UK Electoral reform

[mdgv2]

It is an odd argument.

Political Inertia is a problem, where power just flips back and forth between two main parties. It means different voices and proposed solutions never gain attention, even when they’re perhaps a good, practicable idea.

With PR, and even really small parties suddenly being in with a shot of a seat at the table, and so said ideas may find a voice, and attract further support from politicians and populace both. Whereas Fucking Stupid Ideas can be exposed as such.

[crispy78]

The point is literally just that it's fairer. Yes, you will get the horse-trading to form a coalition with a workable majority - but that majority will actually represent a majority of the people. It will be more democratic, a more accurate representation of the actual wishes of the electorate, than the current system where it is possible for a single party to gain a large majority based on a minority of the vote count.

[Peregrine]

Jul 8, 2024 7:32:18 GMT -5 semipotentwalrus said:

Why should people who don't own land have any representation? Why should women get to vote? Why are we letting racial minorities get a say? In fact, why shouldn't the British tax people without representation?

Do you really think women, racial minorities, etc, are comparable to fringe political beliefs? Consider the fact that 3% of people in the UK endorse flat earth theory and another 4% are "not sure". That's the kind of nonsense you get into when you start talking about political ideologies that can't even capture 10% of the vote: raving lunatics with no plan for actually governing and rarely even anything resembling serious understanding of the problems they're trying to solve. Do you really think the operation of the government would be improved by giving the sovereign citizens, anarcho-primitivists, etc, seats in the legislature? That they would accomplish anything other than disrupting the serious adults in the room as much as possible? I suppose it would be funny to watch from a safe distance while parliament is consumed by the tragicomedy of "debates" on whether we should abolish all of modern civilization, kill 95% of the global population, and return to being hunter-gatherers or "investigations" into how the US government has a secret bank account for each UK citizen with millions of dollars waiting for you to claim it but I don't think it would be nearly as funny for people in the UK.

And that's not even counting the meme candidates that PR opens the door to if you insist on small enough vote shares counting. Do you really think Count Binface should be in parliament? Or some social media "influencer" who is only there to promote their content?

You're not making a very convincing argument that what you're describing is democracy. A system where you can win a majority and then just ignore everyone else with the support of less than 30% of the population is just blatantly worse than one where you need 51% of the population to do the same if the point of the system is to represent the will of the population.

That's only true if you look at the national legislature as a single nation-wide entity rather than the delegated representatives of local entities. If you consider the national government an assembly of local representatives then you can't get control with a minority, you need 51% of the local entities to endorse your party/coalition. And it's highly unlikely that you can get control without at least close to a majority of the overall votes, we only saw it happen in this case because the opposition was laughably incompetent and handed over an easy win.

But, like I said, it's valid to abolish the idea of the national legislature as an assembly of local representatives and have a nation-wide vote. But if that's the goal then there's no need to have a legislature with hundreds of seats. 10 is sufficient and arguably a single president with ranked choice voting would accomplish the goal. You only need a large body with local districts if your interpretation of democracy is that each local unit votes for their representative to look after their interests at the national level.

[Haighus]

Now, obviously people don't vote homogenously within ethnicities, but they do share issues like racism. With that in mind, this is the (more or less) current ethnic make up of the UK:
Major ethnic
. White: 83.0% (2021/22)
Minor ethnic
Asian British: 8.6%
Black British: 3.7%
British Mixed: 2.7%
Other: 2.0%

Less than 6% of the population is muslim, for example, but Islamophobia is rife. But that is still something like 4 million people. That is more people than live in each of the 22 less-populous US states.

So yeah, things like racial profiling by police are very much minority issues, that could easily fall into below 10% of the population affected. Minority views should be featured.

Will you get some very odd fringe beliefs that creep up into the low millions? Yes. But you will also get important beliefs and new ideas doing the same. Part of democracy is that the crazier beliefs can appear too. The US is currently experiencing issues related to a significant minority of MAGA nuts, of which a significant proportion are QAnon conspiracy believers.

[Haighus]

Jul 12, 2024 1:58:01 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

But, like I said, it's valid to abolish the idea of the national legislature as an assembly of local representatives and have a nation-wide vote. But if that's the goal then there's no need to have a legislature with hundreds of seats. 10 is sufficient and arguably a single president with ranked choice voting would accomplish the goal. You only need a large body with local districts if your interpretation of democracy is that each local unit votes for their representative to look after their interests at the national level.

[/div][/quote]

Same reason given before. 10 legislatures is a massive paucity of perspectives. There are just ten viewpoints. Ten people will have massive blindspots over how they approach an issue. People just are not that homogenous and shouldn't be represented as such.

There is less chance of a creative solution to a problem being heard as well.

