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Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (ac

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to be a very broad house, meaning Starmer struggles to take strong positions on anything because he doesn’t want to lose votes from different groups (mainly from the centre right based on his recent statements). In a proportional voting system each party can be more focussed on having a distinct set of policies and beliefs, which can be debated openly with other parties without fear of alienating a large proportion of their base. It is clear that this is the core problem in the UK, Brexit was a symptom of this issue because people felt their vote actually counted and they wanted to protest against the neoliberal establishment. Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to the EU. If Labour win the next election their position will be very fragile, and I’m unsure they will get more than one term.

Ste_Evans 4y ago
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euix 4y ago
I believe this is a common trend through the west. Here in Canada the current Federal Liberals won the last two election with about 30% of the vote which when you take into account how many people even vote amounts to something like ~5 million people in a country close to 40 million. The kind of overarching policies and rhetoric coming out of government is widely disproportionate to that level of mandate.
- mymythisisthis 4y ago
  The Liberals are in a coalition with the NDP, combined the two parties received a majority of the popular vote. A better example would be Doug Ford in Ontario. Ford's Conservatives received only 41% of the popular vote but took 67% of the seats. The First Past The Post System needs to be retired, it is anti-democratic. Either run-offs or a ranked ballot voting system would be better.
  - dogcomplex 4y ago
    Approval voting or proportional representation would be better, but sure
- wazoox 4y ago
  Yup. In France Macron hold total power with less than 30% of voters and less than 30% of good opinion in polls. His "pension reform" has everyone against it, the unions, all political parties but his own, even the employers association, but it will be enforced anyway. Democracy is dead, and it even began to smell.
  - SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
    Curious to see what HN's opinion on mandatory voting is. We have that in Australia and the sense is that it tends to dull the extreme fringes of the party platforms since they need to broadly appeal to the mainstream.
    - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
      It is hard to disentangle the temperament of the populace from the voting system. The UK and all former settler colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) all have very stable politics and that generally appeal to the median voter. None of them really have any extreme political incidents in living memory that I can think of. (maybe a few extreme incidents by their own standards but on a global standard they are still tame)
      - throwaway2037 4y ago
        "former settler colonies". US and South Africa do not count? How about Latin America vis-a-vis Spain and Portugal?
        TapWaterBandit 4y ago
        I thought it was implied but I meant former settler colonies of the UK specifically. The USA could be included and does have overall remarkably stable politics compared to most of the world. I didn't include it due to the length of time it has been separate from the UK, however there was substantial emigration from the British Isles to the USA in the 19th century with the settling of the West (more British went to the USA in the 19th century than Canada/Australia/NZ/South Africa combined and served as a 2nd large wave of Anglofying influence on the nation). I would lump it in with the other nations I mention as having overall extreme stable politics and high adherence to political norms that can be broadly characterised as the "Anglo model of politics". South Africa is a bit of a unique case. Due to the Apartheid system it never had any of the sort of political stability that characterises the politics of the other nations mentioned. The political culture of Spain/Portugal is massively different from the UK (especially at the time of the colonisation of the Americas) and the model of politics in the nations of South America is very different as a result.
- timbit42 4y ago
  They had to coalition with another party to form a government with over 50% of the seats. It's more democratic than straight FPTP.
narag 4y ago
Electoral systems are very difficult to change. The party with enough votes to lead the change isn't going to be interested, because it's the system that put them in that position. Edit: So we're talking electoral systems, referenda have a big caveat. Usually you vote a goal, but you don't vote how it's going to be implemented. The brexit was sold as a measure against Brussels' regulation and taxes...
- aidos 4y ago
  The Uk had a referendum in 2011 to change the system and voted fairly conclusively to stick with first past the post. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternat...
  - jimnotgym 4y ago
    Worth remembering that the Tories only allowed the vote as part of the coalition deal, and then actively campaigned against it. The whole thing was a damp squib, and was designed to be
  - Quarrelsome 4y ago
    Two points of note to add: 1. regulations around referendums (compared to general elections) are very poor and the "no to AV" campaign exploited this by running an extremely dishonest campaign [1] 2. turnout was < 50% of the electorate so one can somewhat facetiously imply from the result that the majority of the electorate don't care what the system is. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/25/no-to-alternative-vote-baby-ad https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/25/no-to-...
  - akiselev 4y ago
    That referendum was poison pilled with the “alternative vote” and sold to voters as a easy path to the BNP getting elected. It was just as much party politics as the Brexit vote, not a genuine attempt at direct democracy.
    - 4y ago
theGnuMe 4y ago
Because the Tories will make things better? I mean they've had enough time at bat that it is obvious they can't.
- akiselev 4y ago
