Holding MPs to Account

When MPs break the law (or perhaps commit more than a minor offence), it is right that they should lose their seats and most people would probably agree with that.

If they commit a very minor offence, or behave badly but not Illegally, or criticize party policy, or there are questions about whether they are good constituency MPs, it seems to me that the voters should be able to decide whether to re-elect them at the next general election but that does not happen with safe seats and FPTP. It would also not happen with safe seats and PR by closed party list systems or hybrid systems such as AMS.

If the party reselects them in a safe seats system, they are almost certain to be re-elected whatever the voters think. If the party deselects them in a safe seats system, they are almost certain to be unelected whatever the voters think. Voters, not parties, should decide.

With STV in multi-member constituencies, parties can reselect such candidates and leave the voters to decide whether to re-elect them. The party need not lose a seat if the voters decide against them. With STV, the voters can elect an alternative candidate from the same party. If the party does not reselect such a candidate, he or she can stand as an independent and let the voters decide.

Safe Seats

In my view, some kind of PR is an historic inevitability for the UK.  PR is demonstrably right and, with the enthusiasm and activity of Make Votes Matter and the support of the Electoral Reform Society, Unlock Democracy, Best for Britain, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the grassroots of the Labour Party, it’s only a matter of time before the UK adopts PR to elect MPs and Councillors, although it may be only party PR.  I am also sure that it will be within the lifetimes of many who are alive today.

The most dangerous opposition to those of us who want real or voter PR (i.e., points of view, whether these are expressed in party political terms or not), and not just party PR, does not come from FPTP supporters.   It may come from supporters of systems based on closed list, especially AMS.  STV and AMS are the two leading systems to replace FPTP in the UK, but AMS and other closed list systems provide only party PR.

There may be even greater danger from supporters of open lists, if supporters of closed lists realise the defects of closed lists.  Open lists may seem an acceptable compromise as they purport to offer some of the advantages of STV but, even at their best, they do not offer all the advantages of STV and, at their worst, some of them are not very open.  There are many types of open list systems and the extent of their openness depends on the detail of each type.

If the country changes to a party-only PR system, it will be the end of the road for voter PR for at least a generation.

The PR movement would be stronger if most of us were campaigning openly for the same system, but how can we convince supporters of AMS and other systems that they should campaign for STV?

So far as I can see, there are two main types of AMS supporters.  One type simply does not care about proportionality other than between parties, so emphasizing the importance of PR for voters is unlikely to convince them.  The other type may like the idea of proportionality for voters rather than only for parties but think that a party-based system, such as AMS, would be easier to sell to politicians especially the Labour Party.  They may be right about that, so emphasizing the importance of voter PR is also unlikely to convince them.

I believe that safe seats are the key.  Although abolishing safe seats is not an essential part of the argument for PR and would not be an automatic consequence of PR, there is strong opposition to safe seats.

The question of safe seats often comes up, such as when MPs are accused of being bad constituency representatives or claiming too much as expenses or, as recently, when they have jobs outside Parliament.  Abolishing safe seats seems to be a popular cause, perhaps more popular than PR.

PR campaigners, including AMS supporters, often cite the abolition of safe seats as a reason to support PR and they claim or imply that PR (any form of PR) would abolish safe seats.

That is far from reality.  Closed list systems, including hybrid systems such as AMS, and open lists that were not very open would perpetuate safe seats.  Candidates close to the top of their party’s list would have even safer seats than they have now with FPTP so long as they remained in the good books of the party leadership, so they would be even more accountable to their party and less accountable to voters than at present.  Also, with AMS, some FPTP constituency seats would remain safe just as they are now.  There might even be more safe seats with such systems than there are now with FPTP.

The opposite is true of STV in multi-member constituencies because voters, not parties, decide who will be elected.  Candidates have to earn their seats with voters and. if elected, are more accountable to voters than to parties if they want to be re-elected.

So, I believe we should explain at every opportunity that AMS and party-based list systems generally perpetuate safe seats and may create more of them and make them safer, but STV abolishes them and really makes seats match votes.

Parties don’t choose Leaders by FPTP. Why should we choose MPs by FPTP?

Why do so many parties use transferable voting for their leadership elections? – Electoral Reform Society – ERS (electoral-reform.org.uk)

Democracy and Diversity

The Commons should be more democratically representative.  The Lords should be more demographically representative. 

According to the Cambridge English dictionary –  https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/representation – “representation” has various meanings and some people confuse two of them.