I don't want an oligarchy, trying to get rid of that as it is with the influence of the wealthy on politics.

[Peregrine]

Jul 12, 2024 2:22:26 GMT -5 Haighus said:

So yeah, things like racial profiling by police are very much minority issues, that could easily fall into below 10% of the population affected.

Two points here:

1) This is only true if you assume that the only way to get results is by a single-issue anti-profiling party which will gain no support outside the targeted minorities. Far, far more likely is that opposition to racial profiling will have support outside the 6% Muslim minority (black people are likely also affected and that's another 3.7%) and at least one larger party will adopt opposition to racial profiling as part of its platform, representing the idea in the legislature even if the specific targeted minority group does not directly hold a seat.

2) If this isn't true and the rest of the country is united in favor of racism what exactly does giving the affected minority group a seat change? They won't be part of any ruling coalition and won't be given any opportunity to do anything. Maybe they can make an occasional speech but the rest of the legislature will collectively tell them to STFU and ignore whatever they said. It becomes purely a symbolic victory with no practical value.

Same reason given before. 10 legislatures is a massive paucity of perspectives. There are just ten viewpoints. Ten people will have massive blindspots over how they approach an issue. People just are not that homogenous and shouldn't be represented as such.

But does allocating more seats to each party actually bring in more viewpoints, or does it merely make the vote totals bigger? Everything I've seen says that UK party discipline is even stricter than in the US and I don't see how giving the ruling party/coalition 600 votes out of 1000 instead of 6 votes out of 10 is changing anything. All 600 are still exact copies of whatever their party leadership tells them to do, with the threat of expulsion from the party (and likely from office shortly after) if they break ranks on any non-trivial issue.

There is less chance of a creative solution to a problem being heard as well.

Why? A smaller legislature doesn't eliminate the ability to have expert advisors. If anything the legislators themselves are the least likely to come up with a creative solution because they, by the basic responsibilities of their job, are required to be generalists who know enough about all the issues to make an informed opinion on a suggested solution but lack the time to become experts on any single subject. The people who are likely to come up with solutions are the experts in a specific field, people who can still propose their solutions to the legislature regardless of how many members it contains.

[nfe]

Jul 12, 2024 1:58:01 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Jul 8, 2024 7:32:18 GMT -5 semipotentwalrus said:

Why should people who don't own land have any representation? Why should women get to vote? Why are we letting racial minorities get a say? In fact, why shouldn't the British tax people without representation?

Do you really think women, racial minorities, etc, are comparable to fringe political beliefs? Consider the fact that 3% of people in the UK endorse flat earth theory and another 4% are "not sure". That's the kind of nonsense you get into when you start talking about political ideologies that can't even capture 10% of the vote: raving lunatics with no plan for actually governing and rarely even anything resembling serious understanding of the problems they're trying to solve. Do you really think the operation of the government would be improved by giving the sovereign citizens, anarcho-primitivists, etc, seats in the legislature? That they would accomplish anything other than disrupting the serious adults in the room as much as possible? I suppose it would be funny to watch from a safe distance while parliament is consumed by the tragicomedy of "debates" on whether we should abolish all of modern civilization, kill 95% of the global population, and return to being hunter-gatherers or "investigations" into how the US government has a secret bank account for each UK citizen with millions of dollars waiting for you to claim it but I don't think it would be nearly as funny for people in the UK.

And that's not even counting the meme candidates that PR opens the door to if you insist on small enough vote shares counting. Do you really think Count Binface should be in parliament? Or some social media "influencer" who is only there to promote their content?

You're not making a very convincing argument that what you're describing is democracy. A system where you can win a majority and then just ignore everyone else with the support of less than 30% of the population is just blatantly worse than one where you need 51% of the population to do the same if the point of the system is to represent the will of the population.

That's only true if you look at the national legislature as a single nation-wide entity rather than the delegated representatives of local entities. If you consider the national government an assembly of local representatives then you can't get control with a minority, you need 51% of the local entities to endorse your party/coalition. And it's highly unlikely that you can get control without at least close to a majority of the overall votes, we only saw it happen in this case because the opposition was laughably incompetent and handed over an easy win.

But, like I said, it's valid to abolish the idea of the national legislature as an assembly of local representatives and have a nation-wide vote. But if that's the goal then there's no need to have a legislature with hundreds of seats. 10 is sufficient and arguably a single president with ranked choice voting would accomplish the goal. You only need a large body with local districts if your interpretation of democracy is that each local unit votes for their representative to look after their interests at the national level.

You are making reductio ad absurdum arguments so extreme as to be risible here, man. It's disheartening to read you tilting at windmills like this.


If you think it is 'highly unlikely that you can get control without at least close to a majority of the overall votes' you fundamentally misunderstand UK elections.