  Didn't the Tories run on making things worse 13 years ago (austerity)? Thanks to COVID, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine, they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
  - jen20 4y ago
    Actually no, they did not run on that. They ran on a platform of “sharing the proceeds of growth”, and then changed their mind after getting into office. I believe the outgoing minister left a (lighthearted?) note saying “I’m afraid there is no money left”, which was used as a partial justification.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      08 financial crises the uk went full austerity and basically missed out on the economic boom.
      - lgkghfjhgjhfg 4y ago
        US went on austerity too but it didn't stop them their economic boom.
        theGnuMe 4y ago
        Not true. The uk did, USA did not. https://carnegieendowment.org/2011/03/24/tale-of-two-polities-uk-and-u.s.-fiscal-policy-pub-43229 https://carnegieendowment.org/2011/03/24/tale-of-two-politie...
        lgkghfjhgjhfg 4y ago
908B64B197 4y ago
>Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to the EU Why not simply have regional votes to separate from the UK and join the EU? Scotland tried not that long ago.
- marcusverus 4y ago
  Our legacy governments make this very difficult. Sadly, while many of our governments readily adopted the concept of representative democracy, they retained other oppressive aspects of the ancient systems which they replaced. The old monarchies claimed a right to rule their subject peoples in perpetuity, deriving their power directly from God. Our modern governments claim the same thing! Instead of that divine right flowing directly from God to the state, it flows from God, through your forbears who created the government, to the state. Isn't that slick? They derive their legitimacy from man's divine right to choose his own government, while simultaneously denying that YOU have such a right! It's the 'ole divine right to rule with extra steps. So while you can choose who controls your government via democratic means, you'll have a helluva time choosing a new government, since the old government will waive the crusty old document that your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather signed and say that you are committing treason. See the Catalan independence movement[0], or the official position of the UK government on the most recent Scottish independence referendum[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/11/23/uk-court-rules-against-scottish-independence-referendum-without-westminster-approval_6005316_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/11/23/u...
  - mtklein 4y ago
    Not saying it's worked out perfectly, but the US Declaration of Independence must count among those crusty old documents, and its preamble explicitly declares that throwing off such a government is the right and duty of the governed (admittedly preceded with some couching from "Prudence, indeed...").
    - marcusverus 4y ago
webmobdev 4y ago
> Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. This is unfortunately not unique. India too has seen the rise of the right, and its democracy threatened and at a perilous stage. Many other countries have seen the rise of the right too. However, I feel this is a political pattern that can be observed historically and generationally, where the political spectrum switch between extremes of left and right, with brief periods of centrism. This can be observed in the last century too. The hard question is how long will this political effect last before we see it wane. Another question is how much the internet contributed to this and if we can do anything about it without trampling our rights.
- mjfl 4y ago
  "democracy is under threat when people I don't like are democratically elected." Is it invisible to you how such statements are, themselves, bad for democracy?
  - Silhouette 4y ago
    The problem is that in many Western systems the people who gain power aren't democratically elected. In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. However most of us aren't even getting that far because the people who gain power often don't even have the support or even acceptance of the majority.
    - gernb 4y ago
      You said > In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority But isn't that exactly what's happening? The minority (red) won against the majority (blue).
      - kibwen 4y ago
        The grandparent is simplifying. The goal of a democracy is to respect the will of the majority while respecting the fundamental rights of the minority. If you're not doing the first step, respecting the will of the majority, then your democracy has already failed. A tyranny of the minority is strictly worse than a tyranny of the majority.
mjfl 4y ago
Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional representation? It's just prime minister that's first past the post, but from a proportional vote in parliament? Labour is not going to save Britain. They are just going to redistribute money that is more and more and more "not there" anymore. The EU is not going to save Britain, they are having a crisis too. Nothing will save Britain, it is doomed for the next couple hundred years or so.
- wpietri 4y ago
  > Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional representation? Not necessarily. Imagine a country with four parties. In each constituency, they respectively get 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10% of the vote. Under FPTP, parliament is made up of all reps from the 40% party, shutting out other voters. Under PR, depending on variety you'd get results closer to the distribution of the votes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
  - mjfl 4y ago
    But I don't think that's how it works? I think parliament works proportionally? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingd... It is not the case that the conservative party got all the seats.
    - tragomaskhalos 4y ago
      Imagine there were 100 constituencies, and in every one party A secured 51% of the vote and party B got 49%. Under our current system, party A would have all 100 seats, and party B would have no representation at all; whereas under PR, A and B would (simpisticly speaking)split seats 51-49.
      - scatters 4y ago
        Worse, imagine that in 51 constituencies A gets 51% of the vote, and in 49 it gets 0% of the vote. This gives A a majority in parliament even though voters as a whole prefer B nearly 3-to-1.
monsecchris 4y ago
