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Labour leader Keir Starmer has categorically defended Westminster’s First Past The Post voting system for the first time, just a week before it looks set to hand his party a whopping majority.
During the 2020 Labour leadership election, Starmer told an Open Labour and Electoral Reform Society hustings – where the reporter of this article worked at the time – that “millions of people vote in safe seats… feel their vote doesn’t count” and “that’s got to be addressed”.
But, with a week to go before the 2024 General Election, and with his party leading the Conservatives by 20 points, Starmer told ITV News in a TikTok interview that First Past The Post (FPTP) is “the right system”.
“It has given a strong government in this country and we are not making any changes to it,” he added.
Savanta polling for LabourList released last week found that Labour voters back replacing FPTP with proportional representation (PR). Among voters overall, PR has a narrow lead over the current system, though it often depends on how the question is worded.
A spokesperson for the Labour for a New Democracy campaign group told Byline Times: “At a time when trust in politics is at a record low and it’s clear to millions of people that Westminster isn’t working, Keir Starmer has come out to defend our broken electoral system.
“Just months ago, his own party officially recognised that FPTP is driving the distrust and alienation we see in politics. Starmer’s claim that FPTP gives us a strong government looks absurd and out-of-touch as Britain prepares for its sixth prime minister in eight years.
“Public support for a fair, proportional voting system in which all votes count has just hit a record high – because, as Starmer himself has said ‘millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their voice doesn’t count’.
“If the polls are to be believed, this election is set to deliver one of the most unfair [due to the disproportionality of the number of seats allocated to the percentage of the overall vote] results in history. For Keir Starmer’s government to restore trust in politics, as he has said it will, it must reform our electoral system.”
Labour’s manifesto made no mention of changing the vote system, but nor did it back FPTP explicitly, unlike the Conservative manifesto. The Liberal Democrats, Greens, Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru, and Reform – among others – all back moving to a form of proportional representation, with various forms of this used by nearly all democracies in Europe.
Starmer’s statement will dash hopes that Labour could reverse the Conservatives’ change to the voting system for mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners, with the government recently scrapping voters’ ability to cast a second ‘back-up’ preference when voting.
Democracy sector campaigners expressed their disappointment, while others offered a reality check.
One campaigner said: “Electoral reform was never going to be a priority for the next Parliament, given the long list of urgent, pressing, immediate problems that the Tories have created and now left for Labour to repair and clean up.”
Another added: “There is even one theory doing the rounds now that, if the Tories take as big a beating in the General Election as some polls predict, the Tories themselves might start calling for electoral reform instead. Which would be hilarious and ironic in equal measure.”
Another campaigner noted that the statement from Starmer was “probably to stop any last-minute press frenzy about Labour changing the system to stay in power forever (even though that wouldn’t happen)”.
“I get the impression he is shutting down discussion about all big difficult topics (Brexit) so he can simply get in,” they added. “Then, maybe the conversation can begin. We hope.”
First Past The Post – where all votes not cast for the one winner in each seat are discarded – is not used in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland, except for Westminster elections. The devolved nations all use variations of proportional representation, such as the Single Transferable Vote (all Northern Ireland elections), or the Additional Member System (Scottish and Welsh Parliaments).
Westminster’s system is likely to hand parties such as the Greens, Lib Dems, and Reform very few seats compared to their national vote share on 4 July.
A Labour spokesperson was contacted for comment.
This piece has been amended to note that the Savanta polling was for LabourList.
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Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
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