voting system is leagues fairer than that of the US like many claim. Our system can still churn out some very disproportionate results at times and have many wasted votes (as the 2024 election showed).

With all that being said, I’m not sure I’d necessarily support PR over FPTP. Yes, it is undeniably a fairer representation of popular vote share, but one concern of mine is that PR would lead to weak, paralysed government. For all its flaws, one thing FPTP does generally do is produce a stable majority government and make the process of getting things moving quite quick after the election. In some countries with PR, they spend ages forming coalitions and brokering deals after elections and things can get very messy. If PR replaced FPTP in Britain, we’d likely never have a majority government again (based on recent popular vote shares of the winning parties), and having lived through the post-2017 May government, my personal experience of minority governments is not a good one! Coalitions are all very well and good when the parties get along, but warring factions can make things messy and chaotic even in a party that has a majority in Parliament (case in point; the recently departed Tory government), so goodness knows what chaos could ensue if our governments were all multi-party coalitions!

I also wonder if PR would lead to poorer local representation in Parliament, as FPTP does directly link an elected MP to their constituency in a way that PR might not.

 

[flyingguitar]

With all that being said, I’m not sure I’d necessarily support PR over FPTP. Yes, it is undeniably a fairer representation of popular vote share, but one concern of mine is that PR would lead to weak, paralysed government. For all its flaws, one thing FPTP does generally do is produce a stable majority government and make the process of getting things moving quite quick after the election. In some countries with PR, they spend ages forming coalitions and brokering deals after elections and things can get very messy. If PR replaced FPTP in Britain, we’d likely never have a majority government again (based on recent popular vote shares of the winning parties), and having lived through the post-2017 May government, my personal experience of minority governments is not a good one! Coalitions are all very well and good when the parties get along, but warring factions can make things messy and chaotic even in a party that has a majority in Parliament (case in point; the recently departed Tory government), so goodness knows what chaos could ensue if our governments were all multi-party coalitions!

This is why I like the UK system and think it is more democratic than the US, it gives good incentives to focus on local and national issues for an MP and since the ruling party is the party with the most votes they actually can do stuff, the US you have similar or often worse representation very little accountability and quite an unfair system that can often leave the popular party unable to do anything without essentially allowing the other party to rule, the US system isn't good for 2 party system but because it has become a 2 party system it isn't as good of a democracy as due to the number of votes required starting a third party is essentially impossible and even if you could get the votes it is often unfairly set up with boundaries being made which group people to ensure that one party wins.

2) The electoral college is a complete fudge actively designed to curb democratic votes. Voting for a single leader is the only time first past the post (total votes) would work and they chose not to do it.

4) Although the house of representatives is technically apportioned based on state size, the senate is not. California has the same population as Canada and has 2 senators, Wyoming had around 560,000 people (almost 16 times smaller than the population of London) and has 2 Senators.

this is another couple things the US is really unfair, if you are a farmer in a state you have like 30 times the voting power of someone who is in a city (it dose vary for people in the UK but is very similar), this happens in both the senate and presidential election, less so in the house of representatives but it still happens as it is a really stupid system:

Presidential votes: electoral college, basically 538 votes in total spread across the states with more going to states with larger populations, but since the minimum is 1 vote per state you end up with a vote in a state with less people being worth significantly more than a vote in a state with more people. the way these votes are handed out varies by state to state but are typically all given to the winner of the state (so it is possible to will 100% with just 51% of the vote)

Senate: each state gets 2 representatives no mate the population leading to very unfair systems such as California having the same representation as Wyoming, as shown above, to drive this home imagine the people of Bristol having the same representation as the people of Poland, or Canada, or Ukraine, it emans they often prioritise the smaller states as they have more power.

house of representatives: similar to electoral college where about 450 are elected with it being proportional to population but similar problems happen where smaller states have to have at least one meaning bigger states have less power

notice the trend of larger stated having less power and smaller states having more? makes a very unfair system even before you consider the fact many people can't vote for the US president such as those in DC or in other "territories" our system is much more equal and fair in comparison, to drive this home a vote in Nevada is worth 750 times that worth in California (https://wallethub.com/edu/how-much-is-your-vote-worth/7932).

as I said I don't think it is perfect, one of the things I think could make a positive impact would be ranked choice voting, it allows you to rank your votes so the votes are tallied for each candidate then the lowest voted MP votes goes to what ever they put as second on their ballot and repeat until you have the winner it also allows for you to just tick one option, only rank a couple etc I think it is better as it encourages voting for what you want and not really having to think much about tactical voting.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

if there is an issue and companies will bribe lobby the politicians to focus on the company

Lobbying is a massive issue over here too. See David Cameron and the Greensill scandal, or the COVID PPE fast lane.

