Changing of the Guard - The Case for Electoral Reform in the UK

July Fourth, 2024 – for America, it was a day of festivities commemorating national independence. For Great Britain, it may forever be immortalized as the day the Old Party System broke. As the electoral results trickled in throughout the night in one of the most consequential elections in British history – I found myself perplexed by the outcome. On the surface, the 2024 General Election resulted in the largest landslide in recent history, with Labour – headed by Keir Stramer – ousting the incumbent Conservative Party, following 14 Years in power, having more than doubled their representation in parliament since 2019, meanwhile, the Conservative’s under the volatile leadership of Rishi Sunak suffered near-absolute annihilation.

   However, upon closer examination, Britain’s electoral results indicate a unique dichotomy, and a harbinger of events to come – that despite Labour’s historic victory, Britain’s' political atmosphere is experiencing a seismic political realignment. On one hand, Labour won perhaps the most impressive victory in party history, winning 411 out of 650 seats, compared to the Tories' 121. On the other hand, with just over a third of the popular vote, Labor won the lowest share of the vote for a victorious party in British history. Furthermore, both the Right and the Left saw historic fragmentation; regarding the former, the Conservatives suffered their worst electoral performance in history, winning less than a quarter of the popular vote. Having Relinquished a considerable portion of their support to the Far-Right Reform Party, which ran on an Anti-Establishment, Anti-Immigration platform, headed by Nigel Farage – conforming to the ubiquitous trend of Hard-Right electoral advances the world over – cannibalized much of the Conservative voter base, and exceeded pundit’s expectations to breakthrough into Parliament.

  The Tories also suffered considerable losses amongst moderates, with the Liberal Democrats, Britain’s perennial Centrist Third Party winning 71 seats, primarily in former Conservative strongholds, the most successful performance in party history, cementing their role as a force to be reckoned with. Political realignment and fragmentation were not unique to the British Right, for the Left also experienced considerable fragmentation, with incremental increases evident in not only the Left-Wing Greens but also the emergence of the Far-Left Workers Party within the “Red Wall”, a region in Northern England that has historically overwhelmingly supported Labour. Furthermore, several independent candidates backed by the Hard-Left, alongside Islamic Pressure groups won constituencies traditionally dominated by Labor, comprising largely of Ethnic voter blocs and running controversial campaigns largely surrounding the Israel-Hamas War. With rampant fragmentation alongside the erosion of a two-party system that has permeated British politics for centuries, the reality of political realignment seems evident.

     This dynamic is exacerbated when we elucidate the sheer disproportionality of the electoral results, with the lowest correlation between popular vote and parliamentary representation in British History – with Labour winning over 63 percent of the seats, despite having won approximately a third of the popular vote, and the aggregate of the two traditional major parties having reached the lowest total in British history, winning a combined total of 57.5 percent of the vote, despite winning over 80 percent of the seats. In a vast majority of seats, nobody even came close to an absolute majority, and due to the British first-past-the-post electoral system – millions of votes were ultimately wasted.

   Therefore, with the most fragmented, disproportionate electoral results in British history; the culmination of years of political disillusion not only with the Tories but the two-party system altogether, the largest political realignment of the last hundred years has materialized. In which Britain, joins a myriad of her sister democracies whose political establishments have eroded in recent years. Thus, although Stramer has taken office as Prime Minister, and for now shall govern comfortably, the wider implications of this election and the emanating realignment shall take years to be fully elucidated. Although nobody can confidently know the outcome of this political augmentation, whether a new multi-party system, the prevalence of the Far-Right, a victory for emerging radicals on the Left, a long-awaited triumph of the Lib Dems, or even a delicate continuity of Labour and Conservative’s prevalence – electoral reform is imperative for the progression of British Democracy.   

