Cosmopolis » UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system is unfair and leads to voter disaffection

Today, 6 July 2024, Keir Starmer said in his first press conference as Prime Minister: “We have a clear mandate.” This is a half-truth. Yes, Labour won 64% of the seats in the House of Commons. But with only 34% of the vote. Only about one in three voters gave Labour a mandate to govern. Furthermore, only 60% of the UK’s approximately 46 million registered voters turned out to vote. Voter turnout in 2024 was down 7.4 percentage points from 2019. In short, only 20% of all eligible Britons actually voted for Labour in 2024. That’s not a strong mandate.

In my May 2020 article on the 2019 election result, I noted: “The UK electoral system is unfair to small parties. First-past-the-post voting prevents small parties and minority views from being fairly represented in Parliament. As a result, with just 43.6% of the vote, Boris Johnson and his Conservatives won a landslide victory: 365 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.”

In 2024, Labour benefits even more from the first-past-the-post system, winning more seats with a lower overall vote share than the Conservatives did in 2019.

In 2011, the UK held a national referendum on reforming the first-past-the-post voting system. But British voters clearly rejected the referendum by 68% to 32%. I feel sorry for all the smaller parties and minorities who feel their voices are not being heard, but I have no pity for the majority.

The 2011 referendum followed the 2010 election which resulted in a “hung parliament” and in which the Conservatives formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats had demanded that the referendum replace the first-past-the-post system with an “alternative vote”, the results of which should be more proportional to the national vote share.

The 2024 House of Commons elections saw the largest gap ever recorded between the total vote share and the number of seats won. As mentioned above, the Labour Party benefited the most from this unfair system, winning 64% of the 650 seats with only 34% of the vote. This time, the Lib Dems were not one of the main victims. With 12% of the vote, they won 11% of the seats. But the Reform UK party of pro-Brexit populist Nigel Farage won 14% of the vote, but only 1% of the seats. The Green parties suffered a similar fate: with 7% of the vote, they won only 1% of the seats. The SNP managed to win 3% of the vote, but only got 1% of the seats. Other smaller parties like the DUP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Féin all won 1% of the vote and secured 1% of the seats. But the SNP and the three smaller parties mentioned are all regional parties, not seeking to win seats across the whole of the UK.

The “stability” that majoritarian systems provide comes at a high price. A large part of the electorate feels marginalized because their voices are not heard and their votes are not sufficiently converted into seats.

Proportional representation systems are more democratic. But they require parties willing to form coalitions. Democracy thrives on compromise, which is not the case in the UK, France and other countries. Proportional elections require a different political culture.

The UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system is unfair and leads to voter disaffection. It does not enhance stability, but it undermines democracy.

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Article added on July 6, 2024 at 3:19 p.m. German time.