Everyone agrees, The British Electoral System is Broken

And why that’s unlikely to change.

By Nicholas Ward

Following the December election, the British Conservative party have claimed a landslide victory receiving 364 (56%) of seats in what they called a clear referendum on Brexit.

"This election means that getting Brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people." Boris Johnson told supporters during his victory speech.

And come January 31st Britain left the EU. Fulfilling the iron will of 43% of voters.

Wait what?

The Brexit Election

As the dust settled and the hustings emptied, the conservatives settled into the largest conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher.

Despite the British Public overwhelmingly voting for Anti Brexit/ Pro re-referendum parties.

Receiving 56% of seats in Parliament the Conservatives received only 43% of the vote.

Anti Brexit/ Pro re-referendum parties received 2 million more votes than the Pro Brexit parties.

The UK election results saw Anti Brexit parties (Labour, Greens, SNP, and Liberal Democrats) receive 16.5 million votes. While Pro Brexit parties trailed by nearly 2 million votes with 14.8 million. That is a 6% discrepancy in vote to outcome.

By comparison the hugely divisive 2016 US election which saw Hillary Clinton lose despite winning the popular vote by 2 million votes had a vote to result discrepancy of just 0.2%.

The US saw months of protests and hundreds of news articles critical of their voting system for this slight vote discrepancy. While this result barely registered in UK news.

This is nothing new in UK politics. Because the UK electoral system is becoming increasingly unrepresentative.

Despite the nation as a whole leaning left over the last two decades the conservatives have repeatedly gained an unrepresentative level control of parliament.

A Broken System

the last decade has seen the two least representative elections in UK history.

Since 2010 the conservatives have not once received a majority of votes in the nation.

In 2015 Britain saw the least representative parliament in their history. The conservatives got an abysmal 36.8% of the vote but received 330 of 650 (50%) seats.

In 2017 Conservatives received 42.3% of the vote but received 317 seats (48%).

2010, 306 (47%) seats despite getting 36% of the vote.

The big losers of this system have always been the Liberal Democrats who despite increasing their vote share from 7% to 11.5% in 2019 got only 2% of seats.

The system is so unrepresentative that the UK’s third party gained votes but lost seats.

This discrepancy comes down to the UK’s voting system.

The Problem

The UK’s ‘first past the post’ voting is the problem. Whoever gets the most votes wins. While this system is imperfect it has historically had a relatively representative breakdown of the peoples will in parliament.

However, in recent years the system has been becoming less and less representative of what the people of the UK actually want.

There are several reasons for this drop-in representation. One is the diversity in opposition. The first past the post system punishes voters for diversity.

While the left wing vote is split between Labour the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, the conservative vote is fairly united behind the Conservative Party.

If for instance four parties contest a seat. Three ideologically similar parties receive two thirds of the vote. While a fourth ideologically different party receives one third. Despite not being what the people of this area want that fourth party wins.

This system is increasingly skewing elections in the Conservatives favor.

There are several reasons for this. Demographic shifts of young people moving to cities. As well as the growth of urban areas where voters tend to be more progressive has left conservative rural voters with an outsized say in the nation's politics. Low voter turnout has also historically benefited Conservatives.

The Brexit campaign has highlighted for the British left that voting is increasingly pointless in the UK.

If two million more votes are entirely meaningless what is the point in voting?

The Promise of Change and the Alternate Vote.

The solution would seem to be obvious. Voter reform.

Voting reform is a hot topic with everyone from the Greens to Nigel Farage wanting a more representative system.

“Farage quote”

But as conservatives are bound to point out the UK had a vote on an alternative voting system in 2011 which an overwhelming majority rejected.

The ‘Alternate Vote’ that the UK voted on in 2011 was a proposed switch to a ranked voting system. Ranked voting is where voters rank their preferred candidates. If their candidate fails to reach enough votes they or their party may choose where there vote goes instead.

This system prevents results such as in XXXX

In 2011 the British public voted 65% to 35% to reject AV voting. Seemingly the public hate the AV system.

If we breakdown this election however it is a depressingly obvious outcome.

The 2011 referendum had a turnout of just 42%. So the 65% landslide against was in actuality just over 25% of registered voters. Registered conservative in the UK are roughly 25% of registered voters.

Meanwhile Labour engaged in a lukewarm campaign for a change that was going to significantly reduce their power in Parliament as well.

Strangely conservatives came out in force to oppose the change while progressive voters did not.

With a fierce campaign against by the conservatives and lukewarm support at best amongst Labour it should be no surprise that the election saw high turnout amongst conservative and Liberal Democratic supporters and almost none amongst Labour or other on the fence third parties.

While the conservatives are sure to argue that another referendum is a waste of time there are new factors worth considering.

Since 2011 an increasing amount of attention is being drawn to the lack of representation in parliament.

Third parties from the Brexit Party to the Greens have gotten off the fence and now every minor party supports an AV system.

The big barrier however is the Labour party.

With the traditional first past the post increasingly benefitting conservatives this may force the Labour party into a broad alliance with minor parties to force through an AV change.

It must be remembered though that Labour will lose power to an AV system as parties like the Greens gain support and influence.

So it may take a few more unrepresentative governments to force Labour into action.