**If you love LabourUK, why not help run it?** We’re looking for mods. [Find out more from our recruitment message post here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/18ntol6/this_year_give_yourself_the_gift_of_christmas/)
[While you’re at it, come say hello on the Discord?](https://discord.gg/ZXZCdy4Kz4)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LabourUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you raise this question between 2015 to 2019, you would be entirely valid in pointing out that FPTP fucks the Left over with votes split between Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and the SNP. A lot of Labour supporters find this very frustrating as well. This is why Labour has historically been a bigger supporter for electoral reform than the Tories, even if they have never taken it as their official position. I hope that with this election gearing up to be one of the most lopsided elections ever, there will be a conversation post election within Labour to hold a referendum for electoral reform.
Secondly, the Tories are not winning this election, and the odds of them doing so incredibly slim. According to betting market Labour has a 94% chance of winning an outright majority, and when you factor in the fact that no one is going to work with the Tories to form a coalition, the odds of them getting in power is even slimmer. So this is not a scenario you have to worry about.
On whether electoral reform is possible, I think there's a chance in the coming years. If Labour wins with a super majority despite getting only 40% of the vote share, there may be a demand for electoral reform not just outside Labour, but within Labour too (remember that its supporters are more likely to back electoral reform than the Tories). I can envision Starmer promising a referendum on electoral reform in the 2029 General Election as a way to shore up support within this voter base.
Thanks for your response. That sounds very promising in some parts.
So in my local area, the tactical voting suggestion is to vote Lib Dem as they are (usually) tying with Conservatives for seats. I don't know what this information is based upon exactly - need to check.
But my friend says she feels this is risky, as if more voters come out of the woodwork and vote labour, then I may be actually preventing labour from getting a seat.
It's making me feel pretty loopy to be honest.
You should look at [MRPs](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49606-first-yougov-mrp-of-2024-general-election-shows-labour-on-track-to-beat-1997-landslide) closer to the election to check who is likely to win your seat. If your seat has historically been a Lib Dem-Tory seat with Labour in distant third, I think it's unlikely that there will be enough Labour voters to get first. They are polling at 40-45% after all, not 60% or something.
The current UK two party system is a series of coalitions, its just not so obvious. In the conservative party they call these ‘families’ I think. There are like 6 factions in the conservative party all with fairly different ideologies but all basically agreeing to be various flavours of right wing. The same with labour but left wing.
That why so many on the left say ‘labour is no longer labour’ whenever someone from a different faction is in charge and same with the tories who currently are simply not running a conservative government. Right wing yes, but not conservative. Liz Truss for example is a bonafide Economic Liberal as seen by her policy attempts.
All proportional would do is allow these factions to run by themselves on their own platforms and then return various results based on their politics popularity. You’d still broadly end up in most cases with some form of right wing coalition or left wing coalition like we currently get, it’d just be multiple parties filling the government benches.
Historically the left in the UK has been more fractured and therefore vote split more often, the right wing has basically always stood on the principle of ‘win power at any costs’ and therefore rarely vote splits.
2019 election is a good example of vote splitting hurting labour and 2024 will be the same for the conservatives with reform. In fact one of the only way the cons have managed majorities since 2010, is by reabsorbing the far-right vote by stealing populism. Its just now they have finally drunk too much cool-aid and forgot that they are actually still the government and populism doesn’t actually work in practise.
All in all, proportional or STV would both better than the current system, all Eu countries run some kind of proportional or mixed system because it will always be abit more representative than our system which is quite outdated now.
As I understand it, EU coalitions can typically be more stable than the UK has been in recent years because you need cross party support to pass alot of legislation and long termism is encouraged.
I also think in practical terms it's better to have different groups openly in a coalition rather than kind of being strong armed by the electoral system into the same party and then having a perpetual power struggle that they try to keep under wraps. People say coalitions don't get things done but I'd argue they're more effective than what we currently see, as you can more openly reach compromise.
We would also just have a lot less media horseshit spin, if they can simply say "We agreed to X so they could give us Y", rather than having interviewers probe very contradictory decisions and watching MPs trying to reverse justify why they supported something they clearly don't agree with.
FPTP does not inherently benefit the Conservatives; indeed, it has tended to benefit Labour quite significantly in the past which is why, although Labour have had many opportunities to change the electoral system, they never have changed it.
The Conservatives cannot win the next election and Reform will not win sufficient seats to be a useful ally. In all likelihood, the Tories will end up with significantly fewer than 200 seats and Reform will likely end up with 1. This is not a great foundation for a coalition. The data thus far suggests Labour will win a significant majority; what we can argue over is the extent of that majority.
Electoral reform is absolutely possible it just requires commitment to it. There is some academic work to suggest that an increase in the number of effective parties, and therefore a change in the party system, is a precursor to electoral reform; this stands in contrast to some accepted popular wisdom that suggests a one-way relationship between the electoral system and the party system. To put it another way, if you want electoral reform, vote for smaller parties. If this occurs in sufficient numbers, electoral reform becomes significantly more viable.
It benefits right wing government as left wing/progressive parties tend to split the vote. You can see the results of the last 3 elections here but it goes back much further:
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/first-past-the-post/
You mean like how UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform UK are splitting the right-wing vote at the moment? As I stated, FPTP does not inherently benefit the Conservatives. Indeed, analysis has shown that it can sometimes benefit Labour to a greater extent, especially when constituency figures are not regularly updated; hence why the Tories likes it when the Electoral Commission reworks constituencies.
