The Government Cannot Restore Trust in our Democracy Without Electoral Reform
On 17 July, the Government revealed its limited plans for political reform including reducing the voting age to 16, extending forms of voter ID, the first step toward automatic voter registration and further limits on political donations to safeguard against foreign interference – but not a fairer voting system.
In its strategy Restoring Trust in our Democracy, the Starmer ministry proposed these changes to improve the UK’s democratic standards and to make good on several of Labour’s promises, namely granting 1,500,000 young people the universal right to vote in UK national, devolved and local elections.
The ministerial foreword praised the Magna Carta and campaigners such as the Chartists and the Suffragettes who fought to make Parliament more representative. However, these praises ring hollow as it gave little to no indication that it would consider adopting proportional representation for UK general elections or even English local elections on par with those in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
First Past the Post is the source of public disillusionment with and alienation from politics. Expanding the national franchise to young adults and guaranteeing ballot access to eligible voters will have little positive change if they still believe that their votes are wasted. A fairer system would be the most straightforward solution.
A question asked and an answer given during the Commons debate on the strategy perfectly demonstrated the current disconnect between public opinion and government interest.
Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, asked Democracy Minister Rushanara Ali if she could “outline and explain why there is that difference between Westminster elections and combined and mayoral elections”. This was in reference to the government’s plans to reintroduce two-preference Supplementary Voting for metro mayor and police and crime commissioner elections, which was replaced with First Past the Post in 2022 under the Conservatives.
To underscore his point, Mr Gordon said that: “We know that a majority of the British public want to see the scrapping of First Past the Post. We know that a majority of people in this place when we had a Ten Minute Rule bill in this Parliament”, meaning Sarah Olney’s Elections (Proportional Representation) Bill, “want to see the scrapping of First Past the Post. And we know that a majority of Labour members want to see the scrapping of First Past the Post”.
In response, Ms Ali – somewhat disjointedly – attempted to defend the government’s rationale, rolling out several of the weak arguments and deflections used by FPTP retentionists. She argued that FPTP “provides a direct relationship between members of the legislature and local constituencies, which is really important”, then clutched at the Lib Dems’ defeat in the 2011 referendum. She concluded by saying that “we believe that [SV]’s more appropriate for electing single-person executives” such as metro mayors and PCCs.
In defending SV and MPs’ link to constituencies, Ms Ali brushed over the fact that MPs elected under FPTP are also sole representatives, who unlike metro mayors do not require the broad support of half of voters to win. It is also worth noting that PR systems such as Single Transferable Voting and Additional Member System – used here in the UK – feature local constituencies.
Furthermore, in mentioning the referendum, she neglected to say that it was on Alternative Voting, a majoritarian system which like SV – and unlike FPTP – ensures that winning candidates have broad majority support. Because it uses preferential voting, AV is continuously misrepresented as a proportional system by FPTP retentionists, using the referendum result as a prime facie example of public scepticism towards electoral reform despite recent polling.
Conspicuous by its absence was the argument that FPTP leads to strong and stable government under single-party rule. Given the ‘coalitions of chaos’ under May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer, the idea that this system enables stability or effective legislating no longer holds sway.
If Ms Ali’s case was not a convincing one, it was probably not meant to be. Despite public concern about the voting system, debate on it is currently restricted to limited forums, meaning that FPTP’s major beneficiaries do not need to present strong arguments to maintain the status quo. Labour controls Parliament and thus its debate timetable, deferring the second reading of the Elections Bill until 29 May 2026. Meanwhile, general televised debates – such as Channel 4’s local elections debate last April – dedicate little time or focus on this issue if it is raised, meaning that both Labour and Conservative participants can offer deflective arguments without facing strong rebuttals.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections is currently the largest such group in Parliament’s history, and it argues in part for a fairer voting system. If your MP is not already a member, you can write to them and ask them to join and lobby the government to pursue this positive and popular change.
If you want a dedicated debate on our voting system where the public can participate and FPTP retentionists have to cogently defend it ‘despite its flaws’, Change.org is hosting a petition calling for such a televised debate.
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