2024 UK General Election Thread

[Marc Meakin]

4 million plus people would agree that Farage is a man of the people.
I think that if Starmer doesn't have a rethink about giving 16 year old the vote then public opinion may demand another referendum .

I would like to know what countries have benefitted from this to convince me
With most of mai land Europe lurching to the right I'm notconvinced its for me

[Gavin Chipper]

4 million plus people would agree that Farage is a man of the people.
I think that if Starmer doesn't have a rethink about giving 16 year old the vote then public opinion may demand another referendum .

I would like to know what countries have benefitted from this to convince me
With most of mai land Europe lurching to the right I'm notconvinced its for me

I don't think the existence of proportional representation is what causes countries to lurch to the right. Overall, I'd say FPTP has kept the UK parliament more right wing. In most elections, Labour and the Liberal Democrats tend to take votes of each other giving the Tories more free wins. It's only this time round that Reform have made any dent in the Tories.

Also, the thing about waiting until 2031 seems entirely arbitrary. You have to strike while the iron is hot. The subject goes more quiet if you get an election where more people vote for the two main parties. So you don't know what will be the case in 2031. This is an ideal election result to make the push. It could be a golden opportunity.

[Marc Meakin]

4 million plus people would agree that Farage is a man of the people.
I think that if Starmer doesn't have a rethink about giving 16 year old the vote then public opinion may demand another referendum .

I would like to know what countries have benefitted from this to convince me
With most of mai land Europe lurching to the right I'm notconvinced its for me

I don't think the existence of proportional representation is what causes countries to lurch to the right. Overall, I'd say FPTP has kept the UK parliament more right wing. In most elections, Labour and the Liberal Democrats tend to take votes of each other giving the Tories more free wins. It's only this time round that Reform have made any dent in the Tories.

Also, the thing about waiting until 2031 seems entirely arbitrary. You have to strike while the iron is hot. The subject goes more quiet if you get an election where more people vote for the two main parties. So you don't know what will be the case in 2031. This is an ideal election result to make the push. It could be a golden opportunity.

I admire your optimism but the most likely scenario is in 2029 (or earlier)at the next General election , Labour would need either Reform or/and The Lib Dems to form an A coaltion coalition and Reform or Lid dems would have a referendum as its sweetener.
Turkeys don't vote for Christmas's Labour won't go for it now.

Even the Brexit vote was only given because of the arrogance of Cameron thinking remain would win.
So maybe starmer or Rayner might do the same in 5 years

Watch this space.

[Martin Hurst]

There are different ways to get PR, but probably the most realistic in the UK is Single Transferable Vote (STV). You'd have larger constituencies (maybe 5 or 6 MPs per constituency) so a mini PR election (rather than nationwide). The most popular candidate would still be elected but not simply the top 5/6 most popular as there would also be proportional balancing out. All these MPs would be "your MP".

The question to ask was why did the 2011 referendum fail and more importantly why would opinions have changed enough if we had one now (thought 2031 is more realistic ) ?

I think now Farage is an MP , he would be the face of Reform the constitution in the same way Farages Brexit Party was instrumental in the Brexit vote.

Re 2011: Some good old BS played it's part too! Who would have thought that a side would lie to the public during a referendum campaign? (though this one was far more successfully swept under the carpet than the more famous example a few years later)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Un ... ible_costs

[Gavin Chipper]

Yeah, a lot of lies were told.

[Marc Meakin]

Yeah, a lot of lies were told.

I still find it difficult to comprehend how it all works with regards to who the MPs would be for example if your preferred reformed vote was applied to last week what would be the split ?

[Gavin Chipper]

Yeah, a lot of lies were told.

I still find it difficult to comprehend how it all works with regards to who the MPs would be for example if your preferred reformed vote was applied to last week what would be the split ?

Under STV, you'd have a different ballot where you would rank the candidates, so you couldn't simply transfer the results of the election to it. But if approximately 34% of people put a Labour candidate as their first choice, you'd likely get a ballpark of around 34% Labour candidates.

If anything the bigger parties would still likely be slightly overrepresented under STV. If you have, say, 6 seats in a constituency, a candidate getting 10% might not get elected, so votes would get transferred to their next choice etc.

[Rhys Benjamin]

Under PR using Regional Party List, the only method by which we can ascertain results due to not knowing transferable votes (obviously), we get the following:

Scotland: CON 7, LAB 21, LD 5, REF 4, GRN 2, SNP 18
North East: CON 6, LAB 13, LD 1, REF 6, GRN 1
North West: CON 14, LAB 33, LD 5, REF 12, GRN 5 (+3 for "others")
Yorkshire: CON 12, LAB 23, LD 4, REF 9, GRN 4 (+2 for "others")
East Midlands: CON 14, LAB 17, LD 3, REF 9, GRN 3 (+1 for "others")
West Midlands: CON 16, LAB 20, LD 5, REF 11, GRN 3 (+2 for "others")
Wales: CON 6, LAB 13, LD 2, REF 5, GRN 1, PC 5
London: CON 16, LAB 33, LD 8, REF 6, GRN 7 (+5 for "others")
East Anglia: CON 19, LAB 18, LD 8, REF 11, GRN 4 (+1 for "others")
South East: CON 28, LAB 23, LD 20, REF 13, GRN 6 (+1 for "others")
South West: CON 17, LAB 14, LD 15, REF 8, GRN 4
Total: CON 155, LAB 228, LD 76, REF 94, GRN 40, SNP 18, PC 5, OTH 15

(excl. NI and 1 other seat for the Speaker)

Unlike in 2019 it is hard to know what to do with the "others" (because there weren't any others winning seats under this system in 2019). If we exclude them from the House altogether you now need just 318 seats to win a majority.

