The real elephant in the room
Posted by Anna Bull on February 2nd, 2007
While there may be a baby European elephant in the room (see Owen’s article below), the real, rampaging, galumphing, trumpeting elephant is climate change. 
But don’t worry; this isn’t a post on climate change, it’s on electoral reform. My premise is that the adversarial, first-past-the-post (FPP) system of election in the UK is completely inadequate for dealing with big, longterm issues and how it has(n’t) dealt with climate change has shown us this in stark relief. Let me tell you why.
While proportional representation (PR), my suggested alternative for FPP, doesn’t solve the problem of short-termism in government dictated by the necessarily brief election cycle, it does at least encourage parties to accentuate their similarities rather than their differences. By allowing smaller parties to gain seats in parliament (for example, any party which gains more than 5% of the vote nationwide), coalitions are usually inevitable, avoiding to some extent the dictatorship of the majority which we have so often seen in British politics, and so often depends only on a few thousand votes in a few marginal seats.
In New Zealand, which has PR, the Green Party held the balance of power at the last election and formed a governing coalition with Labour. As a result, New Zealand is well on target to meeting its Kyoto targets (meagre though they are in contrast to what is required) despite its unique position of producing nearly 50% of its carbon emissions in the form of methane from farm animals (usually from belching not farting, despite the infamous ‘fart tax’).
In the UK we desperately need a new kind of politics that can think beyond the next election or two. In the current system it would be political suicide to introduce the enormous measures that are needed to set an example on the world stage for making the 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 that environmental journalist George Monbiot thinks is necessary to avoid the end of civilisation as we know it. I don’t think PR alone can achieve this, but at least it would start to allow a less partisan, more inclusive kind of politics, which I think the country is ready for.
Filed under: electoralreform, ukpolitics on February 2nd, 2007
Thank you!! A PR post!! I don’t understand why this has fallen off the political agenda. Clearly the LibDems aren’t trying hard enough.
It amazes me that we can tell other countries they’re not democratic enough when our own system is blatantly undemocratic, and stops us solving long-term problems like climate change. With PR, parties would be forced to keep their campaign promises or risk being consigned to the fringes of a Parliament that actually does what they were elected for. And I wish someone would sit up and realise this. (of course, they all have, and have realised that would limit their own power. But I suppose that’s another story for another day…)
PR is certainly worth looking at, but surely there are bigger obstacles to democracy in this country at the moment. What about the House Of unelected Lords, or the complete absence of any separation of powers?
Dave On Fire, you are on fire, as your name would suggest; PR in the UK today is a utopian fantasy (Liz do you think the Lib Dems actually have the political clout to push it through? I wish I thought so) and it makes more sense to support reforms which are actually happening in order to optimise democracy. Having just come back from the Fiona Millar talk on education, it strikes me yet again that this country is lumbered with so many archaic institutions which are in desperate need of reform, but being a naturally conservative country, change takes an immensely long time and meets with huge resistance.
(I just remembered that my mother’s third cousin was in the House of unelected Lords until some of the hereditary peers were abolished a few years ago - I am related to the aristocracy!)
Woah. I wish my third cousins were in the House of Lords, rather than a caravan.
Despite not being of an entirely political mindset, I have to say that PR has always made the most sense whenever someone has been generous enough to explain it to me, and then re-explain it when I’ve forgotten how it works, as I inevitably do.
PR does have many advantages over FPP, but it also has disadvantages. For example, if two parties get 40% of the vote each then a third, small party can push its own agenda aggressively by making the other two compete for an alliance.
This may seem attractive in Britain, where the Liberal Democrats would make a refreshing change from Tories and Labour Toryalikes, but less so in France where the Front Nationale is in third position. Ultimately, though, it’s not very democratic to let the votes of the few dominate those of the many, whether you count yourself as one of those few or not.
Since we have a bicameral system anyway, I think a good idea would be to have one house elected by FPP, the other by PR. This kind of compromise is already pratised in many countries. But it makes little sense to focus on how parliament is elected until it is in a position to do its job. Which it doesn’t.
*CORRECTION. I meant, “… Which it isn’t.”
Oh, don’t worry, I totally support any attempt at reform at the moment. Roll on hopelessly-inadequate-but-moving-in-the-right-direction House of Lords reform…I just like to have big, long-term ideals.
And I actually agree with Dave On Fire. Having a bicameral system with one house using PR and another house using FPTP is actually a wonderful idea. I wonder if we’ll ever see it in our lifetimes…