> Instead it requires Labour to be a very broad house This is a severe disconnection from reality, the Labour party is totally ideologically possessed. 52% of the population voted for Brexit and not a single Labour MP supports it. Not a single Labour MP would ever dream of criticising the NHS system. Not a single Labour MP said a bad word about BLM. The Conservative party are so broad they have everything except actual conservatives.
- digianarchist 4y ago
  This is complete nonsense. Quite a few Labour MPs supported Leave [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Leave
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    Especially Corbyn, though of course he couldn't "support it" outright because that would mean agreeing with Tories (and he couldn't oppose it outright without angering a lot of Labour members)
    - digianarchist 4y ago
      Another rewrite of history. He backed Remain.
      - hermitcrab 4y ago
        Did he? Any support he gave was so tepid, I barely noticed.
        digianarchist 4y ago
        He made more media appearances than Alan Johnson who was running Labour’s Remain campaign.
      - bojan 4y ago
        Very reluctantly, and probably against his own better judgment, at least that was the impression he created.
samwillis 4y ago
> If Labour win the next election their position will be very fragile, and I’m unsure they will get more than one term. This is my expectation, the Conservatives will have been able to "clean house" and remove a significant number of MPs who now have too much baggage. I expect a Labour government to struggle through the end of a recession, and have significant infighting. The conservatives will capitalise on that and could take back control. I just really hope Labour push through significant electoral reform in their first term.
gman83 4y ago
Proportional representation also has its problems. Look at the Netherlands, which has 17 different parties in parliament and led to it becoming increasingly difficult to form coalitions, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_Dutch_cabinet_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_Dutch_cabine...
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  Yes voters should just buckle down and vote for a big left/right party. Voters are getting too much democracy for their own good!
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    Agree. Look at democracies where two parties dominate. The choices look awful. Where is the center represented in UK and US?
    - refurb 4y ago
      The Democrats and Republicans already represent a range of the political spectrum, they aren’t monolithic. And the US isn’t a Parliamentary democracy, so Congresspeople don’t have to vote along party lines (and often don’t).
    - jen20 4y ago
      The center is represented in the UK by Labour, and by the Democrats in the US. The left is not represented in either country.
      - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
        In reality we don't really know where center lies in either country given the circumstance.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        The “center” or “left” of what? The US is a country that’s as religious as Iran where a decisive majority disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ban on school prayer: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carolina-valedictorian-reignites-debate-on-prayer-in-school https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carol.... It’s a country where 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month in energy bills to mitigate climate change: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-higher-electric-bills-combat-climate-change https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-... You might not approve of where the “center” is in the US, but Democrats absolutely represent the center left and republicans represent the center right of the actual American electorate.
roenxi 4y ago
Democracy is remarkably robust and people fighting is not an indication that it is faltering. The UK has a long and proud history of tenuous balance between different groups that are all on the verge of doing violence to one another, the current era is remarkably peaceful and cooperative. People are undercalling the effects of a multi-decade campaign against energy security in favour of environmentalist goals. The driver of the environment of cooperation post-WWII has been abundant cheap energy. That meant there was always a path forward where everyone was better off - which is no longer so obviously the case. To be fair, it isn't just a policy problem. The UK is running out of fuel. But this article isn't going to the root cause of why people can't find an easy grow-the-pie solution to keep everyone working together.
- TapWaterBandit 4y ago
  https://www.britainremade.co.uk/ https://www.britainremade.co.uk/ There are some grass roots efforts emerging to convince people of the importance of purely technocratic improvements that society needs. In this case, cheaper energy and faster transportation.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Absolutely none of that is true. The UK has the highest energy prices of any country in Europe and - not coincidentally - its energy companies make the highest profits. The UK could have promoted renewables, and did for a while. But the current government - like you - is actively hostile to decentralised solutions that work, and prefers to promote corporate choke points over energy supply that have put the entire population at risk of fuel poverty. It's been the same story across most of the privatised industries. The concept of the common good has been replaced with an oligarchic dystopia in which a few corrupt winners shake down everyone else. The root cause is neoliberal dogma, which has been aggressively promoted to the population since the 1970s. It was sold as "freedom". But it's only ever been used to justify increasingly extreme economic apartheid and incredibly poor strategic planning. The UK is not a poor country. It's not even an energy poor country. But it's on course to having the poorest working population in Europe. That's not the fault of windmills and solar panels, and it's disingenuous to suggest it is.
Adverblessly 4y ago
Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government is trying to pass several laws to weaken Israel's democracy, including one that effectively strips the Supreme Court of its ability to override non-constitutional[1] laws and directives (and let's not mention the personal legislation). I suspect then that the problem is not specifically in the voting system, and the voting system at best can be a contributing factor. [1] - Technically Israel doesn't have a constitution and instead has "Basic Laws" that serve a similar function, let's not get into that :)
- TapWaterBandit 4y ago
  This is interesting. Does Israel have parliamentary supremacy? In NZ we have MMP which is proportional but Supreme Court rulings on law do no "override" action as parliament is still supreme. So it can't override laws perse.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
    If you have a constitution (I'm not sure what happened after you rejected Australia's, but you're still in there and it's not too late to join) then the Supreme Court can override laws which it deems unconstitutional.
    - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
      You are correct and it looks like I misunderstood my own countries system of government. Thank for the correction :)
- lambertsimnel 4y ago
  > Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. If small parties' power is such a problem, why don't the big parties form another grand coalition? Or form Scandinavian-style pre-election pacts with the small parties? [Edited to acknowledge grand coalitions aren't a foreign concept in Israel]
VK538FY 4y ago
I understand your point. 'First past the post' may not be ideal for your country. For other countries, it is appreciated despite its inconveniences. Example: Québec. We inherited 'first past the post' from England. The results are obvious: small parties with significant numbers of voters in many ridings don't end up in parliament. But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost half the population of the province. That city has a demography very different to the rest of the province. In a proportional system, the will of the big city would simply sweep away the rural regions that don't have the same weight. People have learnt to accept 'first past the post' and any change would upset the balance that exists today.
- culi 4y ago
  I don't know if you've fully considered the alternatives here. Alternatives like Approval or even RCV (which admittedly has its own issues) don't at all weaken the rural vote here. Approval means all those rural parties can be voted for instead of having to be consolidated and also increases the chance that some city folk will vote for them. RCV allows rural people to vote for the longshot candidate they ACTUALLY want while making sure their vote isn't thrown away when their candidate does lose This "balance" you're speaking of only benefits the duopoly that's developed BECAUSE of the FPTP system. Organizations are like organisms. Organisms don't only have to replicate their DNA to be successful—they also need to replicate their environments (e.g. buffalo and elephants protected grasslands from being overrun by woodlands, pine forests making wildfires more common, etc). In this case these parties both have disproportionate power because of FPTP and are both interested in maintaining this "balance"
  - VK538FY 4y ago
    I appreciate your suggestions but would really need to see some simulations to digest the potential effects. Not that my opinion counts for much but it's always good to suggest alternatives when one criticizes. That said, the duopoly isn't always so bad historically. Many cases of individual candidates who broke party lines or walked the fine line. It depends to a great degree on party discipline or the lack thereof.
csomar 4y ago
This was Germany's case for Tunisia's democracy. Tunisia ended up implementing a Proportional Representation system and I believe it's a good and well balanced system. On Paper. Well, democracy in Tunisia imploded and exploded. So, yeah, be careful of things that look good on paper.
- ruggeri 4y ago
  Honest question: did Germany have any say in Tunisia's voting system? Wasn't Tunisia a French protectorate? Do you mean more recently than 1956? In any case, Tunisia is not the only country with PR. It's used a lot of places, including Germany (well, MMP, but pretty similar). Like any system it has advantages and disadvantages, but democracy in the Nordics hasn't imploded nor exploded...
  - csomar 4y ago
    > did Germany have any say in Tunisia's voting system? Wasn't Tunisia a French protectorate? It's different, I think. Germany offered help (along with the EU) and Tunisia(ans) don't know any better so they took up the offer. Plus it was free help and free money. I don't think Germany or the EU had any malicious intentions, I think they truly wanted to help. But big surprise: Tunisia is not a Nordic country! Apparently, what works there doesn't work here at all.
kristianc 4y ago
How would Starmer needing to accommodate for instance, the Lib Dems on every position, be an improvement on this? Take the issue of housing policy for instance. Britain urgently needs more houses, but the Lib Dems turn up at every local election and by-election on a NIMBY platform. The same for building new energy infrastructure- the Lib Dems famously blocked the building of new nuclear plants ‘because they wouldn’t be online until 2021/22’. The evidence of the Coalitions we’ve had is that they overall lead to pretty terrible decision making, and indecisive government on the whole.
- kieranmaine 4y ago
  Can't deny the issues with housing policy. I feel your point on nuclear only paints half the picture. During their time in the coalition the Lib Dems did push for an expansion of wind power, with the subsequent ban on on-shore wind coming after their demise in the 2015 election. Also, the number of solar installations dived after the Lib Dems were dispatched with and the subsidies were removed. In terms of "terrible decision making, and indecisive government" I believe this is a better description of all that has come to pass after the coalition with only a single party in power.
d1sxeyes 4y ago
2015 was a disaster we never recovered from. Millions of voters voted for real change, and got ignored. But then the party who DID actually win the election pandered to those voters to try and win them over. We ended up with Brexit and a whole host of other related problems with populism, etc. I blogged about it here at the time, in case anyone's interested: https://tinyurl.com/39r8r3rr https://tinyurl.com/39r8r3rr