One is “a person or organization that speaks, acts, or is present officially for someone else”.  This is the essence of representative democracy and the purpose of electing MPs.  For example, a straight, middle-aged middle-class white man may vote for, and be represented by, a gay, young working-class black woman, or vice versa.  Voters vote for candidates with whom they agree politically rather than those who look or act like them.  Indeed, an MP from Party X may represent a constituent from Party B on a non-party matter.

That does not work with closed party list voting systems (whether the one-line disproportionate FPTP or multi-line party proportional systems), but it can work with the Single Transferable Vote (STV) and, to a limited extent, open party list systems. 

The other meaning of “representation” is “the fact of including different types of people, for example in films, politics, or sport, so that all different groups are represented:”  This is demographic representation, commonly known as “diversity”.  It looks more representative than democratic representation because one can see an appropriate number of each group among the MPs, but the appearance is superficial and deceptive. The MPs do not necessarily represent their constituents’ political views and the voters have not freely chosen them.

To insist on diversity denies democracy.  It denies the right of a black person to choose to be represented by a white person or vice versa.  Tinkering with voting systems to ensure diversity reduces voter’s right to choose their own representatives.

I believe that, although democratic representation should have primacy over demographic representation etc. any form of proportional representation would increase demographic representation (diversity) because parties would want to maximise their votes from all groups of people and, in particular, that STV/PR would enable underrepresented groups to elect more MPs like themselves if they wanted to.

The only way to guarantee demographic representation would be to choose “representatives” not by election at all but by sortition, which is similar to the way juries are chosen.

However, there is an increased demand for diversity now.  So, we should consider how to increase diversity without denying voters the right to choose their own representatives.  My solution fits in with something I have supported for several years for other reasons, although it is outside the scope of this group.

My solution is to continue to elect MPs, although by a better system (such as STV) than FPTP, and replace the House of Lords with a House the members of which are chosen by sortition.  So the Lower House would consist of representatives chosen by voters to speak for them and the Upper House would consist of representatives of different types of people; i.e., a demographic cross-section of the adult population, including those who do not vote.  An appropriate proportion would support each party and, indeed, no party.  So the Upper House would be broadly party proportional, but (and this is important) the members will not have been nominated by, or owe their positions to, parties, so they will be free of party whips and will consequently be quite independent.   They will also broadly represent public views on such issues as euthanasia and our relationship with the EU.

A Scheme of STV Constituencies

When I explain STV to people, I find it easiest to say that a few (say, five) neighbouring one-member FPTP constituencies would be merged to form one multi-member STV constituency, which would elect the same number of MPs proportionally.

But many one-member FPTP constituencies split local authorities and communities in an effort to make the constituiencies roughly equal in numbers of electors.  Merging groups of them to form multi-member STV constituencies might reduce that splitting of local communities, but would not eliminate it.

The solution is to disregard existing one-member FPTP constituencies and use local authorities as the basis of multi-member STV constituencies, and to vary the number of MPs according to the size of the constituency.  Thus, a fairly small town may have three MPs in one constituency, a larger one may have five in one constituency and a major city may have several constituencies each with a number of MPs.  Rural multi-member constituencies may each contain a few small towns and surrounding countryside within the same county.

Professor Denis Mollison of Heriot Watt University has prepared a schedule of multi-member STV constituencies based on local authority areas.  It can be seen by visiting  www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~denis and then clicking on “STV for Westminster”.

Although there are other ways of drawing multi-member STV constituencies, two major advantages of this scheme are that:

• Using local authority boundaries as the basis preserves local communities which, in turn, should enhance constituents’ feeling of being represented;
• Boundaries will only rarely need changing, as demographic changes can normally be allowed for by changing the number of MPs rather than the boundaries.  As well as saving the public expense of boundary changes, this strengthens the link between MPs and their constituents, and improves the stability of representation.

Representation and Constituency Link

At the 2019 general election by First Past The Post (FPTP), 45.3% of voters (nearly half) voted AGAINST the candidate who became their MP.

In Sheffield Hallam, 65.3% (very nearly 2/3) voted AGAINST the Labour candidate who became their MP. Only 34.7% voted for the “winner”.

In Ynys Mon, 64.5% (nearly 2/3) voted AGAINST the Tory who became their MP. Only 35.5% voted for the “winner”.

In Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross, 62.8% (more than 3 out of 5) voted AGAINST the Lib Dem who became their MP. Only 37.2% voted for the “winner”.

