Reform doesn’t have it all wrong, or all right – here are two shifts needed
The UK Reform Party – like them or loathe them – gained 4m votes (14.3%) in the 2024 UK General Election. They haven’t got it all wrong, or all right.
What they have right is that the Conservatives deserved to lose by not listening to their 2019 voters, and that Labour are not popular themselves. That left a huge gap to walk into, that contains (and has to marry) a Red Wall element and a Conservative right element.
Two things they have wrong are 1. A lack of obvious commitment to oppose and eject real racism from all sides, and 2. A preference for a new UK General Election voting system – Proportional Representation (PR).
With pure national PR, Reform UK would have gained 14.3% of seats in Parliament. Which sounds very tempting compared to the five seats they achieved. But look at the mirror, and the long-term. Firstly, as a mirror image, it would immediately also mean creating a permanent, significant presence and increased voice for minority parties it opposes (and who also have few seats due to our current ‘first past the post’ constituency system).
Secondly, it would mean it could never gain its own power. No-one ever gains 50%+ share of the vote in a multi-party system.
Thirdly, it would mean permanent minority governments – with all the corrupt power deals that this would necessitate. I’ll expand on this last point.
PR sounds tempting. It’s only fair, and we’ll get more of what we want as voters, right? Wrong. To get legislation passed, a Government needs a majority of the votes in the House of Commons. It’s a binary vote. Ayes and Nays. There cannot be a ‘proportional’ decision on whether to bring back the death penalty, increase tax to X%, or whatever. Some of life is binary and exclusive by nature. Deciding on laws is one of those things.
So the only question is…do voters get a choice over who gets in power (remember that this means 50%+ of seats not of vote share enables this) *before* the election, or do parties under PR do the ‘binary thing’ *after* the election? In our current system, we choose at the election, and typically the most popular party gets in, like a horse race. In the latter case, with PR, voters have little idea or influence over what coalitions will form. They are transactional, not purposeful coalitions, and the voters have no idea even at the election, what laws they will get from these minority coalitions, which only form *after’* their voting has finished. These coalitions throw up some unpredicatable and weird directions and laws that few wanted.
Our current system contains relative pre-election clarity of manifestos and of Party policies being delivered (at least in terms of direction and philosophy). With PR all this clarity is gone after you voted, once the horse-trading begins behind the Parliamentary seats.
So is our ‘first past the post’ system perfect? No, far from it. But it is far better to have clarity for the next few years from a party with a significant proportion of the country behind it (34-49%), and needing to keep its mandate given the threat of being ousted at the next election. The alternative is having disabled parliaments with no agreements, or ‘transactional’ agreements between those who share no philosophy together, but create odd laws as an unfortunate necessity, subordinate to what they really believe.
Some say it’s good to compromise. It often is, but I’d ask where and when compromise is good. With PR, it’s full of bad compromises – and you don’t get to choose them.
Reform UK should renounce PR – and racism more clearly from all sides – quickly. Grow up, and fight it out.