True, but as we saw with the Rwanda stuff they were able to push it back and essentially protected the UK from risking a lawsuit with the EU human rights court (I think it was them, wasn't it supposed to be breaking their law) the main reason they didn't stop it was due to the fear of overruling the public vote (ish)

There is no such thing as the EU Human Rights Court. A further point is that as we're no longer in the EU, we are not subject to EU legislation. We have carried over lots of EU legislation, but we have the sovereign power to create new legislation to undo this or update this.

The European Court of Human Rights is a court in the Council of Europe which we are members of, as part of our adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is not associated with the EU. You do not need to be an EU member to be a signatory.

The European Court of Human Rights has no enforcement power and whilst it's considered to be the most effective international court, countries can and do ignore their ruling because they are sovereign in their own right. Russia, a former member, being a famous example only ever implementing 10% of rulings.

Additionally, Parliament has the power and authority to suspend the Human Rights Act applicability to any legislation it wants. They can include provisions within a new law that explicitly state the Human Rights Act, or specific sections of it, do not apply to that particular law.

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 includes measures like Temporary Exclusion Orders (TEOs), allowing the government to restrict the movement and activities of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities, even if there isn't enough evidence for prosecution. To do this they've had to pass clauses within the act suspending HRA from applying in certain circumstances.

The check we have aren't really the legal checks, but are more about checks against the public, for instance if a law is very unpopular then MP's are likely to side against it due to wanting to get voted back in

This isn't true. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increased police powers to restrict protests, leading to concerns about freedom of speech and assembly. There were widespread protests against the bill, and polls showed a significant portion of the public opposed its measures. It passed anyway.

The Elections Act 2022 forced photographic voter ID for UK elections for the first time and was equally unpopular with the public, it also passed.

There are plenty of other examples of Parliament passing legislation which is generally considered to be unpopular with the voting public, without much consequence. The biggest issue here is that public opinion isn't always black and white, it's nuanced and varies massively, meaning that it rarely acts as a check against power.

this is also ignoring the fact of how the US is probably less democratic than us

Mostly because this is the UK politics thread and my point is that UK Parliament is sovereign and doesn't have checks and balances, there is no concept here. The ruling party in the House of Commons, provided they have a decent majority, can and will push through any legislation they want; there is no outside scrutiny. The House of Commons can overrule the Lords. The House of Commons can overrule the courts, local, Supreme and international. The House of Commons can overrule the Head of State.

 

[rob666]

Hence the poll tax riots.
Maggie forced the legislation through regardless.
In the end, only the governed population can force change to the rules in the end, through direct action, and of course, voting.
Edit...nice coincidence, ten minutes later, go into the kitchen...6 Music has an old news/music montage..."Poll Tax riots in the centre of London".

 

[flyingguitar]

This isn't true. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increased police powers to restrict protests, leading to concerns about freedom of speech and assembly. There were widespread protests against the bill, and polls showed a significant portion of the public opposed its measures. It passed anyway.

The Elections Act 2022 forced photographic voter ID for UK elections for the first time and was equally unpopular with the public, it also passed.

There are plenty of other examples of Parliament passing legislation which is generally considered to be unpopular with the voting public, without much consequence. The biggest issue here is that public opinion isn't always black and white, it's nuanced and varies massively, meaning that it rarely acts as a check against power.

but there has been consequences to this, for this bill and other reasons such as party gate the PM was kicked out and replaced, the reason it isn't talked about much is because the s*** show the Tories have done distracted from this, and the biggest consequence was the 2024 election with them being kicked out from most seats.

There is no such thing as the EU Human Rights Court. A further point is that as we're no longer in the EU, we are not subject to EU legislation. We have carried over lots of EU legislation, but we have the sovereign power to create new legislation to undo this or update this.

The European Court of Human Rights is a court in the Council of Europe which we are members of, as part of our adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is not associated with the EU. You do not need to be an EU member to be a signatory.

The European Court of Human Rights has no enforcement power and whilst it's considered to be the most effective international court, countries can and do ignore their ruling because they are sovereign in their own right. Russia, a former member, being a famous example only ever implementing 10% of rulings.

I miss remembered the name, but that is international politics and the law of every country is the same, there is no enforcement power against any country leadership in any country, the US doesn't have much as if you try to sue them they claim Sovern immunity and can't be sued only the stated can sue or they could just modify the law so the other law is legal. the reason to obey the court is because international politics is complex and if you don't obey that other countries will probably try to force you to ensure the court it followed and taken seriously.

Lobbying is a massive issue over here too. See David Cameron and the Greensill scandal, or the COVID PPE fast lane.

