As the Starmer government passes its first anniversary of holding power, there has been much looking back and taking stock of their achievements in the past year. In the court of public opinion, however, Labour have little to boast of, with the surge of Reform UK’s polling numbers, and their strong showing at the local elections this year, dominating the headlines. Moreover, a series of unforced errors have served to reinforce the perception that a party elected to bring about change has utterly failed to do so, leaving people looking to a new party, which promises the earth, but whose emerging record in (local) government is far from excellent. In addition to Reform, there is talk of a new left-wing party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Although this party has not been officially launched, and does not even have a name yet, polls of voting intention that include it as an option show that it would receive around 18% of the vote. It remains to be seen whether the embryonic party can maintain this level of popularity once a hostile right-wing media starts subjecting them to a level of scrutiny that the more establishment-friendly (in spite of their anti-establishment posturing) Reform have largely escaped.
If there is one glimmer of hope in all this, it’s that Reform’s projected demolition of the Labour-Conservative duopoly in the Commons invalidates one of the most-used arguments against switching from our antiquated first-past-the-post (FPTP) system to a more democratic, proportionally representative voting system. FPTP–or so goes the argument–will keep parties like Reform UK out of power; restricting the meaningful choice to two or three major parties will ensure that these parties become broad coalitions, constraining views outside the political mainstream in favour of a liberal democratic consensus. The evidence–with a party opposing UK adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights now standing to win the spoils of FPTP’s disproportionality–completely blows that idea out of the water. At time of writing, Electoral Calculus predicts that Reform would win 325 seats in a hypothetical general election tomorrow, despite winning only 29.4% of the vote.
Wessex Regionalists have always favoured electoral reform over maintaining the status quo in national elections. We differ, of course, from other parties, in that we would wish for our reforms to go further, and include devolution for at least our region, where, again, a proportional system would be the foundation of a devolved regional assembly. Wessex, whose different political landscape is magnified in recent projected electoral maps, readily identifiable by the notable presence of Liberal Democrat yellow, shouldn’t be forced to follow the national trend on matters which could practicably be decided more locally. Reform would not, under current projections, hold the majority of Wessex seats. Where a future Reform, or indeed the currently disproportionately-elected Starmerite government, may fail to adequately provide welfare to its most vulnerable citizens, Wessex would be able to set its own policy, or the very least provide counter-measures within its powers to compensate for the national government’s neglect on certain, non-devolved matters.
Is it any wonder that a government elected on roughly 1/3 of the vote is widely unpopular, and that the parties which have benefited from this disproportional system are being abandoned en masse by a disenfranchised public? The cure for democracy’s current ills is more democracy, not less.
Wessex Regionalists 