This essay was originally composed as a comment on the article “Why Democracy Fails”, posted on 3rd June last by Richard W here on UKIP Daily.
But I saw it was too long for inclusion as a comment. I am now submitting it as an essay, in the light of Gerard Batten’s call to UKIP to prepare for a snap General Election this autumn. I hope some of my considerations may be useful.
Richard W’s argument is ingenious and doubtless right, as far as it goes. (He explains how it is that though a majority of the population is against, say, further immigration, all three parties elected are in favour.)
However he does not discuss the influence of the voting system itself on how people determine their voting preferences.
He takes as a given the idea that “many representative democracies become dominated by two major parties to the exclusion of third parties. “. This is true in countries like Britain, which use FPTP (first past the post) voting, but not in countries that use PR (proportional representation), where many parties win seats.
The difficulty with PR is that, although it allows political representation to a larger variety of views present in the population, it makes it harder to form a stable governing majority. As is the case, for example, in Italy.
In the UK we use PR for the EU Parliament elections and FPTP for the domestic elections.
Now UKIP came second in the 2009 EP election, and first in the 2014 EP election. But in both Westminster elections in 2010 and 2015, we won no seats at all. This is paradoxical. It shouldn’t have happened this way.
I believe that to a fair extent this was due to a misunderstanding on the part of our own electoral strategists of how people vote in FPTP elections.
Why is it so difficult to dislodge the incumbent 2 parties from their predominance? This is because, under FPTP, people realise that unless they vote for a winner, or the runner-up, their vote is entirely wasted. Of course there will be a smallish number of devoted people, sometimes called “anoraks”, who will vote for their favourite party regardless of its chances of winning.
With PR you can vote for your heart’s desire, and have a fair chance that your vote will help your favourite party to get a seat.
But with FPTP most people realise that unless you vote for the number one party, your vote will count for nothing. In a marginal constituency you might vote for number 2 in the hope of toppling the existing number 1 from the seat.
So you try to calculate which of the various parties on the ballot paper are likely to be the numbers 1 and 2 in your constituency. Of course you may dislike them both and prefer another party, but with FPTP you realise that unless you vote for number 1 or number 2 your vote will be wasted.
How do you decide which will be the numbers 1 and 2 ? Well, mostly on past form. For 100 years now that has meant Labour or Conservative, very occasionally here and there LibDem. Voting for anybody else means your vote will be thrown away, useless.
Now many people have not only a favourite party, but also a party they dislike more than any other. So voters realise that if they dislike the Tories more than Labour, then however unsatisfactory they may think Labour is, they will vote Labour “to keep the Tories out”. And vice-versa for those who dislike Labour more than the Tories.
This is something that many UKIP canvassers have found on the doorstep – “Yes I agree with all of UKIP’s policies, but you are too small and haven’t a hope, so unless I vote Tory the really dreadful Labour candidate will get in. They are the only party that can defeat them.”
This became a sure-fire winning argument when Cameron promised a straight In/Out referendum in case of a Tory victory. He had pulled the rug completely from under UKIP’s feet.
How could UKIP break into this sort of closed-shop system? How could we be considered “electable”, ie a number 1 or a number 2 party? How can we persuade voters that a vote for UKIP is not a wasted vote?
Well, in 2009-10 and 2014-15, fate dealt us a wonderful gift. In each of these two-year periods, the EP election, run on PR, preceded the Westminster election, run as always on FPTP.
With PR voting, UKIP did extraordinarily well, coming second in 2009 (beating the LibDems and even the then governing Labour party), and actually coming out top in 2014, beating all the other parties.
We should have capitalized on this, and conducted the Westminster election campaigns which in each case came the year after, repeating obsessively, in 2010 “Look we came second last year, a vote for us is not a wasted vote, vote for us with confidence, we are the alternative”.
Part II of this piece can be read here.
Congratulations to the author of this article. It is so gratifying to see at least one person has read a posting of mine vis-a-vis Proportional slash FPTBP.
OK, to reiterate the obvious, there are two basic arguments to this. 1.Nothing will change with FPTBP we’re stuck with the labour-tory seesaw; 2.other one is: but we’ll end up like Italy under PR, ie no stable govt.
Talk about Project Fear, eh…
The irony is, once the people wake up, like for instance when their country is literally being invaded by a mob from foreign parts, by which I mean being browbeaten into submission by Frenchmen and Germans as much as Africans arriving, they CAN do something about it under PR. I mean don’t tell me Italy isn’t a darned sight closer to achieving real change than it was.
Just been speaking to my son in Australia where they have PR which seems to work OK. At the polling stations there you have representatives from all parties who can advise on what order to list candidates. He votes Liberal (conservative) so in an election with say 6 candidates Liberal is 1 and Labor 6 but it is the second choice that can be the deciding factor in a tight contest. The Party officials have worked out the best options for their parties, you don’t have to follow their advice but most people do. Also they have an election every 3 years, it is in their written constitution.
