Election 2024: This could be the birth of a powerful new electoral reform movement

The election result might be wonderful, but it is not strictly tolerable.

Photo by Barry Talley on Unsplash

Let's deal with some uncomfortable truths. 

Many seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. First, that the election result is a triumph for the forces of reason and progress. Second, that Labour low vote share, far from being testament to its failure, is actually the consequence of a conscious and extremely efficient campaign which aimed for precisely this sort of voting pattern. And third, that this result is democratically intolerable. 

We're in a very specific moment right now, which is not to do with Labour and Conservatives, but rather whether the arbitrary crevices of first-past-the-post favour the left or the right. 

As I wrote in the last newsletter, our elections are not about the popular vote. They're about the most efficient geographic distribution of the vote. In 1906, this system exaggerated Liberal support. Throughout the post-war period and into the 1980s, it favoured the Conservatives. Then it favoured Labour until 2015, when it started benefiting the Conservatives again. Now it very clearly benefits Labour once more.

This shouldn't make a difference. Unfairness is unfairness. But we live in a tribal system so it will fundamentally change the political impetus to electoral reform. Until now, it's been overwhelmingly progressives who wanted a change to the electoral system. But overnight, things have changed. We now benefit from the system. And Nigel Farage, who does not, has become the most famous and effective advocate for change, with a willing ear from the national media. Without people quite realising it yet, the world has been turned upside down.

Let's be honest. Let's state these things outright, as awkward as they are. If first-past-the-post was intolerable when it penalised left-wing and centrist parties, it is still intolerable now that it penalises right-wing parties. Labour got 33.7% of the vote last Thursday and turned that into 63.2% of the seats in the Commons. That's purposeful. They knew the strategy they were pursuing and they delivered on it. But it isn’t democratically acceptable. In no sane world is that something you should see. It would make no sense to a child. It would make no sense to an alien. It should make no sense to anyone, because it is, fundamentally, without sense. 

The whole idea that the distribution of the vote is more important than its quantity is itself utterly deranged. Democracy was not won by people campaigning for the franchise as long as it was sensibly distributed in space. They campaigned for one-man-one-vote, with an expectation that the ensuing government would accurately reflect that vote. Their struggle is betrayed by the system we use now.

The fact that some reporters have suddenly discovered this fact is kind of laughable. Over the last few days, we've been repeatedly told that this is a shocking development. Really? It's simply a slightly more extreme form of what always happens. In 2005, Labour governed with just 35.2% of the vote. In 2015, the Tories governed with just 36.8% of the vote. Even Boris Johnson's victory in 2019 only gave him 43.6% of the vote. Does that ten per cent between the last two elections really make that much of a democratic difference? No. Our system is mad because it takes a minority of the vote and uses it to hand one party overwhelming executive power. The specific percentage that contributes to that is less important than the effect itself.

Now let's accept another uncomfortable fact: Reform's performance. They secured just over four million votes, totalling 14.3% of the popular vote. This translated into just five seats, or 0.8% of the Commons. Compare it to the Lib Dems and it's even more stark. Ed Davey's party converted 12.2% of the popular vote into 72 seats - 11.1% of the Commons.

Why did that happen? The same reason as ever with first-past-the-post. It's a system that cares more about geography than it does about voters. Farage's vote was strong but dispersed, so it won lots of pointless second place finishes. Davey's vote was strong and focused in certain key areas, so it won lots of first place finishes and consequently secured dozens of MPs.

Let’s just say it outright: Farage deserves more MPs. That's the plain truth of it. I may not like him. I may think he's a whiny festering hard-right cry-baby conspiracy theorist cunt. But he got the votes and he therefore deserves the seats. The moment you find yourself valuing an electoral system for depriving your opponent of the representation they should legitimately possess, you have entered into perilous moral territory.

Many progressive are now encountering the primary downside of proportional representation. They're realising, with a chill down the spine, what it entails: populist right parties securing a firm base in parliament. So let's be clear: This absolutely would happen. And more than that, it should happen, because our entire belief in electoral reform is grounded in the idea that parties should be represented in the legislature according to their vote.

But let's also be clear about something else: the reaction to Farage's performance is overblown. It's not some great surge, akin to Marine Le Pen in France or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. It's basically just the top end of his standard performance. In 2015, Farage's Ukip party won 3,881,099 votes, totalling 12.6% of the popular vote. That's just below what he got this time. I don't remember us having this degree of freakout about that at the time.

Let's imagine for a moment that we had PR now. This is kind of a fool's errand, of course. If we had PR, Labour would not have run a campaign based on efficient distribution. Similarly, many people who voted Labour or Conservative would have voted for a smaller party which more accurately reflected their beliefs. But let's just assume for the fun of it. The parties would all end up with a minority of the vote, so they'd have to go into coalition to have a chance to form a government. This is how it always goes under proportional representation.

The Tories and Reform combined would have 38% of the vote. Labour plus Lib Dems plus Greens would secure 52.3% of the vote. So yes, there would be a lot more Reform MPs. But we would still have a centre-left government, reflecting the fact that most voters backed the centre-left.

What has been gained by us excluding right-wing populists from parliament? Did it stop Brexit? No. Did it ameliorate its most extreme expression? No. Did it prevent a politics of conspiracy theory, grievance and culture war? No. If anything, it increased the strength of the populist right by absorbing it into the governing party.

We might not like Farage being in parliament, but we have tried the alternative. We’ve excluded him and simply seen him frame the narrative of our political debate from outside. Who knows? Perhaps having him in parliament will reduce that effect. How effective has it been for former mavericks to draw attention to themselves in the Commons? How did George Galloway do? How did Andrew Bridgen perform? Not great. The same might happen here. I've genuinely no idea. But I do have a very good idea how exclusion worked out.

And now we reach the inevitable conclusion. It is a hard one to swallow. I don't enjoy writing it and you probably won't enjoy reading it, but it remains true nonetheless: Farage is now probably the most important person in the electoral reform movement.

From here on out, he is going to make a lot of noise for reform. He's not remotely principled, of course. He only believes in it because it's the way to secure greater advantage to himself. But he will reach parts of the electorate that progressive electoral reform campaigners never had a chance with. He will be speaking not only to Reform voters, but perhaps also to a broader range of small-C conservative voters, who are suddenly more aware of the iniquities of our system now that they are themselves the ones experiencing it.

If you combine that with the existing progressive campaign for electoral reform, you have a formidable political movement: big, broad and deep. Supported by top-level policy wonks and ground-level party activists. Increasingly sympathised with by prominent figures in the media, like the senior journalists raising questions about the popular vote in Starmer's first press conference yesterday. Backed by a variety of MPs from across all the political parties. 

There is an opportunity here, the kind that might not come again for some time. But for it to be grasped, we're going to have to get used to the idea that we're making the same arguments as some very grubby people. An uncomfortable conclusion to reach. But a necessary one. And one we'd better start acclimatising ourselves to.