I didn't say it didn't happen here, just that America seems to be a democracy for businesses not people but also all of your comments are scandals that came to light and people don't like it. this happens all the time in America in comparison.

Mostly because this is the UK politics thread and my point is that UK Parliament is sovereign and doesn't have checks and balances, there is no concept here. The ruling party in the House of Commons, provided they have a decent majority, can and will push through any legislation they want; there is no outside scrutiny. The House of Commons can overrule the Lords. The House of Commons can overrule the courts, local, Supreme and international. The House of Commons can overrule the Head of State.

I have said it before but because of how America is structured the US people has less of a voice, you can argue that legaly there are less protections in the UK but that is really true anywhere as the US is probably going to become a dictatorship if it continues with this trump, laws can be rewritten easily only acception is the constitution but you can make changes to the law to prevent the people who you don't like from those rights, for instance lets take the right to fair elections the party could make a law that anyone who supports X group (who are supported by the other party such as LGBTQ+ for dems or Trump for republicans) are bad people and bad people can't run for office then you have an excuse to not allow any of your opposition whilst having fair elections.

my point was also that in the UK your voice acctually matters the US your voice may matter if you are a section of the people where the electoral college likes and thus you have like 750 times the voting power as other US citizens.

 

[rob666]

If you live in a strong "left" or "right" constituency, and your personal views are the opposite, your vote never matters.
Ever.

 

[flyingguitar]

If you live in a strong "left" or "right" constituency, and your personal views are the opposite, your vote never matters.
Ever.

True, but in America unless you are like one of like 40 million who lives in one of the swing states it is pointless to vote as well as all the votes go to one electoral vote (or 2 senate, or how ever many congress) and almost always it is if you get above 50% you get all the electoral votes for that state. america has parts which should be proportional such as the presedential votes and house of congress but they are done similar but in a worse way to our system imagine the entire north being only one constituency but having 100 or so MP's it would be much more unfair

The truth is there is no perfect system proportional systems end up with fair voting nationally but there is little local representation and often there is no major party which leads to instability (see italy). I did say our system isn't perfect and I would prefer to see changes such as ranked choice voting allowing votes to build up.

 

[Matt.GC]

I would also politely disagree with your notion that two dominating parties is a recent and short-lived phenomenon. 2010 and 2017 were notable recent exceptions to a decades-long norm of majority governments; those two elections were the first since 1974 to return a hung parliament, and that election was the first since pre-war years to return a hung parliament, I believe. Until the 2010s, hung parliaments were not at all common, and the result was typically a more clear cut Conservative-Labour face off, with the combined vote share of the two parties typically being at least 70%, often approaching or over 80%. 2017’s vote share for the two main parties was 82%, 2019’s was 76%, and you look back to the latter half of the 20th century, the combined vote share for the two main parties was routinely comfortably over 70%.

Going back to this, and it is relevant to what has been discussed since, I think the theme running through most of the debate is common misconceptions that we all make, including me, about how our democracy works.

In its rawest form, we all just vote for an MP to represent our interests in parliament. It's fair and completely proportional as we don't technically vote for an executive power directly, we rely on our elected representatives to decide national governance for us. The individual candidate with the most votes wins, and we give them the power to go and do their thing. Winner takes all at constituency level. That's our role in national democracy done.

Completely different to America, where representatives and congressmen, who represent constituencies at a federal level, are elected individually, and separately from that of the national executive power. There's no justification for presidential elections not being purely PR based.

That MP actually has complete control of what they do. They can technically become Prime Minister if they have the confidence of enough MP's regardless of which 'party' they belong to. They always have a free vote on all legislation, whips are just party enforcers, the MP still chooses. They can pick and choose a party they want to belong to, or sit as an independent.

Any MP (as well as lords) can hold a government position. If you live in Clacton and are really proud of the MP you voted for, there's no written rule saying he couldn't be appointed Chancellor tomorrow by Starmer. He could hold surgeries, become close with the needs of his constituents, decide that he's actually got it all wrong, have a change of heart of change direction to represent their needs and leave his party, sit as an independent, or join another.

Just because this system encourages MP's to ally themselves into vehicle groups as it makes complete sense to do so, they don't have to. Political parties are exactly this in their rawest form. Just individual MP's forming unions to become collectively more powerful. Strength in numbers. And those unions they form can change over time, there's nothing to say one has to be called a set name or support certain ideologies. They are what they need to be. Times change, people change, membership changes, issues change.

The SNP at its core used to be a right wing nationalist party. Still nationalist but a left wing one now. This has been electorally effective, amassing a group of MP's wielding enormous power in comparison to national vote share, and surpressing the chances of a Labour government at UK level.