The last five UK general elections saw largest parties with:

2024. 33% of a 60% turnout.
2019. 43% of 67% turnout.
2017. 42% of 68% turnout.
2015. 37% of 66% turnout.
2010. 36% of 65% turnout.

All but 2010 gave those largest parties majorities. 2019 and 2024 were absolutely crushing defeats for the party that came second.

Total control and immunity to any opposition amendments or challenge off the back of 33% of 62% or the electorate is embarrassing in a so-called democracy. PR systems can resolve this. Those systems do not have to simply allocate seats based on national vote share. Various PR systems are in place around the world and produce generally more collaborative, moderate governments than the extremist, combative, party-first nonsense that characterise both UK and US legislatures.

[Peregrine]

Jul 12, 2024 4:02:19 GMT -5 nfe said:

You are making reductio ad absurdum arguments so extreme as to be risible here, man. It's disheartening to read you tilting at windmills like this.

It's not a reducto ad absurdum when people are arguing for representation for those sub-10% fringe beliefs. Look at the poll data I linked for you, flat earthers and "not sure" are 7% of the UK population. 16% think the moon landings were faked. These are obviously idiotic beliefs that have an electorally significant number of people believing in them if you think the 10% threshold is too high. So it is hardly absurd to suggest that equally stupid political beliefs could have a similar level of support in a PR system.

All but 2010 gave those largest parties majorities.

2017 had no party get a majority. And in all cases the party that won a majority had the largest vote total even if that total wasn't a majority. I'm also not sure why you're citing turnout numbers, obviously if people don't bother to show up to vote it takes fewer votes to win.

Total control and immunity to any opposition amendments or challenge off the back of 33% of 62% or the electorate is embarrassing in a so-called democracy.

Why? Over 60% of UK districts voted to have that party represent them. If over 60% of towns/regions/etc want a party to govern them why shouldn't that party have a solid majority in the legislature? Why should the system reverse that and award participation trophies to other parties for being liked second-best in a bunch of places?

Or, to give another illustration of why PR is a bad system let's say party A wins your town's district with 55% of the vote. In FPTP that's the end of it, they won, you are represented by that MP. If they win your town with 90% of the vote it's the same result, you still selected party A's candidate to represent you. But in a PR system you have the absurd result where winning harder in a district you already won gets you extra representatives. Who cares if you lost utterly in some other town's district because you ignored their needs, you can make up for it by winning harder in your strong districts.

[nfe]

Jul 12, 2024 4:41:43 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Jul 12, 2024 4:02:19 GMT -5 nfe said:

You are making reductio ad absurdum arguments so extreme as to be risible here, man. It's disheartening to read you tilting at windmills like this.

It's not a reducto ad absurdum when people are arguing for representation for those sub-10% fringe beliefs. Look at the poll data I linked for you, flat earthers and "not sure" are 7% of the UK population. 16% think the moon landings were faked. These are obviously idiotic beliefs that have an electorally significant number of people believing in them if you think the 10% threshold is too high. So it is hardly absurd to suggest that equally stupid political beliefs could have a similar level of support in a PR system.

I'll ask again, do you know what the Overton Window is?

All but 2010 gave those largest parties majorities.

2017 had no party get a majority.

Sorry, you are correct, May led a minority government.

And in all cases the party that won a majority had the largest vote total even if that total wasn't a majority.

Err, yes. I'm not claiming otherwise? I'm showing you that it is a nonsense to claim that it is highly unlikely that a party could win 51% seats without close to a majority of votes.

I'm also not sure why you're citing turnout numbers, obviously if people don't bother to show up to vote it takes fewer votes to win.

Because 1) turnout numbers are lowered by FPTP. It is a total waste of time for people in many seats to vote if they don't support the party who're definitely going to win anyway, and this is cited as a reason for non-participation regularly, and 2) because it reflects the total positive support for a party.

Total control and immunity to any opposition amendments or challenge off the back of 33% of 62% or the electorate is embarrassing in a so-called democracy.

Why? Over 60% of UK districts voted to have that party represent them. If over 60% of towns/regions/etc want a party to govern them why shouldn't that party have a solid majority in the legislature? Why should the system reverse that and award participation trophies to other parties for being liked second-best in a bunch of places?

If you win a majority of constituencies in a PR system you are still likely to have an overall majority. See Scottish Parliamentary Elections 2011.

Or, to give another illustration of why PR is a bad system let's say party A wins your town's district with 55% of the vote. In FPTP that's the end of it, they won, you are represented by that MP. If they win your town with 90% of the vote it's the same result, you still selected party A's candidate to represent you. But in a PR system you have the absurd result where winning harder in a district you already won gets you extra representatives. Who cares if you lost utterly in some other town's district because you ignored their needs, you can make up for it by winning harder in your strong districts.

