Tag Archives: first past the post

Can muscular unionism save the Union?

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Several UK politicians have been described as embracing a ‘muscular’ form of unionism, which includes taking a hard line against the possibility of constituent parts of the UK leaving the Union. As Iain McLean warns, muscular unionism can look like ‘know your place unionism’ and history has shown that such a muscular approach can backfire and hasten the very secession it seeks to prevent.

The phrase ‘muscular unionism’ is new but the concept is not. As Prime Minister, Boris Johnson called Scottish devolution ‘a disaster north of the border’. Liz Truss said while campaigning for the Conservative leadership that she would ‘ignore’ the ‘attention seeker’, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. She was true to her word, never contacting Sturgeon or Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, during her premiership. Lord (David) Frost, who served as a member of Johnson’s Cabinet, recently wrote:

The Scottish “government” is not the government of a state in confederation with England. It is a subordinate entity within the UK, with powers granted to it by the UK government and Parliament, and ultimately subject to the supremacy of that Parliament.

It does indeed sound muscular, but it ended in tears and self-contradiction last time, and there is no reason to expect differently this time. The UK government would be well advised to become a little weedier than PMs Johnson or Truss. Rishi Sunak contacted Sturgeon and Drakeford on his first full day in office as Prime Minister. Is this a hopeful sign?

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Wales needs a larger Senedd, but a closed list system is not the best way to achieve it

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The Senedd in Wales recently voted to support plans to increase its membership, following the report of a special committee, which endorsed proposals put forward by Labour and Plaid Cymru. Laura McAllister argues that the need to enlarge the Senedd is clear, but that proposed changes to the voting system are flawed and could undermine public support for reform.

That the Senedd marked its twenty-first ‘coming of age’ birthday by seeking to recast itself with a fundamentally altered institutional shape should surprise few familiar with devolved politics. Wales is often referred to as the land of commissions and inquiries. Each of these inquiries into the most ‘unsettled’ devolution settlement has recommended that the Senedd should increase from its current 60 Members (MSs) to a figure between 80 and 100. The story of these inquiries can be found on the Senedd website.

I chaired the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform in 2017, which was charged with looking at the size of the Senedd, its electoral system and extending the franchise to younger voters. Our Panel’s recommendations were that:

  • The number of members should be increased from 60 to at least 80, and preferably closer to 90. We concluded that this was needed because the Assembly (its name was changed to ‘Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament’ in 2020) had acquired a much greater role than the one it had in 1999, and also that its powers were expected to expand further. We concluded that the Senedd could not be expected to continue functioning optimally and delivering for the people of Wales if it remained at its current size.
  • That a new electoral system should be introduced to accommodate this increased size and to make the relationship between votes cast and seats won more proportional. Our favoured system was Single Transferable Vote (STV) accompanied by prescriptive, legislative gender quotas, though the Panel also regarded a Flexible List system of proportional representation (PR) as a viable alternative.
  • That the minimum voting age in Senedd elections should be reduced to 16 as a means of boosting democratic participation.  We regarded it as essential that the lowering of the voting age should be accompanied by high-quality education about politics in schools and other places of learning. This last recommendation was enacted through the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 and came into force for the 2021 Senedd elections.

There was deemed insufficient political consensus to advance our first two recommendations around size and electoral system change in time for the 2021 election, despite a report from the Senedd Committee on Electoral Reform chaired by Labour MS Dawn Bowden, which almost exactly replicated our report’s recommendations. This committee did acknowledge that time had effectively run out and instead called for legislation early in the Sixth Senedd to increase its size to between 80 and 90 Members from the 2026 election, with all MSs elected by STV.

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Reforming the mayoral voting system: do ministers’ arguments stack up?

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This week, the Elections Bill was amended to replace the Supplementary Vote (SV) system used for electing mayors and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales with First Past the Post (FPTP). But, as Alan Renwick and Alejandro Castillo-Powell argue, the arguments put forth by ministers are not as convincing as they might at first appear.