That's still one very messy hung Parliament. Of course it would depend entirely on what the Lib Dems want to do, but one cannot imagine them joining another coalition any time soon. A Labour/Green/SNP/PC coalition gives 291, whilst a Conservative/Reform coalition gives 249. The Lib Dems would have to jump in with that incredibly busy coalition on the Left, giving that bloc 367 seats and a majority of 84 (with a 326 threshold). But of course then the Green/SNP/PC bloc, who have campaigned together in the past, could collapse that government at any time...

Like it or not, First Past The Post did its job and we have a strong and stable government that we would not have had under PR.

[Adam Gillard]

That's still one very messy hung Parliament. [...] A Labour/Green/SNP/PC coalition gives 291, whilst a Conservative/Reform coalition gives 249. The Lib Dems would have to jump in with that incredibly busy coalition on the Left, giving that bloc 367 seats and a majority of 84 (with a 326 threshold). But of course then the Green/SNP/PC bloc, who have campaigned together in the past, could collapse that government at any time...

Like it or not, First Past The Post did its job and we have a strong and stable government that we would not have had under PR.

Maybe with PR you shouldn't need an overall majority (326) to pass a motion. So if a motion has 291 Ayes, 249 Noes and 110 Abstentions, then the motion passes. This doesn't prevent bloc voting but also doesn't enforce a coalition.

[Rhys Benjamin]

That's still one very messy hung Parliament. [...] A Labour/Green/SNP/PC coalition gives 291, whilst a Conservative/Reform coalition gives 249. The Lib Dems would have to jump in with that incredibly busy coalition on the Left, giving that bloc 367 seats and a majority of 84 (with a 326 threshold). But of course then the Green/SNP/PC bloc, who have campaigned together in the past, could collapse that government at any time...

Like it or not, First Past The Post did its job and we have a strong and stable government that we would not have had under PR.

Maybe with PR you shouldn't need an overall majority (326) to pass a motion. So if a motion has 291 Ayes, 249 Noes and 110 Abstentions, then the motion passes. This doesn't prevent bloc voting but also doesn't enforce a coalition.

You don't anyway. There is no quorum in the House. The reason that a majority is talked about is so that you can command the confidence of the House, otherwise the other parties can vote you out of office (as happened in 1979).

[Gavin Chipper]

That's still one very messy hung Parliament. Of course it would depend entirely on what the Lib Dems want to do, but one cannot imagine them joining another coalition any time soon. A Labour/Green/SNP/PC coalition gives 291, whilst a Conservative/Reform coalition gives 249. The Lib Dems would have to jump in with that incredibly busy coalition on the Left, giving that bloc 367 seats and a majority of 84 (with a 326 threshold). But of course then the Green/SNP/PC bloc, who have campaigned together in the past, could collapse that government at any time...

Like it or not, First Past The Post did its job and we have a strong and stable government that we would not have had under PR.

Proportional representation better reflects the voting of the electorate than FPTP. If you get a majority government without majority support, it's hard to argue that it's actually democratic. So sure, celebrate that FPTP gives you a strong and stable government, but just remember that it hasn't really been democratically elected as such.

In Europe, most countries use PR, and as far as I can see, this does not negatively affect them relative to the UK. People get scared of hung parliaments as if there's no real precedent for them because they hardly ever happen in the UK. But no single party winning a majority in other countries happens all the time, and the sky does not fall in. It's fine.

And finally, what gives the high probability of majority governments in the UK is not the FPTP method itself, but the fact that we have 650 separate elections all electing just one representative. That would have still been the case under AV (remember the referendum we had in 2011?), or indeed any other single-winner method, many of which are far superior to FPTP. So that's two reasons to ditch FPTP. Firstly, in order to get PR. And secondly, even if we don't get PR, to get a sensible single-winner method in use for constituency elections.

[Adam Gillard]

That's still one very messy hung Parliament. [...] A Labour/Green/SNP/PC coalition gives 291, whilst a Conservative/Reform coalition gives 249. The Lib Dems would have to jump in with that incredibly busy coalition on the Left, giving that bloc 367 seats and a majority of 84 (with a 326 threshold). But of course then the Green/SNP/PC bloc, who have campaigned together in the past, could collapse that government at any time...

Like it or not, First Past The Post did its job and we have a strong and stable government that we would not have had under PR.

Maybe with PR you shouldn't need an overall majority (326) to pass a motion. So if a motion has 291 Ayes, 249 Noes and 110 Abstentions, then the motion passes. This doesn't prevent bloc voting but also doesn't enforce a coalition.