The Liberal Democrats are wildly different to the Whig derived Liberal party of David Lloyd George. Nick Cleggs party that formed a coalition with the Tories, seemed quite different to Steel and MacLennan's Social and Liberal Democratic Party of 1988 following the merger of Liberals and a the Labour party breakaway group derived SDP.

Atlee's deeply routed socialist party, founded a mere 45 years by trade unions as a workers party before he became prime minister, was called Labour. Blair's Third way social democratic party was also called 'New' Labour, quite different, and probably further to the right than the conservatives of the 1960's.

The post war consensus accepting Tories of the 50's and 60's were a far cry from the Conservative traditionalists of Churchill's party. Thatchers Conservatives have little in common with both, adopting Neo-Liberal capitalism as the new core, quite a remarkable change that endures to this day and also changed opposing parties.

Despite their namesakes and glossy "our history" sections of their websites that proudly display figures of the past, most political parties have little to do with any of them. And they don't do so in an evolutionary kind of way either, more like shape shifting to stay relevant as politics and the electorate changes. The most overriding ideology will always be existence as a political force.

Whatever it's called, whatever it believes in, whoever joins it, whoever it forms alliances with, whoever merges with it, whatever it's rules and constitution says, main political parties are just MP's and members organising behind a vehicle in which to achieve influence and power.

Labour has suffered for decades from pressure from other parties, and did what it took last year, alongside other parties, to achieve its real aim as a political force.

The Conservatives seem to be at the start of a similar journey as of now, and who knows what will happen? Do a Blair and pick the parts of enemy clothing you think will win with the electorate but also be tolerated with the membership? Chase Reform? Merge with Reform? Destroy Reform? Form electoral alliances? Go left? Go right? Go Liberal? Go authoritarian? Do a Thatcher and go for something new? Do a Corbyn and try and rewind the clock? Change name? Change colours? Spilt the enemy?

Whatever happens, hung parliaments or not, this system will always favour a collective of MP's that are able to form a government together. This doesn't have to be the in the form of formal political parties, they don't even have to exist, it just makes sense for them to do so. A parliament would be hung if enough individual MP's couldn't agree to form a government together.

So nothing has really changed when you think of it like that. In reality, a collection of individually elected MP's have chosen to work with eachother under an umbrella organisation branded 'Labour' (some also Co-operative party) to form a government together. All other individual MP's have chosen not to, so are all in opposition as a result, no matter which party they belong to. Political parties don't win elections in reality, only individual MP's do in their individual seats.

So it's all more to do with the way MP's organise themselves than anything else. It's not a recent phenomenon at all. Over many decades there's been a significant amount of splits, mergers, new parties, new movements, independent MP's, defections, hung parliaments, coalitions, deals, cross party committees, coining of the phrase "broad church" etc, and, most importantly, the most successful parties themselves have fundamentally changed numerous times if you look beyond the 'Labour' or 'Conservative' branding. I'd say the outlier years were actually the 1940's to 1970's for both major vehicles being able to shape shift and organise as well as they did. And until opposition MP's can learn how to do this now, they won't achieve power.

 

[Dave]

I wouldn’t say that either system is particularly fair on paper, but I do question whether the UK voting system is leagues fairer than that of the US like many claim. Our system can still churn out some very disproportionate results at times and have many wasted votes (as the 2024 election showed).

With all that being said, I’m not sure I’d necessarily support PR over FPTP. Yes, it is undeniably a fairer representation of popular vote share, but one concern of mine is that PR would lead to weak, paralysed government. For all its flaws, one thing FPTP does generally do is produce a stable majority government and make the process of getting things moving quite quick after the election. In some countries with PR, they spend ages forming coalitions and brokering deals after elections and things can get very messy. If PR replaced FPTP in Britain, we’d likely never have a majority government again (based on recent popular vote shares of the winning parties), and having lived through the post-2017 May government, my personal experience of minority governments is not a good one! Coalitions are all very well and good when the parties get along, but warring factions can make things messy and chaotic even in a party that has a majority in Parliament (case in point; the recently departed Tory government), so goodness knows what chaos could ensue if our governments were all multi-party coalitions!

I also wonder if PR would lead to poorer local representation in Parliament, as FPTP does directly link an elected MP to their constituency in a way that PR might not.

I think you have bought into the rights misinformation about PR there. Coalitions are not be default slow to form nor slow to act as a government. Historically Germany has had a very stable government, its only recently that it has had struggles.

Also you could argue that the last coalition in this country curbed the worse excesses of the Tories, as they couldn’t do everything they wanted. Once they had absolute power (without a majority of votes) then they went full evil.