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Opinion First past the post will never deliver the change we need

Campaigner ALAN STORY explains why proportional representation is needed to make sure the left has a voice

AN entire edition of the Morning Star could be filled exclusively with articles as to why we urgently need a new mass, left-of-Labour political party.  

A recent article in the Independent was the latest convincer for me. In the article, Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves launched a sharp broadside against Suella Braverman, who has just been reappointed as home secretary. 

Was Reeves’ broadside over Braverman’s infamous dream about the fate of asylum-seekers: “I would love to have a front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.”?

Or did Reeves challenge Braverman about the shocking holding pens in Kent for those who have crossed the Channel in small boats, conditions the Independent Inspectors of Borders this week called “wretched”? 

(Families from Afghanistan have been sleeping on mats and under canvas for more than a month. A short-term holding facility designed for 1,000 people is now in bursting with 2,800 migrants.)  

Or did Reeves consider that Braverman was wrong to say the European Commission on Human Rights should have no role whatsoever in the process? 

No, none of this. Being labelled as “woke” or “tofu-eating Guardian readers” by rabid rightwingers such as Braverman is one thing Reeves and Keir Starmer want to avoid at all costs. 

Instead, as the Independent headline said a few weeks ago: “Rachel Reeves calls for deportations to be ramped up.”

You read that right: “Ramped up!” Reeves added that “the government is not deporting people even when their claims have failed,” while failing to mention that about 85 per cent of initial claims result in a grant of asylum or other form of protection under a very strict regulatory regime.   

Reeves, who used to work for the banking and insurance giant HBOS, has form on such matters.

When she was shadow work and pensions minister under Ed Miliband, she used to earn headlines such as “Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits.” 

None of these are utterances from someone I would consider might become a humane or radical, let alone socialist, chancellor in a future left-wing British government. 

This article, however, is not about whether or not we need a new socialist party. That is a given in this article and, in any event, I don’t have an entire issue of The Morning Star at my disposal.

What conditions are needed for a new party to flourish?

The question asked here is: under what conditions might such a new left party have a chance to grow and flourish and adequately represent in Parliament the growing hundreds of thousands who are saying loud and clear: “Starmer’s Labour Party is a busted flush.”

To build such a new party and to create one which could begin to challenge Labour, a number of elements will be needed: a serious political programme, a respected leadership — say, Zarah Sultana and/or Clive Lewis — a committed membership of hundreds and then thousands of activists, and a lively and democratic internal political culture and life. Favourable external conditions would, it should be added, also be very helpful. 

But even if “all these ducks were lined up,” one key ingredient is missing: an electoral system that would allow such a new party actually to be taken seriously as a political force. A party electing only a single MP — or not even one — is not worth the effort.  

So here are four reasons why our current first past the post (FPTP) voting system will not provide the proper grounds for its growth and instead, why progressives should campaign — and campaign hard!  — for proportional representation (PR). 

Under PR, left parties at least have a chance 

First: FPTP voting system creates an electoral duopoly. In the US, the duopoly is composed of the Democrats and the Republicans; here it is Labour and the Tories.

It’s been that way in Britain since the 1920s and indeed that is one of main motivations for a “winner-takes-all” system. A party could finish second in several hundred of the 650 constituencies, but not win a single seat. 

Under FPTP, third parties of the right or the left never get beyond the “wasted votes” stage. The SNP does well only because its vote is regionally concentrated.

The Lib Dems get a decent overall vote — in 2019, it took almost 12 per cent — but win only a handful of seats. 

Second: Again, a new left party would need to learn from the electoral history of other parties. Take the Greens. Founded in 1990, they now have more than 550 local councillors.

But they still have only a single MP in well-respected Caroline Lucas who was first elected four elections ago. Or look at Ukip. In the 2015 general election, the party got an amazing 3.8 million votes — or more than 12 per cent of the overall vote. Yet it only won a single seat. 

It would be a stunning result if a new British socialist party could gain even 50 per cent of the above Ukip total in its first electoral outing. That would likely exceed the Greens total vote. But it would hardly be a stunning success to elect only a sole MP. 

Third: Under a PR voting system, seats won match votes cast. In the 2019 Finnish elections, the Left Alliance, an ecosocialist party, won 8 per cent of the total vote. That meant it won 8 per cent of the seats in the 200-seat Finnish Parliament. Similar results are duplicated in European countries under PR. Left parties at least have a chance. 

Four: FPTP voting leads to so called “broad church” parties. Labour claims it is one, but for almost its entire history, it has been under the firm control of the high priests of the right.

Moreover, Labour leaders, including Starmer, realise that many left-wing voters think they have only two choices at the ballot box: vote Labour or don’t vote. 

If there was a serious left party and it at least had a shot at winning seats under PR, that would then mean our votes would count for something and not be taken for granted. 

We could also cease the unsavoury practice of tactical voting. Why should we have to vote for the party we least dislike?  

Our political system is stagnant 

Our political system is growing increasingly stagnant. Electorally, we face more and more of the same old middle-of-the-road and right-wing sludge in the months and years ahead. 

A staggering total of 192 seats in the House of Commons have not switched parties since the end of World War II, the Electoral Reform Society reports. 

A new socialist party that was a serious electoral force would certainly shake up our political culture and calls for such a new party keep on coming.

Some say Jeremy Corbyn should form a new party. Others speak of transforming the Enough is Enough movement into a party. And there are at least seven or eight smallish left groups who say: “We are the one.”   

Of course, far more than PR is needed to build a new and serious party of the left. But unless and until the battle for PR is won, I argue that none of these efforts will grow into healthy shoots, let alone vigorously flower.

And the last thing the working class of Britain needs is one more false start and tattered hope.

Alan Story is co-founder of the cross party/ no party campaign group Get PR Done! getprdone.org.uk/ [email protected].

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