Electoral reform demo tomorrow

Adam Hewitt • Published 10 May 2010 12:00 5 Comments

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'FAIR votes' campaigners are demonstrating in Reading tomorrow, demanding electoral reform.

They say the General Election result shows that the current voting system is broken because the parties' performances have no bearing on how many seats they won.

The demonstration will be outside the Civic Centre in Dusseldorf Way from noon-12.30pm.

Campaigner Peter Burt said: "The one thing that is definitely broken in Britain is our outdated and unfair voting system.

"The number of votes cast do not reflect the number of seats a party gets in Parliament, and in large parts of the country the system means that there is no realistic chance of anyone other than the two main parties with their similar policies winning. This is neither fair nor democratic.

"Tuesday's demo has not been arranged by any organisation or political party. The idea came when a few of us were chatting about the election results over the weekend. The results don't reflect the true pattern of voting, and it is obvious that we need a new system of voting in this country."

He said the campaigners will wear orange ribbons and clothing to reflect the spirit of Ukraine's Orange Revolution for political reform in 2005.

The campaigners, inspired by a similar protest in London on Saturday, want a new election under proportional representation within a year.

Lib Dem Gareth Epps, who lost out to Rob Wilson in the Reading East election, encouraged people to make their voices heard at the demonstration and said: "There is a growing mood across the county that now is the moment for serious electoral reform. I hope that those who are there remember that the stumbling block is not Reading Borough Council or the Liberal Democrats, but the Conservatives. Those wanting to see reform should be addressing their views to local Conservatives."

Most Conservatives oppose proportional representation, saying it could cut the link between a constituency and its MP and would lead to backroom deals after every election.

But Dr Ken Ritchie, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said: "Whole counties and cities are now the personal property of one party. Once again First-Past-the-Post has generated results that stretch the idea of 'representative' democracy to breaking point. The Single Transferable Vote would be a major step to restore credibility back to representative government. That's what is at stake in the current coalition talks - a parliament that actually looks like Britain."

The Green Party's first Reading councillor, Rob White, wrote on his blog: "We have never been closer to electoral reform and getting a fairer system in the form of proportional representation. But I fear that if we don't keep up the pressure on the Lib Dems, Tories and Labour this opportunity will slip between our fingers! So come along, and bring a friend family member or work colleague."

The ERS has a guide to voting systems at: www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=5

With 649 of 650 constituencies declared, the Conservatives took 36.1% of the vote and 306 seats, Labour 29% (258 seats), the Lib Dems 23% (57 seats), UKIP 3.1% (0 seats), the BNP 1.9% (0 seats), the SNP 1.7% (6 seats), the Greens 1% (1 seat), Sinn Fein 0.6% (5 seats), the Democratic Unionist Party 0.6% (8 seats) and Plaid Cymru 0.6% (3 seats).

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JJ
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May 10, 13:45
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Oh dear, Gareth Epps loses one of the best chances in a generation to turn Reading East Lib Deb, and what does he do? He blames the system, why not go the whole way and blame people for not voting for you!

Gareth, it's quite simple, had more people voted for you than voted for the others, you would have won - bet you wouldn't want to change the system then!

PR leads to hung Parliaments, confusion and gives more power to politicians and less to people. It also risks the BNP getting an MP.

It's true that our current system is not perfect, for a start it's skewed towards Labour, but PR would be much, much, worse.

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susie
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May 10, 14:49
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So the 28,716 people who voted against Rob Wilson don't deserve to get their views heard at all, but the 13,664 people who did vote for him get to decide everything?

"Not perfect" is a massive understatement. The electoral system is broken and millions of people in this country are not represented at all.

It's laughable that you say PR leads to hung Parliaments - how do you explain what's going on now? You may want a return to the 1950s and two-party politics, but that era is over and Wesminster needs to catch up.

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JJ
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May 10, 21:49
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Susie, you are right. 13.6k people wanted Gareth Epps, 12.7k wanted Anneliese Dodds but 21.2k wanted Rob Wilson. Rob Wilson won, he had more votes, are you suggesting that the election should be decided on Lib + Lab votes?

Going by your argument more people voted against the Tories, but then again more people voted against Labour, and more people voted against Lib Dems. However more people voted for the Tories than the other parties. I fail to see how the electoral system is broken, the result was pretty clear.

P.S. I'm a Labour supporter and voted for Dodds before anyone gets any ideas. However I will stand by what the electorate decided.

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Howard Thomas
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May 11, 18:47
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Our current voting system might best be described as an 'elected dictatorship'. A party that gets 36 % of the votes cast can , as in the case of Tony Blair achieve 63% of the seats. How can that ever be right or fair? Proportional Representation may have its problems sometimes, but at least the numbers of MPs would reflect the numbers of votes cast for a particular party.

I wonder if we would have ended up in the Iraq war if we had a PR system in place !

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Andy
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May 26, 11:40
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Our parliamentary system confuses those who vote for party leaders, guided by the media and those who vote on local issues and personalities. The difficulty instituting a PR system, which I agree with Susie is an absolute must, is that it will be different and people who are easily confused and there are a great many, will make a mess of it. The proposals I've seen suggest a system of points which I cannot support, because it obliges me to vote for those I don't want (with fewer points) as well as voting for those I do (with more), as if it were he Eurovision song contest! I want a fairer system but I want all people to be able to use it well, regardless of their ability to master it's foibles. An X in the box is familiar.

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