Yeah, there’s no point me beating up this robber in my house unless I’m going to get rid of all the robbers at a time.
Guess I’ll just let the robber crack on ?
Which they won’t do.
No one who wins a majority will ever touch the voting system. And if pressed then they can cling to “the people voted for FPTP”.
It’s not going to happen. Labour and the Conservatives have a little cartel going in which they alternate in government.
There’s still a point in them winning. But yea, it would be nice if somebody could fix our ridiculous system
to me this is the single most important issue in the UK right now, I see everything else (crumbling services, poor infrastructure development, brexit) as a symptom stemming from our pseudo-democracy
right now it’s zero-sum game, when the tories do badly then labour gains and vice versa… that just encourages divisive wedge issues and more extremist politics to shore up a voter base… take the triple lock for example, I’m sure both parties know it needs addressing in some form or another, as it’s financially unsustainable, but it’s politically untenable to address it without the other side crying foul (see also NHS reform, May’s dementia tax etc)
voter reform is no panacea but it would encourage parties to campaign for their side rather than merely *against* the other side, reducing toxic politics and giving clearer mandates for the parties that win power – right now for example people might vote tory for any number of reasons, but if there were different ‘flavours’ of tory then it would be clearer what policy positions the electorate favoured (and the same goes for labour of course)
I imagine it would be incredibly disruptive and make for a hard few years, but the UK would be far stronger coming out of it!
What a position of privilege the author must be in if electoral reform is the only thing they feel is important right now…
What an absolutely ridiculous headline.
Electoral reform is important but dealing with the economy, the NHS, education policy, etc all sit as more important
Yeah no point at all best keep a party in that saw 3 pm in a year including one that crash the economy every time she woke up.
No point at all
What a god awful take.
There’s no point in x unless it does exactly what I want. Therefore I’d rather accept the status quo than any form of change despite it getting me closer to my ideal. This is the dumbest thing I’ve read from the guardian in a long time. EDIT on reread it’s even worse. Some pseudo intellectual point about politics being skewed and some ego humble bragging about polling data whilst making the exact same argument and case for PR that we’ve had for the last 3 decades of my life. Nothing to further the conversation. Just another generic blog post about FPTP being favourable to the right wing.
Someone really smart once said politics is like catching a bus. If a bus doesn’t go to your destination, you catch the one that gets you closest.
I’d love some of that juicy electoral reform, but I can wait 2 or 3 cycles for that, right now I’d rather have these robbing corrupt bastards out so we can start to fix things.
Voting reform and campaign financing are the biggest issues. Without resolving those fundamental issues future governments will always pass legislation with the aim of not rocking the boat of the donor class rather than insuring the welfare of the public.
They have to offer something. I see two important issues for this country:
1. Soft Brexit
2. Electoral Reform
And if Labour is not happy to commit to either of them, you have to wonder how they are any different from the Conservatives.
Neither of the two parties who benefit from FPTP (that’s the Tories and Labour, just in case anyone was confused) will seek to change it as it means they will never hold absolute power again.
Whilst that would be good for the people and democracy in general, it would be bad for their personal power trips. So it won’t happen until the people demand it.
This being the UK, people are more likely to get upset that protestors causing disruption, rather than the complete democratic deficit we have to endure.
I kind of agree, I genuinely think it might be our last chance
What an absolutely stupid take when so many people are suffering dire financial problems, food poverty, dental and health delays and many other deprivations a Labour government would help solve.
Reality is that something as significant as changing to PR (or any other electoral system) would probably require some sort of referendum.
I’m not convinced it would meet the necessary threshold of votes needed for a change.
While I want to see electoral reform, there is absolutely thousands of reasons for Labour winning the next GE.
Haha – nice one. Good luck getting either Labour or the Conservatives to change the only electoral system that (almost) consistently delivers them solid majorities/landslides. Turkies would never vote for Christmas.
“labour labour labour”
fuck this washed down tory clan
fuck you, person who’s replying saying “its them or the tories” – you’re the reason voting in this country is so apathetic, there are other parties, we are not america, we are not binary
Yeah that’s a very middle class view that doesn’t truly comprehend how bad things are right now.
The tories are not managing the country like they used to, they are actively destroying us. People qre literally dying daily because of them.
Getting rid of FPTP doesn’t prevent right-wing governments in itself though. Look at Italy or Israel.
Watch all the FPTP proponents go to sleep as soon as the Tories are out.
