UKH

The SNP get 3.9% of the vote and have 48 MPs. The Greens 2.7% and get one. 

Or another way, the DUP got 8 MPs for their 244k votes, vs, 1 for 865k Green votes. 

How does one go about campaigning for electoral reform?

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

Today it looks utterly futile but we'll be in a radically different world in 5 years time so who knows...

jk

Lib Dems had electoral reform on their manifesto yesterday. If they’d won today the problem would be solved.

Assuming you didn’t vote for them, why not? If you answer that, there’s your explanation. for why we still have FPTP.

Do you think this can work? Ultimately a change to our voting system needs to be written in to law and passed by Parliament, but while we have FPTP the majority of mps will always be from one of the two parties that FPTP favours.

I can’t quite join the dots to see how it’s going to be fixed excluding an electoral oddity like we had with the Con/Lib Dem coalition. 

The Lib Dem’s threw away the one real chance of electoral reform when they went into coalition. The referendum ( that wasn’t) was for an ill thought out version of pr and the campaign was risible. They used up all their dollop of goodwill and coalition capital, that could have been used to mitigate some of Cameron’s more unpleasant policies, in the fixed term parliament act and a referendum they couldn’t manage effectively. That referendum was like a five year old kid getting a train set for Christmas. The adults had nicked it and were having head on crashes in the tunnels before the turkey was cold. Fundamentally, politicians can’t play nicely with each other

Labour might have gone for it in the early 90s, but Blair’s landslide killed any talk of it on the left.

Scottish constituencies are smaller population wise, but larger geographically. Apparently because it helps them have an area of ground to cover that is at least manageable, but it does mean per capita they are over represented in Westminster. Which despite the snp argument, you could apply the logic English cities are under represented in parliament. 

Whilst it clearly isn't the top priority, the SNP also support a move to a proportional-representation system at Westminster, as it happens.

https://www.snp.org/our-vision/constitution/

"We will continue to call for the first past the post voting system to be replaced at Westminster with proportional representation."

I think PR would improve things a lot, making extreme politics much harder by forcing coalitions, and making it possible for people to vote much closer to what they believe in. But...

...yeah, that's the problem.

Equally, in 2010, UKIP got 12.6% of the vote and one MP, the SNP 4.7% and 56 MPs and the Lib Dems 7.9% and 8 MPs. Go figure.

I'm all up for PR and accept the fact there might be a few more odious views in the House of Commons. At least then though, those views will get proper public scrutiny rather then hiding on the fringes. 

Not sifted through any of the results (yesterday's or previous) but isn't that the same for the Tories? Big area constituencies. I did see one figure this morning that a Labour seat required something like 50k votes and a Tory 30k votes (can't find the exact figures as they're deep in the BBC website). Maybe none of us are as represented as we should be. 

No but that says more about my mood today than reason. I can see how routes toward another shot at reform could open up.

That's how it happens. The path of least resistance seems to me: the next five years build a strong case against tory rule while the electoral calculus still leaves Labour emphatically locked out of power. They either realise in time, make electoral pacts and run on an electoral reform referendum ticket in 2025 or the progressive parties lose again with a majority of the vote. Then maybe 2030...

All this is currently so far in the future with so much radical change barrelling down the tracks toward us we really have no idea what escalating or temporary emergency could bolster the case or displace it for another cycle. You can bet your bottom dollar the Tories will do whatever they can to suppress the issue or poison the debate again (as in 2012) if that fails. It's a long game but I expect if I live a full life it's odds on I'll see reform.

jk