Which specific PR system are you referencing here, and why would the UK be obligated to use it?

This is the opposite of what happens in Scotland, for instance. You seem to have decided that only one type of PR could exist in the UK and built all your arguments around the most extreme results that could throw up, without so much as a cursory glance at the systems actually already in use in the UK, That have been described to you in this thread. Like I say, tilting at windmills.

[semipotentwalrus]

Jul 12, 2024 1:58:01 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Jul 8, 2024 7:32:18 GMT -5 semipotentwalrus said:

Why should people who don't own land have any representation? Why should women get to vote? Why are we letting racial minorities get a say? In fact, why shouldn't the British tax people without representation?

Do you really think women, racial minorities, etc, are comparable to fringe political beliefs? Consider the fact that 3% of people in the UK endorse flat earth theory and another 4% are "not sure". That's the kind of nonsense you get into when you start talking about political ideologies that can't even capture 10% of the vote: raving lunatics with no plan for actually governing and rarely even anything resembling serious understanding of the problems they're trying to solve. Do you really think the operation of the government would be improved by giving the sovereign citizens, anarcho-primitivists, etc, seats in the legislature? That they would accomplish anything other than disrupting the serious adults in the room as much as possible? I suppose it would be funny to watch from a safe distance while parliament is consumed by the tragicomedy of "debates" on whether we should abolish all of modern civilization, kill 95% of the global population, and return to being hunter-gatherers or "investigations" into how the US government has a secret bank account for each UK citizen with millions of dollars waiting for you to claim it but I don't think it would be nearly as funny for people in the UK.

Given that this doesn't happen at any appreciable scale in any of the European countries where the threshold to get a seat is far lower than 10% I'm just going to reject this out of hand.

That's only true if you look at the national legislature as a single nation-wide entity rather than the delegated representatives of local entities. If you consider the national government an assembly of local representatives then you can't get control with a minority, you need 51% of the local entities to endorse your party/coalition. And it's highly unlikely that you can get control without at least close to a majority of the overall votes, we only saw it happen in this case because the opposition was laughably incompetent and handed over an easy win.

Which brings us full circle back to democracy being the rule of the people. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people", not "Government of the states, by the states, for the states". Incidentally, the odds of getting control of a legislature against the will of a majority of the seats in a proportionate system is 0 other than in circumstances that are several orders of magnitude less likely to occur than what FPTP puts out. You're inescapably going to be less likely to represent the view of a majority when you insert an extra step of proxies than if you don't.

But, like I said, it's valid to abolish the idea of the national legislature as an assembly of local representatives and have a nation-wide vote. But if that's the goal then there's no need to have a legislature with hundreds of seats. 10 is sufficient and arguably a single president with ranked choice voting would accomplish the goal. You only need a large body with local districts if your interpretation of democracy is that each local unit votes for their representative to look after their interests at the national level.

"Local units" don't have to enter into it at all. A higher number of representatives is more granular and lets the distribution of seats be more representative of the opinions of the people. The only way to keep the seats down to 10 is to effectively disenfranchise large minorities of the people.

Ultimately, the entire point of democracy is to have the views of the people represented in governance. You're bolting on a bunch of extras to make the entire system less representative and claiming it's more democratic which is patently absurd.

[skyth]

You'll have to go to a LOT higher percentage if you want to get rid of people with absurd ideas.

Just look at the % of the US population that denies climate change or thinks there was widespread voter fraud that caused Trump to lose in 2020...

[Haighus]

Been meaning to address this for awhile:

Jul 8, 2024 5:27:28 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

for example, the Greens going from 1 to 4 seats in the UK parliament means they legally have to get 4 times the media coverage they used to and get more funding to boot.

I suppose that's some context I was missing. I am strongly opposed to the idea of state compelled speech but if you have that kind of system I can see how earning seats in the legislature provides power beyond the actual votes.

We have a public broadcaster (the BBC). It is still the most widely-watched news broadcaster by a huge margin despite multiple private competitors existing.

As a public broadcaster, it has a charter with strict rules on impartiality to attempt to safeguard against political bias, hence the coverage rules. Of course, those impartiality rules are enforced to varying degrees and in a very "both sides" way, and there is overt political bias towards the British establishment by its very nature. Having said that, it tends to do a better job with more accountability than most of the mainstream private alternatives. Not a high bar by any means.

[mdgv2]

Compare the Beeb to GBeebies, a toddleresque attempt to create a UK Fox News style shitpump disinformation platform.

By no accounts is it doing well in viewership, and it keeps getting hauled over the coals for lack of impartiality by the regulator.