Your say / Politics
‘We can reduce corruption and lies in national politics’
2024 will in all likelihood include a general election. The winning party will probably get less than 40 per cent of the votes, maybe much less.
In the last hundred years, three of the 27 elections resulted in the winner not even getting the most votes. Many argue that the first-past-the-post arrangement is unfair, but I’d go even further to argue that it encourages corruption and lies.
What the country needs is a well-designed proportional representation system.
is needed now More than ever
In the old days only a few people got to choose an MP. Their MP’s job was to fight to protect their supporters’ wealth and opportunities. Over time, such arrangements morphed into being between a group, a political party, and its followers. With the latter hoping to benefit when their party gets in.
Parties are created by their supporters and are beholden to them. It’s a truism. If a party doesn’t bring benefits to its supporters, they leave, and the party will slowly wither and die.
This still happens today. A recent campaign email I received stated: “Our campaign was funded by supporters like you… look at what their money achieved… taxes down, inflation down…”.
Using first-past-the-post, where the MP with the most votes in a constituency is sent to Parliament, a party has and can win a majority with just 35 per cent, not much more than one third of the votes.
Once in power the party needs to ensure their supporters benefit and consequently the remainder, the majority of the population suffer: wealthy donors get seats in the House of Lords; friends get contracts; others are granted planning consent without affordable housing, or tax breaks, the list goes on.
We are so used to this behaviour we don’t see it as corruption, but it is.
The benefits of making sure those in power require over 50 per cent of the vote:
A different electoral system, proportional representation (PR), is used in many countries including Scotland for Members of the Scottish Parliament. Under good PR, to form a Government, a coalition of parties needs to get over fifty percent of the vote between them.
A coalitions of two or three parties brings us benefits. Here are two:
1) Scrutiny is crucial to good government
Having more than one party in power enables better scrutiny from the others. Scrutiny is vitally important but is done badly in the UK.
A good scrutiny process means that decisions are taken more slowly but benefit more of us. It should involve a wide diversity of people inputting into policy and reviewing it before it becomes law.
At the moment, scrutiny of Bills going through Parliament is mainly done in the House of Lords. Yes! They form a key part of our “democratic system”. That House is populated by appointees from Prime Ministers current and past.
Democracy in the Lords relies on people like Baroness Mone of “lying to the press is not illegal” fame. Such behaviour is rightly called out as corrupt and hopefully she will resign.
Scrutiny is worse in the House of Commons with Bills being pushed through by the Government whips.
Good scrutiny through coalitions elected via proportional representation is bad news for those who like to reward their chums but good news for us as we will get better decisions on tax, housing, transport and the NHS.
2) PR will split the parties – good
As well as helping defeat corruption, another benefit of proportional representation is it would probably cause both major parties to split. This would reduce the pressure on politicians to speak untruths. Why?
Well, in order to maintain such a broad church of opinion within a party to get that critical number of 35 per cent of the votes for power, the decision makers need to pander to their party’s political wings. Both have a centrist block plus a more radical block, the far right and left respectively.
In public, a politician must say things that can be interpreted by all the membership as being appropriate. This requires waffle, obfuscation and untruths. Just watch Sir Kier and Rishi duck and weave their way through interviews as they try to ensure they don’t upset the powerful wings of their party.
Come proportional representation, the need to stay together in unstable, unholy alliances is removed. It’s these alliances that have caused instability rather than the strong stable government we have been conned into believing. These internal battles between warring factions just go on and on and on.
Under PR, whether a united party wins 30 per cent, or it splits and each half gets 15 per cent, it brings the same number of seats. Politicians can be more truthful and show their true values; one less reason to lie to us.
To clean up politics and restore some faith in democracy, proportional representation is a major step forward.
What readers can do
If you agree with me then search online for Make Votes Matter, a national campaign group for PR and “join the movement”, it’s free. They usually have a stand at the top of Corn Street every second Saturday of the month between 12pm and 2pm. Come and have a chat, your opinion is important.
This is an opinion piece by author of After The Revolution, former Green Party councillor and Proportional Representation campaigner Clive Stevens
Main photo: Poppy Silk
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