Ste_Evans 4y ago

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euix 4y ago

I believe this is a common trend through the west. Here in Canada the current Federal Liberals won the last two election with about 30% of the vote which when you take into account how many people even vote amounts to something like ~5 million people in a country close to 40 million. The kind of overarching policies and rhetoric coming out of government is widely disproportionate to that level of mandate.

mymythisisthis 4y ago
The Liberals are in a coalition with the NDP, combined the two parties received a majority of the popular vote. A better example would be Doug Ford in Ontario. Ford's Conservatives received only 41% of the popular vote but took 67% of the seats. The First Past The Post System needs to be retired, it is anti-democratic. Either run-offs or a ranked ballot voting system would be better.
- dogcomplex 4y ago
  Approval voting or proportional representation would be better, but sure
wazoox 4y ago
Yup. In France Macron hold total power with less than 30% of voters and less than 30% of good opinion in polls. His "pension reform" has everyone against it, the unions, all political parties but his own, even the employers association, but it will be enforced anyway. Democracy is dead, and it even began to smell.
- SturgeonsLaw 4y ago
  Curious to see what HN's opinion on mandatory voting is. We have that in Australia and the sense is that it tends to dull the extreme fringes of the party platforms since they need to broadly appeal to the mainstream.
  - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
    It is hard to disentangle the temperament of the populace from the voting system. The UK and all former settler colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) all have very stable politics and that generally appeal to the median voter. None of them really have any extreme political incidents in living memory that I can think of. (maybe a few extreme incidents by their own standards but on a global standard they are still tame)
    - throwaway2037 4y ago
      "former settler colonies". US and South Africa do not count? How about Latin America vis-a-vis Spain and Portugal?
      - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
        I thought it was implied but I meant former settler colonies of the UK specifically. The USA could be included and does have overall remarkably stable politics compared to most of the world. I didn't include it due to the length of time it has been separate from the UK, however there was substantial emigration from the British Isles to the USA in the 19th century with the settling of the West (more British went to the USA in the 19th century than Canada/Australia/NZ/South Africa combined and served as a 2nd large wave of Anglofying influence on the nation). I would lump it in with the other nations I mention as having overall extreme stable politics and high adherence to political norms that can be broadly characterised as the "Anglo model of politics". South Africa is a bit of a unique case. Due to the Apartheid system it never had any of the sort of political stability that characterises the politics of the other nations mentioned. The political culture of Spain/Portugal is massively different from the UK (especially at the time of the colonisation of the Americas) and the model of politics in the nations of South America is very different as a result.
timbit42 4y ago
They had to coalition with another party to form a government with over 50% of the seats. It's more democratic than straight FPTP.

narag 4y ago

Electoral systems are very difficult to change. The party with enough votes to lead the change isn't going to be interested, because it's the system that put them in that position. Edit: So we're talking electoral systems, referenda have a big caveat. Usually you vote a goal, but you don't vote how it's going to be implemented. The brexit was sold as a measure against Brussels' regulation and taxes...

aidos 4y ago
The Uk had a referendum in 2011 to change the system and voted fairly conclusively to stick with first past the post. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternat...
- jimnotgym 4y ago
  Worth remembering that the Tories only allowed the vote as part of the coalition deal, and then actively campaigned against it. The whole thing was a damp squib, and was designed to be
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  Two points of note to add: 1. regulations around referendums (compared to general elections) are very poor and the "no to AV" campaign exploited this by running an extremely dishonest campaign [1] 2. turnout was < 50% of the electorate so one can somewhat facetiously imply from the result that the majority of the electorate don't care what the system is. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/25/no-to-alternative-vote-baby-ad https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/25/no-to-...
- akiselev 4y ago
  That referendum was poison pilled with the “alternative vote” and sold to voters as a easy path to the BNP getting elected. It was just as much party politics as the Brexit vote, not a genuine attempt at direct democracy.
  - 4y ago

theGnuMe 4y ago

Because the Tories will make things better? I mean they've had enough time at bat that it is obvious they can't.