Ministers plan to replace the Supplementary Vote (SV) system used for electing mayors and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales with First Past the Post (FPTP). The most detailed explanation for the change given so far appeared in a press release last month, which gave five arguments for the switch: (1) SV increases the number of spoilt ballots; (2) it allows ‘loser’ candidates to win; (3) FPTP improves accountability by ‘making it easier for voters to express a clear choice’; (4) FPTP ‘is the world’s most widely used electoral system’; and (5) SV is ‘an anomaly’ and ‘out of step with other elections in England’. In the written statement that first trailed the proposals, Home Secretary Priti Patel also said (6) that the change ‘reflects that transferable voting systems were rejected by the British people in the 2011 nationwide referendum’. Some of these arguments were repeated, though in less detail, when the matter was considered at the Committee Stage of the Commons bill’s scrutiny earlier this week.

This post assesses the government’s claims in turn. Some have merit, but important counterarguments are ignored. Voting systems should be treated with care: it is all too easy for those in power to manipulate them to their own advantage. Ministers have not adequately made the case that the change will be good for democracy.

1. Does Supplementary Vote lead to more spoilt ballots

Elections using SV in the UK typically see higher numbers of spoilt ballots than do those using FPTP. Electoral Commission data shows that 0.8% of ballots cast in local council elections in May – under FPTP – were rejected. That compares to over 2% in most elections under SV. In PCC elections, they stood at 2.9% this year, down from 3.4% in 2016. In London mayoral elections, they have ranged between 1.8% in 2012 and 4.3% this year. They have generally been around 2% in other combined authority mayoral elections, peaking at 2.2% in 2018.

That SV elections show higher rates of rejected ballots does not mean that SV itself is necessarily the culprit. The jump in such ballots in this year’s London mayoral election points to another factor: ballot paper design. The Electoral Commission notes the use in that contest of a new, untested design, split over two columns because of the large number of candidates, which voters described as ‘being confusing/complex’. Poor design similarly led to more spoilt ballots in the 2007 Scottish local and parliamentary elections. Another factor may be deliberate spoiling of ballot papers: the Electoral Commission noted anecdotal evidence of this in the 2012 PCC elections.

So SV elections do see more spoilt ballots than FPTP elections, but improved ballot paper design – and clearer guidance for voters – might ameliorate the problem.

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Another nail – but whose coffin? Redrawing Britain’s constituency map (again) and the future of the UK’s voting system

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For the third time in just over a decade, a new map of parliamentary constituencies is being designed. This one will likely be implemented. Charles Pattie and David Rossiter argue that, despite the misconceptions of both Labour and the Conservatives, the review is neither a ‘gerrymander’ against one, nor redressing an imbalance that harmed the other. But these entrenched views could yet threaten the future of First Past the Post as the system for Westminster elections.

Here we go again. For the third time since 2010, a new map of Westminster parliamentary constituencies is being designed. The Boundary Commission for England released its preliminary proposals on 8 June (the Commissions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will follow suit in the coming months). Final recommendations will appear in the summer of 2023. This time (the previous two attempts at redistricting faltered before being implemented) the new map is very likely to be adopted. And if past reviews are any guide, the process will be carried out amidst claims and counterclaims regarding potential winners and losers, and whether there is deliberate bias in the process.

Of course, redrawing the constituency map inevitably involves winners and losers, even when (as in the UK) done by politically impartial Commissioners. Previous reviews have tended to result in relative losses of seats for Labour and gains for the Conservatives (smaller parties tend to suffer greater disadvantages from the disproportional nature of First Past the Post (FPTP) than from the effects of boundary reviews). Some Labour figures are likely to argue (as they have done in the past) that the review is a gerrymander against their party, and so drives a nail into the coffin of its electoral chances. On the other side some Conservatives will argue the review simply redresses substantial anti-Conservative bias in the old seats – a nail in the coffin in which that bias is to be buried.

Both views are wrong, but for different reasons.

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