So much for the constituency link under FPTP!

With Single Transferable Vote (STV) in 5-member constituencies, at least 83% (5 out of 6) of voters would vote for their MPs and no more than 17% (one in six) would vote against them.

Now that would be a constituency link!

Change of STV Action Oficers

We are very sorry that Peter Morley, who has been a loyal and helpful Officer for many years, has had to resign because of bad health. We are very grateful to him for all his past help and work.

We are delighted to announce that Keith Underhill has accepted our invitation to become an Officer. Keith is a former member of the Electoral Reform Society’s Council and is an experienced Returning Officer for STV elections.

Disproportional London

The next London Borough Council elections will be in May this year. The disproportionate results of the 2018 elections by F3PTP will give pause for thought and ammunition if you are writing to your MP or the press.  Without change, this year’s elections are unlikely to be any more democratic.

If you live in London, you can use this table to check how democratic your Council is.

In particular, consider 

• Kingston where the Lib Dems have 81% of the seats for only 49% of the votes;
• Kensington/Chelsea where the Conservatives have 72% of the seats for only 48% of the votes; and
• Tower Hamlets where Labour has 93% of the seats for only 42% of the votes.

These boroughs were established in 1964 so the four Councils, where the same party has been in power since 1964, have always been controlled by the same party.  That is even worse than the experience of national government.

Summary of London Borough Council Election Results in 2018

Council	Winning Party…	… which has been in power since	Vote %	Seats%
Barking/Dagenham	Labour	1964	74	100
Barnet	Tory	2002	44	60
Bexley	Tories	2006	50	75
Brent	Labour	2010	57	95
Bromley	Tories	2002	44	83
Camden	Labour	2010	47	80
Croydon	Labour	2014	44	58
Ealing	Labour	2010	51	83
Enfield	Labour	2010	49	73
Greenwich	Labour	1971	52	82
Hackney	Labour	2002	61	91
Hamm’smith/Fulham	Labour	2014	53	76
Haringey	Labour	1971	56	74
Harrow	Labour	2014	44	55
Havering	Tories	Hung	34	46
Hillingdon	Tories	2006	52	68
Hounslow	Labour	2010	52	85
Islington	Labour	2010	57	98
Kensington/Chelsea	Tories	1964	48	72
Kingston ‘on Thames	LibDems	2018	49	81
Lambeth	Labour	2006	51	90
Lewisham	Labour	2010	52	100
Merton	Labour	2014	44	57
Newham	Labour	1964	67	100
Redbridge	Labour	2014	55	81
Richmond ‘ Thames	LibDems	2018	45	72
Southwark	Labour	2010	52	78
Sutton	LibDems	1990	38	61
Tower Hamlets	Labour	2018	42	93
Waltham Forest	Labour	2010	51	77
Wandsworth	Tories	1978	38	55
Westminster	Tories	1964	42	68

David Green (a Council member of the Electoral Reform Society but acting personally) compiled this table from data extracted from Andrew Teale’s Local Elections Archive Project.

Communications Officer

STV Action is delighted to announce it has appointed Gareth Lewis, a maths tutor from Milton Keynes, as Communications Officer.

Gareth’s first task will be to review the STV Action website so, please message us if you have any suggestions to improve it.

Gareth set up the Facebook group, Make Seats Match Votes – www.facebook.com/groups/213803319205218 – and we hope that his appointment as an Officer of STV Action will lead to closer co-operation between the two.

Covid-19 and electoral reform

What can we learn for electoral reform from the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis?

Comments praising or criticising the Government on its handling of the crisis will be deleted.

Naturally, most Conservative MPs support the Government on this as they do on other issues.  If you are a Conservative voter who thinks the Government is mishandling the epidemic and you feel strongly about it at the next election but your MP supports the Government on this, you will have a dilemma with FPTP.  You won’t be able to vote against your MP without also voting against the Conservative Party, even though you may support it on other issues.

Some Conservative MPs have openly criticized the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis.  If you are a Conservative voter who thinks the Government is handling the epidemic well but your MP is critical of the Government on this, and you feel strongly about it at the next election, you will have a dilemma with FPTP.  You won’t be able to vote against your MP without also voting against the Conservative Party.

Preferential voting, in the form of the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies, would solve the problem for both types of voter.  They would have a choice of Conservative candidates in the multi-member constituency and, without being disloyal to their party, they could give preference in their voting for the candidates whose views were closest to their own.