akiselev 4y ago
Didn't the Tories run on making things worse 13 years ago (austerity)? Thanks to COVID, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine, they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
- jen20 4y ago
  Actually no, they did not run on that. They ran on a platform of “sharing the proceeds of growth”, and then changed their mind after getting into office. I believe the outgoing minister left a (lighthearted?) note saying “I’m afraid there is no money left”, which was used as a partial justification.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    08 financial crises the uk went full austerity and basically missed out on the economic boom.
    - lgkghfjhgjhfg 4y ago
      US went on austerity too but it didn't stop them their economic boom.
      - theGnuMe 4y ago
        Not true. The uk did, USA did not. https://carnegieendowment.org/2011/03/24/tale-of-two-polities-uk-and-u.s.-fiscal-policy-pub-43229 https://carnegieendowment.org/2011/03/24/tale-of-two-politie...
        lgkghfjhgjhfg 4y ago

908B64B197 4y ago

>Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to the EU Why not simply have regional votes to separate from the UK and join the EU? Scotland tried not that long ago.

marcusverus 4y ago
Our legacy governments make this very difficult. Sadly, while many of our governments readily adopted the concept of representative democracy, they retained other oppressive aspects of the ancient systems which they replaced. The old monarchies claimed a right to rule their subject peoples in perpetuity, deriving their power directly from God. Our modern governments claim the same thing! Instead of that divine right flowing directly from God to the state, it flows from God, through your forbears who created the government, to the state. Isn't that slick? They derive their legitimacy from man's divine right to choose his own government, while simultaneously denying that YOU have such a right! It's the 'ole divine right to rule with extra steps. So while you can choose who controls your government via democratic means, you'll have a helluva time choosing a new government, since the old government will waive the crusty old document that your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather signed and say that you are committing treason. See the Catalan independence movement[0], or the official position of the UK government on the most recent Scottish independence referendum[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/11/23/uk-court-rules-against-scottish-independence-referendum-without-westminster-approval_6005316_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/11/23/u...
- mtklein 4y ago
  Not saying it's worked out perfectly, but the US Declaration of Independence must count among those crusty old documents, and its preamble explicitly declares that throwing off such a government is the right and duty of the governed (admittedly preceded with some couching from "Prudence, indeed...").
  - marcusverus 4y ago

webmobdev 4y ago

> Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. This is unfortunately not unique. India too has seen the rise of the right, and its democracy threatened and at a perilous stage. Many other countries have seen the rise of the right too. However, I feel this is a political pattern that can be observed historically and generationally, where the political spectrum switch between extremes of left and right, with brief periods of centrism. This can be observed in the last century too. The hard question is how long will this political effect last before we see it wane. Another question is how much the internet contributed to this and if we can do anything about it without trampling our rights.

mjfl 4y ago
"democracy is under threat when people I don't like are democratically elected." Is it invisible to you how such statements are, themselves, bad for democracy?
- Silhouette 4y ago
  The problem is that in many Western systems the people who gain power aren't democratically elected. In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. However most of us aren't even getting that far because the people who gain power often don't even have the support or even acceptance of the majority.
  - gernb 4y ago
    You said > In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority But isn't that exactly what's happening? The minority (red) won against the majority (blue).
    - kibwen 4y ago
      The grandparent is simplifying. The goal of a democracy is to respect the will of the majority while respecting the fundamental rights of the minority. If you're not doing the first step, respecting the will of the majority, then your democracy has already failed. A tyranny of the minority is strictly worse than a tyranny of the majority.

mjfl 4y ago

Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional representation? It's just prime minister that's first past the post, but from a proportional vote in parliament? Labour is not going to save Britain. They are just going to redistribute money that is more and more and more "not there" anymore. The EU is not going to save Britain, they are having a crisis too. Nothing will save Britain, it is doomed for the next couple hundred years or so.

wpietri 4y ago
> Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional representation? Not necessarily. Imagine a country with four parties. In each constituency, they respectively get 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10% of the vote. Under FPTP, parliament is made up of all reps from the 40% party, shutting out other voters. Under PR, depending on variety you'd get results closer to the distribution of the votes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
- mjfl 4y ago
  But I don't think that's how it works? I think parliament works proportionally? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingd... It is not the case that the conservative party got all the seats.
  - tragomaskhalos 4y ago
    Imagine there were 100 constituencies, and in every one party A secured 51% of the vote and party B got 49%. Under our current system, party A would have all 100 seats, and party B would have no representation at all; whereas under PR, A and B would (simpisticly speaking)split seats 51-49.
    - scatters 4y ago
      Worse, imagine that in 51 constituencies A gets 51% of the vote, and in 49 it gets 0% of the vote. This gives A a majority in parliament even though voters as a whole prefer B nearly 3-to-1.

monsecchris 4y ago

> Instead it requires Labour to be a very broad house This is a severe disconnection from reality, the Labour party is totally ideologically possessed. 52% of the population voted for Brexit and not a single Labour MP supports it. Not a single Labour MP would ever dream of criticising the NHS system. Not a single Labour MP said a bad word about BLM. The Conservative party are so broad they have everything except actual conservatives.