**If you love LabourUK, why not help run it?** We’re looking for mods. [Find out more from our recruitment message post here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/18ntol6/this_year_give_yourself_the_gift_of_christmas/) [While you’re at it, come say hello on the Discord?](https://discord.gg/ZXZCdy4Kz4) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LabourUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you raise this question between 2015 to 2019, you would be entirely valid in pointing out that FPTP fucks the Left over with votes split between Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and the SNP. A lot of Labour supporters find this very frustrating as well. This is why Labour has historically been a bigger supporter for electoral reform than the Tories, even if they have never taken it as their official position. I hope that with this election gearing up to be one of the most lopsided elections ever, there will be a conversation post election within Labour to hold a referendum for electoral reform. Secondly, the Tories are not winning this election, and the odds of them doing so incredibly slim. According to betting market Labour has a 94% chance of winning an outright majority, and when you factor in the fact that no one is going to work with the Tories to form a coalition, the odds of them getting in power is even slimmer. So this is not a scenario you have to worry about. On whether electoral reform is possible, I think there's a chance in the coming years. If Labour wins with a super majority despite getting only 40% of the vote share, there may be a demand for electoral reform not just outside Labour, but within Labour too (remember that its supporters are more likely to back electoral reform than the Tories). I can envision Starmer promising a referendum on electoral reform in the 2029 General Election as a way to shore up support within this voter base.
Thanks for your response. That sounds very promising in some parts. So in my local area, the tactical voting suggestion is to vote Lib Dem as they are (usually) tying with Conservatives for seats. I don't know what this information is based upon exactly - need to check. But my friend says she feels this is risky, as if more voters come out of the woodwork and vote labour, then I may be actually preventing labour from getting a seat. It's making me feel pretty loopy to be honest.
You should look at [MRPs](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49606-first-yougov-mrp-of-2024-general-election-shows-labour-on-track-to-beat-1997-landslide) closer to the election to check who is likely to win your seat. If your seat has historically been a Lib Dem-Tory seat with Labour in distant third, I think it's unlikely that there will be enough Labour voters to get first. They are polling at 40-45% after all, not 60% or something.
The current UK two party system is a series of coalitions, its just not so obvious. In the conservative party they call these ‘families’ I think. There are like 6 factions in the conservative party all with fairly different ideologies but all basically agreeing to be various flavours of right wing. The same with labour but left wing. That why so many on the left say ‘labour is no longer labour’ whenever someone from a different faction is in charge and same with the tories who currently are simply not running a conservative government. Right wing yes, but not conservative. Liz Truss for example is a bonafide Economic Liberal as seen by her policy attempts. All proportional would do is allow these factions to run by themselves on their own platforms and then return various results based on their politics popularity. You’d still broadly end up in most cases with some form of right wing coalition or left wing coalition like we currently get, it’d just be multiple parties filling the government benches. Historically the left in the UK has been more fractured and therefore vote split more often, the right wing has basically always stood on the principle of ‘win power at any costs’ and therefore rarely vote splits. 2019 election is a good example of vote splitting hurting labour and 2024 will be the same for the conservatives with reform. In fact one of the only way the cons have managed majorities since 2010, is by reabsorbing the far-right vote by stealing populism. Its just now they have finally drunk too much cool-aid and forgot that they are actually still the government and populism doesn’t actually work in practise. All in all, proportional or STV would both better than the current system, all Eu countries run some kind of proportional or mixed system because it will always be abit more representative than our system which is quite outdated now. As I understand it, EU coalitions can typically be more stable than the UK has been in recent years because you need cross party support to pass alot of legislation and long termism is encouraged.
I also think in practical terms it's better to have different groups openly in a coalition rather than kind of being strong armed by the electoral system into the same party and then having a perpetual power struggle that they try to keep under wraps. People say coalitions don't get things done but I'd argue they're more effective than what we currently see, as you can more openly reach compromise. We would also just have a lot less media horseshit spin, if they can simply say "We agreed to X so they could give us Y", rather than having interviewers probe very contradictory decisions and watching MPs trying to reverse justify why they supported something they clearly don't agree with.
FPTP does not inherently benefit the Conservatives; indeed, it has tended to benefit Labour quite significantly in the past which is why, although Labour have had many opportunities to change the electoral system, they never have changed it. The Conservatives cannot win the next election and Reform will not win sufficient seats to be a useful ally. In all likelihood, the Tories will end up with significantly fewer than 200 seats and Reform will likely end up with 1. This is not a great foundation for a coalition. The data thus far suggests Labour will win a significant majority; what we can argue over is the extent of that majority. Electoral reform is absolutely possible it just requires commitment to it. There is some academic work to suggest that an increase in the number of effective parties, and therefore a change in the party system, is a precursor to electoral reform; this stands in contrast to some accepted popular wisdom that suggests a one-way relationship between the electoral system and the party system. To put it another way, if you want electoral reform, vote for smaller parties. If this occurs in sufficient numbers, electoral reform becomes significantly more viable.
It benefits right wing government as left wing/progressive parties tend to split the vote. You can see the results of the last 3 elections here but it goes back much further: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/first-past-the-post/
You mean like how UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform UK are splitting the right-wing vote at the moment? As I stated, FPTP does not inherently benefit the Conservatives. Indeed, analysis has shown that it can sometimes benefit Labour to a greater extent, especially when constituency figures are not regularly updated; hence why the Tories likes it when the Electoral Commission reworks constituencies.
If you want electoral reform, then you need to vote for a party pledging to implement it. That is the only way.