[DISCUSSION] Proportional Representation

I'll keep this OP simple, since it's a [DISCUSSION].


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/08/mps-activists-hold-conference-start-electoral-reform-campaign

The Guardian wrote:Campaigners believe the 2015 general election result, which saw Ukip get just one MP despite getting 3.8m votes, while the SNP secured 56 seats with just 1.5m votes, has made the case for voting reform stronger than ever.

Five parties are formally committed to some form of PR: the Liberal Democrats, Ukip, the SNP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru.

Monday’s conference, which is being organised by the Make Votes Matter campaign, will be addressed by representatives of those five parties, as well as the Labour MPs Stephen Kinnock, Chuka Umunna and Jonathan Reynolds, and the Conservative activist John Strafford, vice chair of Conservative Action for Electoral Reform.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/proportional-representation-a6774976.html

The Independent wrote:A new survey by pollsters BMG has found that 57 per cent of the public agree with the principle that “the number of seats a party gets should broadly reflect its proportion of the total votes cast” – compared to only 9 per cent who disagree.

The scientifically weighted poll found a similarly large majority in favour of changing the current voting system. 51 per cent of the population said they were “unhappy with the current electoral system and want it to change” compared to only 28 per cent who want to keep FPTP.

Do you support Proportional Representation? Is it likely to be the subject of a referendum within the next decade?

We had a vote for it but fudds rejected it. I'd be all for it with an adjustment or two. The only positive for FPTP is a constituent representative.

I think this issue is a long while away from being put to a referendum due to AV referendum being so in favour of keeping FPTP. The Tories are happy with the status quo and Labour broadly are too. So only a coalition is likely to have such a deal agreed and Lib Dems seem finished for a long time.

It's pretty amusing that under some PR systems, the government would have been a Tory UKIP alliance, when often the most vocal supporters of PR are from the left. However the "unfairness" of UKIP getting 3.8 million votes and 1 MP is easily the best real world example of why alternative voting systems should be looked at.

Overall, I tend to favour FPTP, even though I vote for a party which suffers from the system. I'd rather we just got rid of the House of Lords.

Would this mean we wouldn't have local MPs any more? Who would I write to to complain about things?

My current MP is a dick and never replies.

I can't see how you can have a local MP with a system that incorporates proportional representation. But I do think the system needs to change. It makes no sense that we can potentially have a government that in power because they have the most MPs yet another party could possibly have received more votes overall. I don't think this has happened but it is possible.

Also the SNP and UKIP example just shows how ridiculous it is.

I think we should just scrap voting entirely and just pick people to form a government by lottery. Think about it; it would be a lot cheaper, provide a better representation of the people from different backgrounds and walks of life of all ages and prevent vested interests.

Someone might point out that individuals selected this way may not necessarily be intelligent enough to consider policies and vote in parlaiment. I would point out our MPs.

FPTP and PR both have their problems.

FPTP works for a system where you vote for your local MP. Everyone in an area gets to vote on who they want to represent them, the person with the most votes wins. Perfectly fair.

PR works for a system where you vote for a national government. Everyone in a country gets to vote on a party they want to represent them. The parties are then split according to what percentage of the vote they picked up. Perfectly fair.

The issue is we want both and PR wouldn't work on a local level in the same way that FPTP doesn't work for a national level.

I would have both systems. Give the House of Lords proper teeth but make it run by PR. The HoC stays FPTP but is an exact equal of the HoL.

Wouldn't you have ended up with a load of UKIP seats with PR?

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:I can't see how you can have a local MP with a system that incorporates proportional representation.

Copy the system the Republic of Ireland's been using for the last 80 or so years?

*edit* pressed post before I was finished.

Was going to say something along the lines of it's not fair that constituencies are all given the same amount of seats regardless of size but then PR would just mean that the less populated parts of the country effectively wouldn't have a vote.

PR would mean everyone has an equal vote?

I'd love PR. I guess a sensible way of doing it would be to have 'constituent-free' MPs, who didn't get enough votes to represent an area but are selected by their party based on overall votes. Your area gets the most popular MP and parliament represents the views of the whole UK. No more gerrymandering.