digianarchist 4y ago
This is complete nonsense. Quite a few Labour MPs supported Leave [0]. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Leave
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Especially Corbyn, though of course he couldn't "support it" outright because that would mean agreeing with Tories (and he couldn't oppose it outright without angering a lot of Labour members)
  - digianarchist 4y ago
    Another rewrite of history. He backed Remain.
    - hermitcrab 4y ago
      Did he? Any support he gave was so tepid, I barely noticed.
      - digianarchist 4y ago
        He made more media appearances than Alan Johnson who was running Labour’s Remain campaign.
    - bojan 4y ago
      Very reluctantly, and probably against his own better judgment, at least that was the impression he created.

samwillis 4y ago

> If Labour win the next election their position will be very fragile, and I’m unsure they will get more than one term. This is my expectation, the Conservatives will have been able to "clean house" and remove a significant number of MPs who now have too much baggage. I expect a Labour government to struggle through the end of a recession, and have significant infighting. The conservatives will capitalise on that and could take back control. I just really hope Labour push through significant electoral reform in their first term.

gman83 4y ago

Proportional representation also has its problems. Look at the Netherlands, which has 17 different parties in parliament and led to it becoming increasingly difficult to form coalitions, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_Dutch_cabinet_formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_Dutch_cabine...

dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
Yes voters should just buckle down and vote for a big left/right party. Voters are getting too much democracy for their own good!
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Agree. Look at democracies where two parties dominate. The choices look awful. Where is the center represented in UK and US?
  - refurb 4y ago
    The Democrats and Republicans already represent a range of the political spectrum, they aren’t monolithic. And the US isn’t a Parliamentary democracy, so Congresspeople don’t have to vote along party lines (and often don’t).
  - jen20 4y ago
    The center is represented in the UK by Labour, and by the Democrats in the US. The left is not represented in either country.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
      In reality we don't really know where center lies in either country given the circumstance.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      The “center” or “left” of what? The US is a country that’s as religious as Iran where a decisive majority disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ban on school prayer: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carolina-valedictorian-reignites-debate-on-prayer-in-school https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carol.... It’s a country where 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month in energy bills to mitigate climate change: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-higher-electric-bills-combat-climate-change https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-... You might not approve of where the “center” is in the US, but Democrats absolutely represent the center left and republicans represent the center right of the actual American electorate.

roenxi 4y ago

Democracy is remarkably robust and people fighting is not an indication that it is faltering. The UK has a long and proud history of tenuous balance between different groups that are all on the verge of doing violence to one another, the current era is remarkably peaceful and cooperative. People are undercalling the effects of a multi-decade campaign against energy security in favour of environmentalist goals. The driver of the environment of cooperation post-WWII has been abundant cheap energy. That meant there was always a path forward where everyone was better off - which is no longer so obviously the case. To be fair, it isn't just a policy problem. The UK is running out of fuel. But this article isn't going to the root cause of why people can't find an easy grow-the-pie solution to keep everyone working together.

TapWaterBandit 4y ago
https://www.britainremade.co.uk/ https://www.britainremade.co.uk/ There are some grass roots efforts emerging to convince people of the importance of purely technocratic improvements that society needs. In this case, cheaper energy and faster transportation.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Absolutely none of that is true. The UK has the highest energy prices of any country in Europe and - not coincidentally - its energy companies make the highest profits. The UK could have promoted renewables, and did for a while. But the current government - like you - is actively hostile to decentralised solutions that work, and prefers to promote corporate choke points over energy supply that have put the entire population at risk of fuel poverty. It's been the same story across most of the privatised industries. The concept of the common good has been replaced with an oligarchic dystopia in which a few corrupt winners shake down everyone else. The root cause is neoliberal dogma, which has been aggressively promoted to the population since the 1970s. It was sold as "freedom". But it's only ever been used to justify increasingly extreme economic apartheid and incredibly poor strategic planning. The UK is not a poor country. It's not even an energy poor country. But it's on course to having the poorest working population in Europe. That's not the fault of windmills and solar panels, and it's disingenuous to suggest it is.