   Granted, such a statement ought not to be declared without acknowledging the historical benefits of the United Kingdom’s first-past-the-post system, although archaic for any modern, multi-party democracy, it has served the populace well for generations – having ensured stability for centuries. However, as the British political atmosphere evolves from a two-party system into a multi-party democracy, it’s paramount that the British electoral system must evolve with her. The increasing trend of political diversification, dating back to the 1980s, has rendered the current system obsolete, and as evident in 2024, exemplified inequities between the will of the people and the elected government – a disproportionality that could become incongruent with the desires of the populace in future elections, and despite a majority of British voters expressing satisfaction with this year’s result, the system could very well foster a dilemma in coming years. For instance, if the Reform Party surged in the next election, coinciding with the plentitude of Far-Right victories the world over, which is not an impossibility, for Reform even won a plurality in the 2019 elections for the European Parliament, and had these results been for a general election, Farage’s fundamentalists would have landed themselves in government, with a meager 30 percent of the vote. The risk of a first-past-the-post system relegating governance to extremists, contradictory to the will of the voting populace is a nascent possibility, given the current electoral circumstances. Even when disregarding extremism, any outcome where a party can win a supermajority in parliament with less than a third of the vote is an abrogation of popular will and a desecration of the consent of the governed which ought to characterize every democracy. Now, however, a daunting question arises, regarding what electoral reforms are necessary to rectify this wrong.

    In my opinion, the British people, alongside the political wellbeing of the nation would benefit greatly from proportional representation, in which a party’s share of the vote determines representation in parliament accordingly. This system is prevalent in a plethora of thriving Republics the world over, and not only ensures greater electoral integrity in the makeup of parliament but also incentivizes collaboration in multi-party democracies. In proportional systems, a party cannot rely on a slew of pluralities to avoid compromise, rather the formation of coalitions appealing to a greater portion of the voter populace is necessary to form a governing majority, thereby hindering extremism. However, opponents of the proportional system will cite examples of how this system has often enabled political gridlock due to an inability to form a coalition, citing cases such as Bulgaria or Israel, in which an inability to form a majority coalition in parliament has fostered multiyear political crises’, or nations such as Belgium, where took over a year of negotiations to form a functioning government following the 2019 election, which sometimes involves ‘corrupt bargains’, in which party-leaders strive more to ensure a comfortable position in the cabinet than the steadfast governance of their nation. Nevertheless, this can best be resolved with a parliamentary procedure in which if a majority cannot be formed by a certain date, rather than endless snap elections, the largest party forms a minority government, and policy is deliberated on a case-by-case basis, fostering pragmatic government, akin to the French system, or the old cabinet continues to serve provisionally until a new coalition is formed, as in the Dutch system.

  Another opposing contention surrounding proportional representation is that if done on a national scale would obstruct regional autonomy, neglecting local communities: whereas constituencies ensure local interests are accounted for. This concern can be assuaged with a mixed-proportional system akin to the German system or the electoral system utilized in the Scottish and Welsh regional parliaments, where constituencies still elect individual candidates directly, meanwhile, additional seats are delegated to balance the parliament: ensuring proportionality alongside preserving constituencies. A trichotomous concern surrounding proportional representation is the partisan nature of the system may dissuade political autonomy or candidates independent of interests, however, this too can be resolved by the mixed system, enabling votes to go to candidates independently, and if passing a certain threshold enter parliament even without party dogma, prevalent in the Netherlands or Brazil. Furthermore, to ensure that a party follows the interests of its voters, party leadership elections ought to be held every election cycle rather than merely in crises of leadership, and party membership restrictions ought to be loosened – democratizing party-machines and ridding Britain of aristocratic political cliques.

  In conclusion, having assuaged concerns and reaffirmed its benefits, a parliamentary system of this sort, proportional yet decisive, fair and efficient, one truly fit for the 21st Century, would be the epitome of a system dedicated to serving the people, rather than the other way around, and is a reform worthy of a nation as venerable as the United Kingdom. Although nobody can say definitively what the wider implications of realignment shall be, it certainly will echo throughout the ages – and whatever may be, the nation and people of Britain deserve a system dedicated to upholding the will of the voting populace, and one most adequate for bringing about a better tomorrow.