Fatal Exception wrote:I'd love PR. I guess a sensible way of doing it would be to have 'constituent-free' MPs, who didn't get enough votes to represent an area but are selected by their party based on overall votes. Your area gets the most popular MP and parliament represents the views of the whole UK. No more gerrymandering.

You'd have a massive parliament then.

Hyperion wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:I'd love PR. I guess a sensible way of doing it would be to have 'constituent-free' MPs, who didn't get enough votes to represent an area but are selected by their party based on overall votes. Your area gets the most popular MP and parliament represents the views of the whole UK. No more gerrymandering.

You'd have a massive parliament then.

Get rid of the House of Lords to compensate.

Hmmm. I'm more in favour of a bicameral system

My idea is that we entirely reform the House of Lords - not scrap, reform. The Lords can still remain, but their chamber is elected, and is proportional. That way, we 1) remove the ridiculous nature of the current HoL, 2) introduce proportional representation into our current system, which would be fair, and 3) retain the local aspect to the current setup, where every constituency has a local MP.

First things first, the Lords needs cutting down, because it's bloated as all hell. There are currently 859 Lords. 859! Of all the two-assembly parliamentary democracies in the world, ours is the only one with a bigger 'upper' house than its 'lower' house. Plus, they're all unelected. This is patently absurd. Get rid of life peerages. It's not a thing. 39 peers currently disqualified or on leave of absence (because they're too old to sit). Get rid of them. 'Lords Temporal'? That sounds like religious groups interfering directly with our democracy without any say from the people. Not for me. That's another 26 peers out. Crossbenchers and non-affiliated? Er, why? You can do one. That's another 208 removed right there. Leaving up with 586 Lords. Hey, that's not bad!

Now, the commons is made up of 650 members. Let's assume for the purposes of this idea that this number survives the Conservatives' plans to fiddle the boundaries. If we bump up the 586 lords to a nice round 600, that leaves us a smaller 'upper' house than our 'lower' house, which is a good thing. But a round number will help me explain the next part of this plan, which is proportional representation. I'll use the most recent election as an example. So let's say in 2015, when we voted, this new system was in place. Political parties would still nominate their candidates for constituencies, as always. However, each party would also submit an official list of 'nominations', in order of priority, as to their prospective sitting members of the House of Lords. So the Conservatives would probably put Tina Stowell at #1, meaning that she'd get the Conservatives' first seat in the Lords. (All parties would of course be free to nominate current crossbenchers/non-affiliated persons as their candidates on this list, meaning the actual make-up of the personnel in the house might well be fairly similar, but there'd be a clearly defined structure to it.)

In the 2015 election, the Cons won 330 seats, Labour won 232, UKIP won 1, the Lib Dems won 8, the SNP won 50, the DUP 8, the Greens 1, Plaid 3, SF 4, UUP 2, and the SDLP 3 (+ 1 indie & the speaker). However, the 600 seats of the House of Lords would be awarded based on the % of the overall popular vote that each party won. So 0.167% (thereabouts) of the popular vote would equal 1 Lord appointment for a term in office, until the next general election. Therefore:


So UKIP, despite only winning 1 seat in parliament for 12.6% of the popular vote, would actually see their election performance rewarded with a far more proportional 76 seats in the House of Lords.

Plaid Cymru would get 4 seats, meaning their nominations #1 through #4 would be given seats in the new, proportional House of Lords.

The daily goings-on of parliament - both houses - and their roles and relationship to one another, would remain largely unchanged. But this way, we don't have a ridiculous, unelected, undemocratic second house that's open to manipulation by whichever party in power chooses to bloat it with lifetime appointments of its own selection. We'd get proportional representation - not fully, of course, but this means the current structure is retained, with local issues still given full prominence by each locally-elected commons MP. However, under such a system, no-ones vote is wasted.

Problem with PR is that it allows for no independents.

How would that work when the SNP have 50 constituencies but only 29 seats?

Hime wrote:How would that work when the SNP have 50 constituency's but only 29 seats?

They'd still have 50 seats in the commons, one for each constituency. They'd also get 29 seats in the lords, to represent the proportion of the popular vote they won.

NickSCFC wrote:Wouldn't you have ended up with a load of UKIP seats with PR?

Yes. And even though we all hate UKIP, in a democracy they should have more than one seat.