Biggest-ever gap between number of votes and MPs hits Reform and Greens

15 comments

1. We tried to improve upon FPTP with AV in 2011.

   The right were strongly against it. It’s funny they’re now complaining how unfair FPTP is.

2. > The second most disproportionate election result on this metric was 2001, when Tony Blair’s Labour party won 41% of votes but 63% of total seats – a gap of 22 percentage points.

   Is it me, or is this paragraph *directly under a chart showing a higher bar somewhere between 1922 and 1950*?

3. Unfortunately we had a referendum on a different voting system and the country rejected it. And we know right wingers are dead against changing their mind

4. Any PR system would exclude the SNP, Plaid and the NI parties.

   You would need to have some kind of regional system with a regional minimum vote.

   Not too much would change in the UK as the centre left and right would likely form large coalitions.

5. Anyone expecting the Starter regime to address the democratic imbalance of FPTP will be sorely disappointed; FPTP gave them a landslide on 35% of the vote on a historic low turnout in an election that was primarily driven by a desire to “get the Tories out” – next time there won’t be any Tories to get out, and after five waisted years of austerity, PFI and crackdowns, they’ll be the hated target of a tactical voting campaign, and they’ll deploy the dirty tricks, smears and bureaucratic machinations that they wielded against their members upon the opposition and wider electorate in order to cling to power.

6. very ingesting stats, I keep seeing similar stats about Labours total votes actually being down (which I get). Yet because Tory voters stayed home, Labour have this massive win.

   I guess the logic of this comment would help Reform win more seats, but numbers are not something you argue with,

7. Straight pr system would be open to much abuse, when single issue parties that only care about immigration or Gaza would have too much influence.

8. The next 5 years, reform will forget about migrants and Nigel will spout non stop about getting rid of FPTP.

   It’s the only way he will ever gain any sort of power.

9. You’ll notice that these moaning right wingers were a-OK with Brexit Party candidates doing exactly the same thing in 2019 to only Labour seats.

   Also, no issues with Thatcher going on her neo liberal economic plans when the popular vote was consistently over 50% for the left but across split parties.

   Now it’s happened to them, it’s an issue? Do one. Although I do accept Farage has been consistent on this, doubt the same is true of his newly found ex Tory voters.

10. To hell with PR. I like having local representatives. But better representation of the populance **is** important.
    Single Transferable Vote is the way forward!

    The masses will never go for it though because it’s a little more complicated, even though it’s explainable with a single 5 minute CGP grey video about monkeys.

11. It’s not going to change anytime soon. Starmer just got handed a massive majority with only a third of the vote. He’d be a fool to scrap FPTP, even though it’s an awful voting system.

12. Oh wait, I thought this system was supposed to disproportionately favour the Tories?

    It doesn’t and never has done, remember facts don’t care about your feelings.

13. Something that people often overlook in these conversations is that people voted based on a FPTP system.

    You can’t just assume that the vote share would be replicated in a PR system so this idea that there was some imbalance between the popular vote and the number of seats won is fundamentally flawed.

14. The FPTP system isn’t perfect but it can rocket boot you up to many seats or rocket boost you down to oblivion as we’re seeing with the Labour/Conservative/Reform/Lib Dems seats.

    Personally I prefer it. I didn’t vote for Starmer myself but we need a strong government. I hope he uses his incredibly strong majority to fix Britain any way he thinks it needs to be.

15. I voted for AV (which isn’t exactly PR but in that direction); it didn’t get in. I moaned about it greatly at the time.

    I’m not going to feel sorry about the one time the current broken system actually serves my interests.