“I had a State to preserve, as well as a State to reform.”
Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Noble Lord, 1796
Of the major policies announced in Andy Burnham’s conference speech, introducing proportional representation (PR) is the least sexy and most consequential - a daring attempt to remake British democracy with the express aim of increasing trust in politics. However, despite what the Prime Minister hopes, proportional representation, no matter the model, will foster distrust.
The case against first-past-the-post (FPTP) is simple. Under our system, major parties win a disproportionately large share of seats whilst smaller parties gain many votes but few seats. As a result, many ballots are “wasted” and we end up with a parliament unrepresentative of the people. For Burnham, the product of this is distrust and alienation from the voting system in particular, and politics in general.
I do not deny the unrepresentative end-result of FPTP, but do question why this means the mechanism itself is wrong. Votes are not “wasted” in the sense they do not count, only in the sense that their candidate did not win. This may make voters feel hopeless or not heard, but it should not breed distrust. They know why their candidate lost and they may think that no one cares about them, but there is no mathematical formula that masks a deception.
Proportional representation, on the other hand, will erode trust by severing the link between voter and representative. In the party list system, which was used for European elections, the electorate is grouped into larger regions spoken for by several different representatives. As a result, accountability is washed away by shared responsibility between representatives and fewer local links, which would likely become regional as opposed to constituency-based. This would also be a significant problem with the Single Transferable Vote system (STV) which elects multiple MPs per constituency, diffusing responsibility.
However, the additional member system (AMS), used in Scotland as well as the London Assembly, would avoid this problem as it combines FPTP with proportional representation. This comes with its own problems, though, as the number of MPs would, according to one model, balloon to over 1,000, which the public would be highly unlikely to accept. Alternatively, it would require a reduction in the number of constituencies which would weaken accountability, albeit in a less extreme way than above.
Leaving the constituency-MP link aside, the relative simplicity of FPTP is a significant advantage at a time when politicians are almost universally distrusted. The voting system, no matter how disproportional, makes sense to the ordinary voter: allocating seats according to a formula, as you would in STV, AMS or party list, is opaque to the layman, and therefore prone to distrust born of misunderstanding.
Proportional representation would not just undermine faith in the democratic process, however, it would also gut any remaining credibility out of parliament itself. We would likely be consigned to routine coalitions; not even Tony Blair, in his pomp, would have won a majority. If Westminster looks indecisive now, imagine the spectacle of Burnham trying to control a Labour Party in revolt, whilst tying together a coalition made up of Ed Davey and Zak Polanski.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition from 2010-15 is potentially lethal to my argument. The only post-war Westminster example, it was our most stable government after the end of New Labour, lasting the full five years. Since then, we’ve had a succession of short-lived Tory governments and then Starmer’s premiership which survived little over twenty-four months, despite a monstrous majority.
Set amidst this context, perhaps a coalition government wouldn’t be so bad. Yet, the institutional success of the Cameron-Clegg coalition, and therefore its ability to drive policy decisions, was dependent upon several factors that wouldn’t be present in a future move towards proportional representation. Firstly, the coalition relied upon two leaders who prioritised pragmatism over principle, had relative control over their parliamentary parties and were, themselves, ideologically similar. Such historical contingency is unlikely to replicate itself going forwards and certainly not consistently enough to enable stable coalitions. Our political culture of whips, debates and parties, developed over hundreds of years, is inherently hostile to consensual government.
Secondly, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. This was a piece of legislation passed, by Cameron’s own admission, to reassure the Liberal Democrats that he would not call an early election. Whilst a similar piece of legislation would theoretically require parliament, rather than just Downing Street, to go to the country, the reality would likely be different. We saw this in the absurd situation at the end of 2019 when the government repeatedly tried to dissolve parliament, only to be rebuffed several times. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act was ultimately bypassed through separate legislation. Such episodes deteriorate the very trust in politics we are aiming to restore. Any implementation of PR, therefore, would also require a serious re-thinking of the constitutional framework.
Our current predicament was not caused by our constitution, nor will it be solved by it.
Yet, there is a final argument against proportional representation. Introducing a new voting system signals a carelessness with Britain’s history, traditions and institutions that cannot be calculated in electoral arithmetic or measured in voting surveys. The continuity of the British constitution and the evolving nature of our system is something to be lauded, not condemned. Our current predicament was not caused by our constitution, nor will it be solved by it.
Britain’s traditions of adversarial politics make it a poor fit for proportional representation, in any case. Despite the childish reputation it has attained, adversarial politics fosters innovative ideas and radical policy in a way consensual government cannot. The compromising nature of coalitions could not give rise to an Attlee or a Thatcher because the areas of agreement must be so broad. Nor would it produce a Blair whose ambitions would have outpaced any coalition partners. Instead our coalitions lie within parties. Starmer failed precisely because he could not retain the support of the Labour Party, not because he ran an ‘elective dictatorship’. Change is necessary, but change must be thought through.
This isn’t. Fundamentally rewiring the mother of all parliaments will foster even greater distrust in politics through the obfuscation of the electoral process, subsequent fragile governments and careless constitutional carnage. If Burnham wants to rebuild trust, he should start by using his inherited, and enormous, majority to make the decisions that improve people’s lives. Or he should call an election.