7d ago

How we can smash Britain’s two-party system for good at the next election

www.theguardian.com

How we can smash Britain’s two-party system for good at the next election | George Monbiot

George Monbiot suggests that Labour shouldn't be supported because they're now pushing right-wing policies, in his view.

So he thinks people should tactically support progressive parties who support electoral reform (Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru), which may hopefully then lead to electoral reform, so that we end up with proportional representation. Then Brits will have more choices than effectively just two parties for future elections.

Thoughts?

28 comments

As others have mentioned, I don't think Labour will do well in the next election based on what they've been doing so far. So voting for "third" parties is inevitable. It's just a question of whether we can get a majority of progressives, or we just end up spread out and Reform sweeps the win.
I think maybe the ideal solution would be if the progressive parties formed some sort of coalition ahead of time, centred around electoral reform. Discuss who contests which seats, etc, and how they'd vote as a coalition.
Well the most ideal would be if they did that with the express purpose of getting electoral reform done and then calling a general election right after. That way even conservatives and right wingers might vote for them.
It really is past the time when Britain finally went through some actual changes.

I don't think I could vote for Labour again in good conscience. I voted for them as the lesser of two evils but it has been nothing but betrayal. My fear is that doing this will allow the tories or ~~fascists~~ reform into power which will be utterly horrendous against the mildly lighter level of shitness we have now.
I joined the lib dems before when they were the big party against brexit and this time i will be joining the greens. I dont have any hope that things will change before the next election where I'll be forced to think about the implications of my vote but I'll cross that bridge when i come to it.

The UK would be a lot better off following Ireland's steps in adopting a single transferable vote system. Yes it keeps the local representation while providing the voters the most sophisticated way in expressing their approval of the candidates as one can rank 3 or 7 or even up to 42 candidates if they like.
The first-past-the-post invention has served it's purpose.
- That would require a massive reworking of how our system works, wouldn't it?
  Couldn't just ranked choice fix the majority of the issues with voting?
  
  No because instant runoff-ranked ballots still has the same issues: lack of accountability, under-representation of small parties, hostile politics and the lack of action on issues. The government needs to be heavily pressured to pass proportional representation. It is not difficult for the politicians to do, they're just inventing excuses for themselves to avoid making British democracy fairer for everyone involved.
  Here is a video on why the alternative vote is problematic.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYgUKFPN7Ug
- Doesn't STV require a reworking of the whole system? I.e electing more than one MP per constituency? We had the 2011 AV referendum which failed miserably, i still remember the disgusting 'this premature baby needs an incubator, not a new voting system' adverts... I often wonder what things would be like had it succeeded.
  
  You would need to group up the districts and maybe add extra seats to the parliament to ensure the most proportionality as possible. As in Ireland the districts contain 3-5 seats each.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

I kind of agree. I don't think we're getting PR any time soon. But Labours attempt to emulate the US two party model needs to be demonstrated to be a resounding failure.
- Yeah PR probably won't happen for years at least. I hope we get it at some point though.
  
  Look at countries that have it. They're no better off than countries with FPTP. It sounds good in theory, but if you do some game-theoretical analysis of the system, you'll see that, just like any other conceivable electoral system, it has edge cases that can lead to anomalous outcomes, and you can be sure that those who work the system will exploit those.

So he thinks people should tactically support progressive parties who support electoral reform (Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru), which may hopefully then lead to electoral reform, so that we end up with proportional representation.
I've been doing this most of my voting-age life. Electoral reform for me personally is the most important issue.

My thoughts is that this is how Reform get in. Until we rid ourselves of FPTP, splitting the left vote so much means a Reform government. Until such time, we have to vote tactically. Vote to keep out the worst. Perfect is the enemy of the good.
If Labour put country before party, they would be killing of FPTP like the membership want.
- Labour will not put country above party.
  And the way things are. Not splitting the left vote is to late. The labour party has lost it. They have basically worked to reject it.
  Actually continuing to encourage left wing voters to support labour is likely to split it worse then openly admitting labour is no longer looking for left wing support.
  
  Labour have a good few years to get themselves together before an election.
  I agree they are unlikely to do what the country needs, and membership wants, with voting reform. Maybe if they are sure they will lose and Reform would win. Doubt it even then though, because "we might still win".
  If everyone can agree on another left party fine, but it will be split over Green, SNP, LibDems, Plaid and Labour. That's how we, a left leaning country, get endless right wing governments and their madness.

Right now, we should:
Vote for other parties than Labour in opinion polls, that is, for genuinely progressive parties
Vote for other parties than Labour in local elections
We should drive momentum away from Labour far ahead of the next general election such that the general public view an alternative coalition as more likely to win a general election than Labour and so encourage a broad switch.
- This is how you will end up with Trump. You need to abandon the Labour ship as fast as possible.
  
  trump in our case would be farage probably. i think the uk has a greater chance of that not happening due to the wider choice of alternatives, plaid cymru in wales and the snp in scotland may well save the english who are quite tory by nature, but the split there with harder right going with reform and softer right going to the lib dems (as likely caused labour's broad and shallow support last time) might work again

Vote tactically to keep Reform out of any seat it is running in.
Avoid the Lib Dems, they'll form a coalition with the Tories if there's something in it for them.
Vote Green where it won't lead to the Tories winning.
Quit hoping that electoral reform will save you. PR systems give disproportionate power to unprincipled centrist parties like the LibDems and the current Labour Party. Instead, learn how to use tactical voting and convince all your friends and neighbours.

When you guys figure it out, please tell the US. They don't seem to get it.

Sounds like a good way to end up with King Nigel, unfortunately.

honestly don't favour proportional rep in the house of commons, this opinion was cemented during the last election when a handful of prominent independent local candidates took their seat, and some nearly did (wes streeting's constituency in particular). this could not happen with party list type PR. i like the principle of a local connection to an area and wouldn't like to lose that (i know candidates get parachuted in etc but in principle)
I would prefer ranked choice voting for constituency seats, and apply PR to the house of lords instead. you could do this by counting votes for two purposes, so your vote for the local MP candidate also gets added to their party's % seats in the lords. e.g. your vote for bob smith (green) gets added to his local count, as well as his party's % allocation of lords
this is a half baked idea tbh but i quite like it so far
- There are ranked choice PR systems, like STV.
  Of course if we did get PR here it'd be the worst version that preserves the power of whips to hand out sinecures.
  
  true but stv is multi winner so i don't think it works for a single winner local mp like e.g. irv would
  i'm not necessarily opposed to the various alternatives to fptp but essentially i would want to preserve locals ability to elect a person rather than a party, obviously party would inform their choice
  if we did get PR here etc
  also probably + sadly true

28 comments