If Labour DO get in and they don’t get rid of FPTP I’m going to lose all faith in them. What’s the bloody point in democracy if it can’t be used to make real change?
Ultimately, when Labour do inevitably get back into government the same power centres will still hold all the cards. The oligarch media, the financiers, the party donors, the multimillionaires, the billionaires, the multination corporations.
There’ll be a new party in and a new set of faces. They’ll probably even be a lot more competent. But will there be a real change in the distribution of wealth and power? No, absolutely not.
Labour is a basically the Tory party now. This is what people wanted. And they got it. Fuckers will change nothing.
TIL Starmer and Rayner have both said they’re not convinced enough by proportional representation to want it.
FPTP is undemocratic and designed to favour the right in the Uk. We have suffered decades of majority Tory governments with just a minority of voters behind them.
I completely disagree,
Would it be nice if the electoral system was fixed? Yes, it would be amazing.
But that’s not the only thing that would be nice. If we graphed the general state of the UK over the last 20 years there would be a general downward trend over it, much steeper since Brexit & covid ofc.
Saying that there’s no point in Labour winning unless they can fully reverse that trend is ridiculous. Even lessening the steepness of that trend would be better than another term of Tories.
They seem to be fully committed to driving us towards a complete nosedive on that graph.
Yes there would be absolutely no point Labour winning if they don’t get rid of FPTP.
We might as well have another 20 years of Tory rule, it would be no different to Labour being power. They have identical policies and attitudes on everything.
Christ, we already have a situation have half of under 35s don’t vote, do we really need people inventing more excuses for people not to bother?
Labour would be better because they aren’t the fucking Tories. Even a new Blair would be better what we have at the moment.
They’re gunna win by a big margin most likely, so that will never happen.
Why would the winners dismantle the system that allowed them to win.
Which. They. Won’t. Cos that system they want to deconstruct is the same system that got them elected. The snake is eating itself again. What does Owen Jones think?
And why would they? In 2005, Labour won a solid majority on only 35% of the vote. They benefit from FPTP as much as the Tories do.
Why not just throw a golden potato in the house of lords and whoever catches it gets to be prime minister, because that’s basically the system we have now.
33 comments
Yeah, there’s no point me beating up this robber in my house unless I’m going to get rid of all the robbers at a time.
Guess I’ll just let the robber crack on ?
Which they won’t do.
No one who wins a majority will ever touch the voting system. And if pressed then they can cling to “the people voted for FPTP”.
It’s not going to happen. Labour and the Conservatives have a little cartel going in which they alternate in government.
There’s still a point in them winning. But yea, it would be nice if somebody could fix our ridiculous system
to me this is the single most important issue in the UK right now, I see everything else (crumbling services, poor infrastructure development, brexit) as a symptom stemming from our pseudo-democracy
right now it’s zero-sum game, when the tories do badly then labour gains and vice versa… that just encourages divisive wedge issues and more extremist politics to shore up a voter base… take the triple lock for example, I’m sure both parties know it needs addressing in some form or another, as it’s financially unsustainable, but it’s politically untenable to address it without the other side crying foul (see also NHS reform, May’s dementia tax etc)
voter reform is no panacea but it would encourage parties to campaign for their side rather than merely *against* the other side, reducing toxic politics and giving clearer mandates for the parties that win power – right now for example people might vote tory for any number of reasons, but if there were different ‘flavours’ of tory then it would be clearer what policy positions the electorate favoured (and the same goes for labour of course)
I imagine it would be incredibly disruptive and make for a hard few years, but the UK would be far stronger coming out of it!
What a position of privilege the author must be in if electoral reform is the only thing they feel is important right now…
What an absolutely ridiculous headline.
Electoral reform is important but dealing with the economy, the NHS, education policy, etc all sit as more important
Yeah no point at all best keep a party in that saw 3 pm in a year including one that crash the economy every time she woke up.
No point at all
What a god awful take.
There’s no point in x unless it does exactly what I want. Therefore I’d rather accept the status quo than any form of change despite it getting me closer to my ideal. This is the dumbest thing I’ve read from the guardian in a long time. EDIT on reread it’s even worse. Some pseudo intellectual point about politics being skewed and some ego humble bragging about polling data whilst making the exact same argument and case for PR that we’ve had for the last 3 decades of my life. Nothing to further the conversation. Just another generic blog post about FPTP being favourable to the right wing.
Someone really smart once said politics is like catching a bus. If a bus doesn’t go to your destination, you catch the one that gets you closest.
