Labour’s loveless landslide was handed to them all the way back in 2011, as the Tories sunk their own coalition’s referendum on alternative vote.
First-past-the-post granted Keir Starmer the keys to Number 10 with a majority government won on a record lowest national vote share of 33.7%. Despite an undeniable democratic mandate for change, not all voters got what they asked for.
The Conservative Party fell victim to a system once thought to be rigged in their favour. Large swathes of disgruntled voters fled to Reform, in what – in terms of parliamentary seats at least – became a bloodbath for the British Right.
Times have quickly changed and Reform have asserted their place in UK politics. Today’s MRP poll by Electoral Calculus clearly shows Britain entering an unprecedented era of three-party politics. Were an election held today, Reform would be set to sweep 175 seats, 147 of which are currently held by Labour.
With three big players, the British people don’t deserve just one vote for a favourite. An alternative vote would allow Britons to remove who they like the least, by offering them a choice for second-best.
Over half the seats in Britain are projected to be won on a margin of 6.7% or less. Yet 40% of the increasingly divided electorate will effectively waste their vote on a candidate that does not finish first or second. These votes could easily change elections if the public were given an alternative.
Alternative voting, as practiced in my home country of Australia, is simple. Voters rank the candidates for their constituency in order of preference. First preferences are counted and if no one reaches a majority, the last place candidate is eliminated and votes for them are transferred to their next preference. This process continues eliminating candidates until a victor has a majority.
In 2024, this likely would’ve strengthened the opposition with more Conservative and Reform MPs winning votes from each other’s second preferences. Whereas under first-past-the-post, Labour were able to sneak past them both. In a time of upheaval in UK politics, the Prime Minister should put AV back on the table.
What alternative vote does differently is reduce all contests to a battle for the median voter. Minor parties on the fringes get eliminated with their votes transferring to the larger ones closer to the middle, until someone earns a majority. It significantly reduces the likelihood of freak results where two moderately popular, similar candidates lose to another candidate who was able to differentiate themselves.
Not only is Starmer now susceptible to the very trap that won him a massive majority, he faces a fight to defend the integrity of the Westminster system. As long as an archaic voting system keeps wreaking havoc on democracy, the losers will call for proportional representation in the House of Commons.
A recent YouGov poll on the issue shows voters for Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are very much in favour of this change, in line with their party positions on electoral reform. However, all Britons prefer a single local MP over multiple covering a large area. This is the trade-off of proportional representation. You lose accountability to a constituency and voters have a harder time removing bad representatives.
The variety of PR systems across Europe are complex and almost never possess the ability to rank candidates, paradoxically a huge priority for PR-supporters and most Britons per the poll. Alternative vote provides this and enhances the electorate’s ability to elect a candidate representative of the majority sentiment. This preserves the normal distribution of MPs around the median voter and makes the UK government more stable than the shaky coalitions seen across Europe, negotiated without voter input.
To put faith and certainty back into Westminster, Labour should consider alternative vote. Both Starmer and the Conservatives may be about to find themselves in a whole world of trouble in the next election, with threats coming thick and fast from Left, Right and centre. Though, if he can deliver sensible electoral reform with AV, everyone’s second-choice might save him.
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