First Past the Post: How to Fail an Electorate
- tomelkeles
- Nov 30, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 9, 2021
Why our voting system is an unrepresentative, undemocratic nightmare and where we can look for a better alternative.
As a nation that would like to think of itself as one of the central pillars of modern democracy, the UK’s electoral system is almost laughably bad. On paper, first past the post, or FPTP, sounds like the lowest common denominator of electoral systems; it stifles smaller parties, wastes around half the ballots cast and most egregiously of all, delivers a completely disproportionate result.
As of November 2020, it is clear that the Liberal Democrat experiment has failed. The party’s dismal 2019 election result acting as the culmination of a decade of decline. Of course the repeated election disasters suffered by the party cannot solely be pinned on an electoral system but after having received more than 10% of the vote in 2019 and being only rewarded 1.7% of seats in the house of commons it is quite easy to understand the Lib Dem frustration. To quote Willie Sullivan of the Electoral Reform Society: “When it takes nearly 900,000 votes to elect one party’s MP and just 26,000 for another, you know the system is not just struggling – it’s bankrupt”. This is a tale that can be regaled by any party not called Labour, the Conservatives or the SNP. Looking at these parties that benefit from FPTP, you may notice emerging patterns; firstly, that they make up the most powerful trinity of parties in Westminster, and, even more crucially, they all have established voter ‘heartlands’. This stifles budding parties and prevents a healthy plurality of political opinions being heard in Westminster.
The number of votes that go to waste in a FPTP election is almost criminal. Due to it being a plurality system a candidate needs only one more vote than second place to win election. When this happens all votes not cast in the winner’s favour are immediately discarded. Worse still any votes cast for a winner beyond the one vote required to push them over the line also go to waste as they do not really count for anything except determining the margin by which a candidate won. In a majoritarian system such as Alternative Vote (AV) a candidate must achieve a majority of votes and the ranking of candidates employed in these elections ensures that a much greater proportion of votes are considered when determining a winner. The wasting of votes under FPTP massively disincentivises participation in elections, especially in safe seats where a vote against the favoured candidate may as well have not been cast at all.
Proponents of FPTP will laud it for its simplicity and effectiveness in delivering the nation a workable majority in parliament. To these people I would simply ask: is it really worth sacrificing the democratic integrity of the whole nation to make elections easy to understand? The simple solution to this is to just have elections taught in schools, this will not only foster deeper political understanding, but also boost engagement of the population concerning politics. As for a workable majority, only 2 out of our last 4 general elections have resulted in a majority government, and even that was close in 2015. Another supposed selling point of FPTP is the constituency MP. That pillar of the community and guardian of local rights, the figure within the locality who will uphold your opinions and fight for what directly benefits you, the voter. At least that is how it works on paper. In theory MPs act as a conduit between their constituents and parliament, allowing everyone access to the legislative process and while some people continue to make use of this, a majority of the population has surpassed the need for it. In the age of petitions and social media campaigns, people have found alternative methods for reaching parliament. In essence, local MPs have outlived their usefulness. As for representing their constituents in parliament, the draconian ‘whip’ system employed by parliamentary parties ensures that MPs find it as hard a possible to vote against a bill that could potentially have a detrimental effect on the very people they are elected to represent. What makes all of this worse is the fact that only a simple plurality is needed for an MP to win election meaning that they may not have been voted in by a majority of their constituents, leading to the question being asked of ‘What was the point in this at all?’. These same people will defend the absolute necessity of a majority government as if a coalition will force the nation into anarchy. Explain then, how with a majority of 80, Boris Johnson’s government is struggling to pass legislation regarding lockdown. If anything, a coalition representing a wider spectrum of the electorate and perhaps suggesting alternate strategy could well be more effective in its pandemic response.
So, first past the post does not work. Why don’t we get rid of it and where can we find something better?
The answer to the first of these questions is very simple: it is not in the interest of either party likely to form a government (labour or the conservatives) to call into question the legitimacy or effectiveness of a system that continues to carry them into Downing street election after election. Despite this the British public was offered what was perhaps a once in a life time opportunity to rid themselves of this democratic scourge in the 2011 AV referendum and in their infinite wisdom the British people responded with overwhelming apathy in what was undeniably a damp squib of a referendum which saw a national turnout of only 42% and an overwhelming victory for the FPTP camp.
So why did the British people so wholeheartedly reject a clearly better option?
It comes down to the fact that AV was marketed as unnecessarily complicated, confusing and unfair despite many people not even taking the time to find out how it worked. Compare that to the safe, simple option of FPTP which was spoon fed to the public as a system which would uphold the longstanding democratic tradition of the UK as well as playing on the age old mantra of ‘if it ‘aint broken, don’t fix it’ which was directed at the members of the woefully underinformed British public.
In terms of looking for an alternative, AV certainly is not a bad option but certainly not the best. For what I believe to be the optimal electoral system Brits need only to look across the channel to Germany. Before continuing I would like to reassure the Germanophobes (who will doubtless otherwise lose sleep over the idea of copying an idea from the Deutsch), that the electoral system used in Germany was actually penned by a Brit: a member of Clement Atlee’s 1945 government named Ernest Bevin. It is painfully ironic that a country capable of creating such a competent electoral system continues to insist on one so clearly unfit for purpose. Anyway, the German-adopted ‘Additional member system’ constitutes as the perfect compromise, combining what people consider to be the ‘good’ bits of FPTP, namely the inclusion of local representatives while also effectively delivering a more proportional result, meaning less wasted votes, greater plurality and greater democratic interaction.
First past the post is the antithesis of a functional electoral system. The fact that it is only still in use because the two parties able to form governments are too cowardly to take the plunge and replace it, servicing the greater good of the nation at the potential cost of their continued political success is all too telling, not only about the functionality of its effectiveness as an electoral system, but also the blatant self-interest of parliament in 2020.
(Cover photo - Reuters)