I’d love some of that juicy electoral reform, but I can wait 2 or 3 cycles for that, right now I’d rather have these robbing corrupt bastards out so we can start to fix things.
Voting reform and campaign financing are the biggest issues. Without resolving those fundamental issues future governments will always pass legislation with the aim of not rocking the boat of the donor class rather than insuring the welfare of the public.
They have to offer something. I see two important issues for this country:
1. Soft Brexit
2. Electoral Reform
And if Labour is not happy to commit to either of them, you have to wonder how they are any different from the Conservatives.
Neither of the two parties who benefit from FPTP (that’s the Tories and Labour, just in case anyone was confused) will seek to change it as it means they will never hold absolute power again.
Whilst that would be good for the people and democracy in general, it would be bad for their personal power trips. So it won’t happen until the people demand it.
This being the UK, people are more likely to get upset that protestors causing disruption, rather than the complete democratic deficit we have to endure.
I kind of agree, I genuinely think it might be our last chance
What an absolutely stupid take when so many people are suffering dire financial problems, food poverty, dental and health delays and many other deprivations a Labour government would help solve.
Reality is that something as significant as changing to PR (or any other electoral system) would probably require some sort of referendum.
I’m not convinced it would meet the necessary threshold of votes needed for a change.
While I want to see electoral reform, there is absolutely thousands of reasons for Labour winning the next GE.
Haha – nice one. Good luck getting either Labour or the Conservatives to change the only electoral system that (almost) consistently delivers them solid majorities/landslides. Turkies would never vote for Christmas.
“labour labour labour”
fuck this washed down tory clan
fuck you, person who’s replying saying “its them or the tories” – you’re the reason voting in this country is so apathetic, there are other parties, we are not america, we are not binary
Yeah that’s a very middle class view that doesn’t truly comprehend how bad things are right now.
The tories are not managing the country like they used to, they are actively destroying us. People qre literally dying daily because of them.
Getting rid of FPTP doesn’t prevent right-wing governments in itself though. Look at Italy or Israel.
Watch all the FPTP proponents go to sleep as soon as the Tories are out.
If Labour DO get in and they don’t get rid of FPTP I’m going to lose all faith in them. What’s the bloody point in democracy if it can’t be used to make real change?
Ultimately, when Labour do inevitably get back into government the same power centres will still hold all the cards. The oligarch media, the financiers, the party donors, the multimillionaires, the billionaires, the multination corporations.
There’ll be a new party in and a new set of faces. They’ll probably even be a lot more competent. But will there be a real change in the distribution of wealth and power? No, absolutely not.
Labour is a basically the Tory party now. This is what people wanted. And they got it. Fuckers will change nothing.
TIL Starmer and Rayner have both said they’re not convinced enough by proportional representation to want it.
FPTP is undemocratic and designed to favour the right in the Uk. We have suffered decades of majority Tory governments with just a minority of voters behind them.
I completely disagree,
Would it be nice if the electoral system was fixed? Yes, it would be amazing.
But that’s not the only thing that would be nice. If we graphed the general state of the UK over the last 20 years there would be a general downward trend over it, much steeper since Brexit & covid ofc.
Saying that there’s no point in Labour winning unless they can fully reverse that trend is ridiculous. Even lessening the steepness of that trend would be better than another term of Tories.
They seem to be fully committed to driving us towards a complete nosedive on that graph.
Yes there would be absolutely no point Labour winning if they don’t get rid of FPTP.
We might as well have another 20 years of Tory rule, it would be no different to Labour being power. They have identical policies and attitudes on everything.
Christ, we already have a situation have half of under 35s don’t vote, do we really need people inventing more excuses for people not to bother?
Labour would be better because they aren’t the fucking Tories. Even a new Blair would be better what we have at the moment.
They’re gunna win by a big margin most likely, so that will never happen.
Why would the winners dismantle the system that allowed them to win.
It won’t the same way they’ve been promising to disband the HoL since their [1910 manifesto](https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/house-lords-has-been-abolished). It suits them.
Which. They. Won’t. Cos that system they want to deconstruct is the same system that got them elected. The snake is eating itself again. What does Owen Jones think?
And why would they? In 2005, Labour won a solid majority on only 35% of the vote. They benefit from FPTP as much as the Tories do.
Why not just throw a golden potato in the house of lords and whoever catches it gets to be prime minister, because that’s basically the system we have now.