You don't anyway. There is no quorum in the House. The reason that a majority is talked about is so that you can command the confidence of the House, otherwise the other parties can vote you out of office (as happened in 1979).

Interesting, thanks for clarifying.

[Rhys Benjamin]

That's still one very messy hung Parliament. Of course it would depend entirely on what the Lib Dems want to do, but one cannot imagine them joining another coalition any time soon. A Labour/Green/SNP/PC coalition gives 291, whilst a Conservative/Reform coalition gives 249. The Lib Dems would have to jump in with that incredibly busy coalition on the Left, giving that bloc 367 seats and a majority of 84 (with a 326 threshold). But of course then the Green/SNP/PC bloc, who have campaigned together in the past, could collapse that government at any time...

Like it or not, First Past The Post did its job and we have a strong and stable government that we would not have had under PR.

Proportional representation better reflects the voting of the electorate than FPTP. If you get a majority government without majority support, it's hard to argue that it's actually democratic. So sure, celebrate that FPTP gives you a strong and stable government, but just remember that it hasn't really been democratically elected as such.

In Europe, most countries use PR, and as far as I can see, this does not negatively affect them relative to the UK. People get scared of hung parliaments as if there's no real precedent for them because they hardly ever happen in the UK. But no single party winning a majority in other countries happens all the time, and the sky does not fall in. It's fine.

And finally, what gives the high probability of majority governments in the UK is not the FPTP method itself, but the fact that we have 650 separate elections all electing just one representative. That would have still been the case under AV (remember the referendum we had in 2011?), or indeed any other single-winner method, many of which are far superior to FPTP. So that's two reasons to ditch FPTP. Firstly, in order to get PR. And secondly, even if we don't get PR, to get a sensible single-winner method in use for constituency elections.

The Netherlands has only just agreed a coalition (after 8 months) and their PM isn’t a party leader. That’s a house built on sand.

The simple fact is there is no electoral system which provides all three of the following:

- one person, one (non-transferable) vote
- one representative, with a directly elected link to the constituency
- proportionality

So which do you compromise on? For me it is proportionality.

[Gavin Chipper]

The Netherlands has only just agreed a coalition (after 8 months) and their PM isn’t a party leader. That’s a house built on sand.

The simple fact is there is no electoral system which provides all three of the following:

- one person, one (non-transferable) vote
- one representative, with a directly elected link to the constituency
- proportionality

So which do you compromise on? For me it is proportionality.

Different countries presumably form their governments in different ways. The Netherlands is one country out of pretty much the whole of Europe and it might have poor mechanisms in place.

As for your three criteria, the first one is somewhat contrived. Why should the vote be non-transferable? This isn't exactly a bedrock of democracy we are talking about.

And the second one - why do we need just one representative? If we have larger constituencies and elect with something like STV, we could have five or six representatives in the general local area. This is arguably better. With just one, it's not necessarily that helpful writing to your MP to complain about something that you might be diametrically opposed to them on. It's good to have a choice.

And just to play your game anyway, we could compromise on proportionality and have your first two criteria, but instead of FPTP have approval voting, which is better in basically every respect. Interestingly, some academics were polled in 2011 on various single-winner voting methods. Approval voting come top, and FPTP (also known as plurality voting) came bottom.

[Jon O'Neill]

Interestingly, some academics were polled in 2011 on various single-winner voting methods. Approval voting come top, and FPTP (also known as plurality voting) came bottom.

It's fascinating that this happened. Just looking at the paper and it's very self-critical of the way the question was posed. They used ".. Approval voting for this election. Somebody made the suggestion and there was no counter-proposal" - doesn't sound like a robust way of deciding the best way to vote on voting systems. They should've used all 18 systems to vote on the 18 systems and come up with a matrix of the outcomes, which could then be analysed.

[Jon O'Neill]

Interestingly, some academics were polled in 2011 on various single-winner voting methods. Approval voting come top, and FPTP (also known as plurality voting) came bottom.

It's fascinating that this happened. Just looking at the paper and it's very self-critical of the way the question was posed. They used ".. Approval voting for this election. Somebody made the suggestion and there was no counter-proposal" - doesn't sound like a robust way of deciding the best way to vote on voting systems. They should've used all 18 systems to vote on the 18 systems and come up with a matrix of the outcomes, which could then be analysed.

Hang on. I've just seen that the voting system that won the vote on voting systems via a method of voting that a set of voting system experts didn't vote to use, was the very same voting system that they didn't vote to use. I'm going to need more convincing.

[Gavin Chipper]

I can understand that you would have concerns, and I certainly wouldn't use this poll to try and claim that approval voting is unequivocally the best single-winner method.

But a couple of things - voting methods aren't self-replicating genes, and I don't see any particular reason why there should be a bias towards a method choosing itself.

Also approval voting did still win by a decent amount - 15 votes out of 22 (68.18%) compared with alternative vote in 2nd on just 10 (45.45%).

But my main point really is that approval voting unequivocally beat FPTP, which was approved by no-one. Using something other than approval voting is not going to overturn that one.