I very much look forward to reading part two of this article, but I’d just like to add my own thoughts so far.
The image shown in Martin Cruttwells link in his comment below pretty much sums up the state of things.
The deceit imposed on the electorate of this country is that there is no actual real democracy, only ‘fake democracy’. Voters are led to believe they have a ‘choice’ between the traditional Establishment parties, when the truth is that they (LibDems, Tories, Labour etc) are all singing from the same hymn sheet, and despite on the surface having seemingly different policies, all end up following the same ‘hidden agenda’ that never knowingly gets revealed, although more and more researchers are discovering otherwise.
The ruling Government of the day may flip-flop between Conservative and Labour, but nothing really changes.
For years, people who don’t vote have cited the big reason of “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they’re all the bloody same”, and you know what, those people are right! And this is why voter turnout at elections is traditionally low, and it is voter apathy that keeps the power pendulum swinging between Labour and Conservative, with an ever decreasing turnout its no wonder we live in a virtual dictatorship.
If we can find a way to tap into and reach those people who normally don’t bother voting, things could be a lot different.
Labour and Conservatives keep themselves in power with dirty tricks and downright lies in order to smear their opponents. If UKIP can come up with some bold, brash campaign slogans, that play the Establishment parties at their own game, there is a chance that undecided voters and those who have given up voting, could be persuaded to ‘play ball’.
VOTE CONSERVATIVE – nothing changes
VOTE LABOUR – nothing changes
VOTE UKIP – everything changes!
But the main three parties will never allow a system in the House of Lords that would diminish their ability to rule and would the new house operate in the way it does at present ?
We do not have a democracy, where the people make the laws via the legal system and trial by jury, otherwise known as “legal democracy” We have universal suffrage which is a transfer of your power to decide for yourself to an external authority and we then wonder why we don’t get what we want.
The whole party system is a corruption of our legal constitution leading to a concentration of power, not division of power. The fact that this trick is cloaked in the name “democracy” sends us to sleep. If readers would contact my website http://www.camrecon.demon.co.uk and then contact me via john.cruttwell@sfr.fr I am more than happy to expose the whole ghastly charade.
The graphic shown on your website is a very accurate representation of the state of politics in our country, and no doubt in many other so-called ‘democratic’ countries.
I am not sure if I am allowed by the editor to post links to YouTube channels (and don’t have permission from the maker of the videos, nor do I know if the young man who makes them has any interest in UKIP), but I would say this particular one expresses the problem with Parliament rather well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2_EvT-FtmM
I saw very cogent argument the other day that demonstrated that since the new-fangled supreme court has no real power, and the Parliament is not privy to discussions in Privy Council or held by the Cabinet Office, since the People in other words are not represented in reality and Government can behave in whatever way the Crown and its often secret offshoots wish, and committees are nothing but talking-shops, what we now have is a dictatorship by Government that is carrying out either directives from the EU or UN, or from Crown interests. We are now a Feudal society again. UKIP perhaps the only party capable of being the People’s party now.
Thank you for your inspiring thoughts and cogent case.
I argue for a PR second chamber with the elections to happen simultaneous with the General Election vote. Since the House of Commons is becoming more removed from the people, we need another chamber to do what the Commons was originally intended to do. A new People’s House (the house of Lords as it is currently but unreformed and unrepresentative in the extreme)
I honesty feel that UKIP can win votes with this, as people become increasingly frustrated with the Commons – and think nothing of the Lords, even less perhaps than was thought of the original “King’s House”, but which at least in large measure defended the interests of the Land and therefore the people on it. The key is to return the will of the people to an equal status in the triangle of people / Judiciary / executive and get people engaged in the process.
Surely, a voting day for the People that allows people to choose their local MP will do this (needless to say one who also bends his/her ear to the larger global picture) to represent them on a FPTP system and to be in their constituency; and At The Same Time voting proportionally to fill the second chamber, one where there will be a voice heard for every interest group (potentially a majority UKIP Coalition if this is not achieved in the House of Commons) and providing the essential checks and balances that are meant to be in the English Constitution and preventing statutes being imposed by the UN/EU etc be means of powerful corporate interests and the like. This second chamber would again become an abode of the Law Lords rather than the rather ridiculous “supreme court” created by Blair to become a wing of the EU supreme court and without any real purpose – just a regional office.
https://independencedaily.co.uk/reforming-house-lords/
Whatever happens with the House of Lords could be the key for change. As has been seen by the way they have dealt with Brexit the upper house has now been filled by either political has beens,hangers on,non entities and chancers. It was actually better when it did have actual hereditary peers who were for the most part non political.
Maybe if we had one house on a FPTP system and one with PR then they would counter each other.
I remember though years ago talking to an Italian about their system and the problem as he said was that PR meant for the most part that you ended up with the same old politicians at the top Everytime with little change. Well in Italy change has come by way of a political revolution with new parties taking the lead
And what is this alternative ? This is where it all falls down , and still does.