A Dark Period in British Life

Can you explain why that would be so. I've not read anywhere that that would have to be the case. Is there some precedent or some link you could post? I would have thought previous Pariament Acts which ushered in change would be precedent enough...

 

Getting PR should be the #1 goal for Labour in the next government, should they get in like expected.

It's short-sighted for them to not try and do so, as it makes them being in government much more likely perpetually (even if it's as part of a coalition)

It's the main reason my ideal outcome of the next election would be a LabLib coalition, even though I'm not a fan of the Lib Dems at all.

 

Not a legal requirement, but most definitely a political one. Heath tried to do it on the basis of a manifesto commitment in 1970 but the situation was not resolved until Harold Wilson (in effect) honoured his opponent's commitment when he returned to power in 1974. It cannot be done. Must be a referendum. Which won't happen.

 

It definitely wouldn’t.

 

There is no such provision. Just as the tories can change boundaries without a referendum the voting system could be changed.

If it is your manifesto and you form the Government that’s all that you need alongside the votes in parliament. Parliament is always sovereign

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/l...ble-status-still-impose-20-vat-charge-2646305

And right on cue here’s todays lie unravelling.

 

Wouldn't hold water politically. Naive to think otherwise.

 

People are not invested in political systems. They are barely invested in politics in general.

Turnout for the next election will be very low but we are coming out of a parliament where civil rights have been curtailed, parliament has been Illegally prorogued, the PM openly lied to the Queen parliament and anyone else who would listen and there was a barely a murmur from th e public.

Labour may have it as a first term aim to abolish the HOL and won’t have a referendum if they do. Procedural changes to HOL under Blair did not have a ref. I know that if there had been a hung parliament in 97 PR was on the table with no ref.

if you think people will be rioting in the street because of changes to the electoral system I have a bridge to offer you.

 

PR would be an absolute nightmare letting fringe lunatics like the Greens or UKIP have a disproportionate amount of power.

 

UKIP loons are literally in government right now. They just wore blue rosettes at the last election.

The Tory party has shifted so far to the right that we have a fascist Home Secretary making a speech in the US that Enoch Powell would have been proud of.

 

It's not a disproportionate amount of power though is it? It's literally proportional

 

Now you know economics is not my thing, either nationally or personally!

Trying to vote to create a hung Parliament would have its dangers, I would have thought. Unless there’s a major movement to support it and help people make the right choice. We don’t want the non-Tory vote getting split and them sneaking through the middle.

I reckon it’s pretty much nailed on that Sunak will be ousted when they lose and at this point there will be a right old battle for power of the party. Will the traditional Tories try to wrestle power back from the loons? If Braverman takes over, which is quite possible (although I don’t know if she is one of the Tories in danger of losing their seat) and if the Tory support rises, that may be a time that Labour will want to look at PR, to bring it in before the Tories get back into power.

 

I see this morning that Starmer has backpeddled on removing charitable status from private schools.

 

It's disproportionate when a minority party is able to force its demands on the government as they control the balance of power. When May was reliant upon the DUP they controlled the entire Brexit narrative because they knew they could bring down the government. With PR you would inevitably end up with a situation where the government would be beholden to a dozen Green/UKIP MPs and whatever wacko demands they tried to force. Coalition governments are the worst since you can't be sure what you are voting for, as anybody who voted for the Lib Dems in 2010 would agree.

 

I really don't understand our aversion to coalition governments. They've worked well in much of Europe for years. Our partisan system is exactly what has brought us to the current mess, with an incompetent far-right incarnation of the Tories in power, despite never having won more than 38% of the popular vote IIRC.

 

Because how can you know what you are voting for when post-election there's a bunch of horse-trading and deals being made so people can get their snouts in the trough. The two coalition governments in my lifetime have been awful. I'd also argue a coalition government makes it easier for extreme positions to be represented because they hold the balance of power, see Italy for an example.

 

like when a far right extremist minority party forced its views on all based on 32 per cent of eligible voters supporting them? FPTP gave the party with 32% of the votes an 80 seat majority. Now that’s a democratic deficit

 

Given the chaos the FPTP has caused in the last 13 years it’s no longer defensible. The argument was that it offered stability and prevented extremism but both have flourished so that’s no longer a viable argument

 

I’m no fan of fptp as I’ve made clear - but the issues with PR - as with coalition governments - is giving minority views, even extreme ones, a louder voice and the platform to action their sometimes abhorrent wishes.

Whilst political reform I feel would be good overall, it isn’t without its risks and pitfalls.

I also think you might possibly overestimate the difference PR would make to the number of MPs for the more marginal parties - ie not the tories or Labour. I feel this way for two reasons:

1 Less people would lend their votes to the greens, Lib Dem’s etc if they thought that it will actually affect the outcome; there are a lot of protest votes for both of these parties which I’d think will be diluted a fair bit after any reform

But, more key to this:

2 The current ‘fringe’ parties wouldn’t be as bold in their manifesto pledges if they thought they would be able to implement them in power. The reality of being in government has reigned in the ambitions of every incoming government as far back as I can remember. If they think their seats might hold the balance to getting the keys to number ten, but need a bigger brother to prop up, they will position themselves to make sure they are the little brother of choice.

All this said, the biggest issue is the fact that to form a government with PR, and so it being unlikely that anyone would ever have a majority, it would take sensible, adult conversation and cooperation between opposing views to act in the greater good.

I’m not sure I trust too many of our current incumbents to be able to achieve that.

 

I’ll also add, the last thirteen years have had two instances of no overall majority - with a two party government for the first five of those years which set the tone for everything that was to follow - including finding a ‘magic money tree’ for Northern Ireland which was said by the then prime minister to not exist barely weeks before.

As with moving your vote away from Labour, which I concede is perfectly understandable and rational, a wish to switch to PR, which is probably more understandable and rational, (and one I don’t disagree with in principle), also has potentially dire consequences.