UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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To be honest the dream result for me would them to lose just the right amount for labour to need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems and for the Lib Dems to demand PR as this price.
PR would destroy the Tories for good as the collection of interests that make them up would cause them to split into multiple parties.
Under PR the UK would almost always elect a centre left coalition. The only reason the Tories and the right seem to have so much power is that anyone who wants to vote right pretty much has one option. Whereas left of centre splits between labour, green, lib dem.
I don't know why the further left Labour MPs and the further right Tory MPs don't push for PR. They're more likely to enact policies they believe in in parties they'd be members of under a PR based system. The two parties would cease to exist but they'd join and form new parties.
I don't think this country can ever make any progress while we're under FPTP.
We had a chance at this back in 2010. I even voted for the Lib Dems. I know people were sick of Labour at the time, but damn did they fuck up by ConDemning us all.
I would love nothing more than PR, but just like Brexit, you can't underestimate the will of the British public to continuously vote against their own interests.
The referendum wasn't on whether or not we wanted Proportional Representation.
It was do you want the current system or do you want to go over to STV. PR was never on the table.
STV is basically the exact same issue we currently have but slightly more complicated it doesn't really solve anything.
Is there a specific proposal for PR? What does that look like? Abolishing constituencies entirely or merging them in fives or something and voting proportionally within that or something else entirely?
That why Mixed PR, or even better Ranked Mixed PR, would be an easier switch, as well a better system than pure PR.
What is why what? There is no claim in the post you're responding to. Only questions.
With PR you lose local MPs. With Mixed Member PR, you keep local MPs. Using rank/score voting, improves that local representation.
I'd like to believe that but if my 14+ on reddit taught me anything it is that the general population are petty, hateful and conformist and so philosophically it's the 'One Nation' Conservatives that they naturally align with.
I don't think Reddit or FPTP remotely give a good indication. You can see the right normally get sub 50%, but it concentrated on the Conservatives and with FPTP that gives them power. How people would vote in proper system is unknown. Ranked Mixed PR is what I want.
It wouldn't surprise me if the liberals just prop up the tories with a coalition again.
And this is why it can't happen. You can't have any change in an electoral system when one side is gleefully rubbing their hands over how under the new system they'd win every election. A bit of a conflict of interest.
The EU is PR and there is a clearly a problem with people feeling like the EU parliament doesn't represent their interests. And that disconnect is real, in a PR the parties own the seats, not community leaders. Having a first past the post system guarantees that everyone has someone from their community representing them. The biggest problem with first past the post is the fact that it was given that name in bad faith by those trying to push other systems.
And you may think it'll be great that conservatives break up into many different parties, but this means a conservative coalition may need to adopt policies to appease some extreme right parties to gain power. Israel is a PR system, and this is exactly what happened there.
Kinda a hard sell to convince people you want UK politics to be more like the politics of the EU or Israel. People that voted for Brexit may be convinced to rejoin the EU someday, but making the UK parliament more like the EU system will be a red line for them. And there would be a lot of Remainers that wouldn't want the UK to be more like Israel.
Stop trying to make proportional representation happen it isn't going to happen. Community representation systems (FPTP) have their flaws but PR systems have many more flaws.