Adverblessly 4y ago

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government is trying to pass several laws to weaken Israel's democracy, including one that effectively strips the Supreme Court of its ability to override non-constitutional[1] laws and directives (and let's not mention the personal legislation). I suspect then that the problem is not specifically in the voting system, and the voting system at best can be a contributing factor. [1] - Technically Israel doesn't have a constitution and instead has "Basic Laws" that serve a similar function, let's not get into that :)

TapWaterBandit 4y ago
This is interesting. Does Israel have parliamentary supremacy? In NZ we have MMP which is proportional but Supreme Court rulings on law do no "override" action as parliament is still supreme. So it can't override laws perse.
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  If you have a constitution (I'm not sure what happened after you rejected Australia's, but you're still in there and it's not too late to join) then the Supreme Court can override laws which it deems unconstitutional.
  - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
    You are correct and it looks like I misunderstood my own countries system of government. Thank for the correction :)
lambertsimnel 4y ago
> Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. If small parties' power is such a problem, why don't the big parties form another grand coalition? Or form Scandinavian-style pre-election pacts with the small parties? [Edited to acknowledge grand coalitions aren't a foreign concept in Israel]

VK538FY 4y ago

I understand your point. 'First past the post' may not be ideal for your country. For other countries, it is appreciated despite its inconveniences. Example: Québec. We inherited 'first past the post' from England. The results are obvious: small parties with significant numbers of voters in many ridings don't end up in parliament. But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost half the population of the province. That city has a demography very different to the rest of the province. In a proportional system, the will of the big city would simply sweep away the rural regions that don't have the same weight. People have learnt to accept 'first past the post' and any change would upset the balance that exists today.

culi 4y ago
I don't know if you've fully considered the alternatives here. Alternatives like Approval or even RCV (which admittedly has its own issues) don't at all weaken the rural vote here. Approval means all those rural parties can be voted for instead of having to be consolidated and also increases the chance that some city folk will vote for them. RCV allows rural people to vote for the longshot candidate they ACTUALLY want while making sure their vote isn't thrown away when their candidate does lose This "balance" you're speaking of only benefits the duopoly that's developed BECAUSE of the FPTP system. Organizations are like organisms. Organisms don't only have to replicate their DNA to be successful—they also need to replicate their environments (e.g. buffalo and elephants protected grasslands from being overrun by woodlands, pine forests making wildfires more common, etc). In this case these parties both have disproportionate power because of FPTP and are both interested in maintaining this "balance"
- VK538FY 4y ago
  I appreciate your suggestions but would really need to see some simulations to digest the potential effects. Not that my opinion counts for much but it's always good to suggest alternatives when one criticizes. That said, the duopoly isn't always so bad historically. Many cases of individual candidates who broke party lines or walked the fine line. It depends to a great degree on party discipline or the lack thereof.

csomar 4y ago

This was Germany's case for Tunisia's democracy. Tunisia ended up implementing a Proportional Representation system and I believe it's a good and well balanced system. On Paper. Well, democracy in Tunisia imploded and exploded. So, yeah, be careful of things that look good on paper.

ruggeri 4y ago
Honest question: did Germany have any say in Tunisia's voting system? Wasn't Tunisia a French protectorate? Do you mean more recently than 1956? In any case, Tunisia is not the only country with PR. It's used a lot of places, including Germany (well, MMP, but pretty similar). Like any system it has advantages and disadvantages, but democracy in the Nordics hasn't imploded nor exploded...
- csomar 4y ago
  > did Germany have any say in Tunisia's voting system? Wasn't Tunisia a French protectorate? It's different, I think. Germany offered help (along with the EU) and Tunisia(ans) don't know any better so they took up the offer. Plus it was free help and free money. I don't think Germany or the EU had any malicious intentions, I think they truly wanted to help. But big surprise: Tunisia is not a Nordic country! Apparently, what works there doesn't work here at all.

kristianc 4y ago

How would Starmer needing to accommodate for instance, the Lib Dems on every position, be an improvement on this? Take the issue of housing policy for instance. Britain urgently needs more houses, but the Lib Dems turn up at every local election and by-election on a NIMBY platform. The same for building new energy infrastructure- the Lib Dems famously blocked the building of new nuclear plants ‘because they wouldn’t be online until 2021/22’. The evidence of the Coalitions we’ve had is that they overall lead to pretty terrible decision making, and indecisive government on the whole.

kieranmaine 4y ago
Can't deny the issues with housing policy. I feel your point on nuclear only paints half the picture. During their time in the coalition the Lib Dems did push for an expansion of wind power, with the subsequent ban on on-shore wind coming after their demise in the 2015 election. Also, the number of solar installations dived after the Lib Dems were dispatched with and the subsidies were removed. In terms of "terrible decision making, and indecisive government" I believe this is a better description of all that has come to pass after the coalition with only a single party in power.

d1sxeyes 4y ago

2015 was a disaster we never recovered from. Millions of voters voted for real change, and got ignored. But then the party who DID actually win the election pandered to those voters to try and win them over. We ended up with Brexit and a whole host of other related problems with populism, etc. I blogged about it here at the time, in case anyone's interested: https://tinyurl.com/39r8r3rr https://tinyurl.com/39r8r3rr