Consider the arguments for and against retaining first-past-the-post for general elections

Lee Crawfurd 12JMn

The first-past-the-post system has for the last century served British politics well, if not adequately enough to be maintained unquestioned. This idea was backed by a certain amount of British arrogance. There was the assumption that the British system of government was for various reasons better than that of other Western European states. Firstly, Britain was a great political and economic power for the first half of the 20th century. Secondly, the British system has been extremely efficient in avoiding political extremism, especially at a time when both fascism and Communism were faring particularly well in much of Europe. Thirdly, the maintenance of stability and strong government where European proportionality failed.

However, the emergence of a significant third party in the 70s has refuelled the arguments for change. The shortcomings of first-past-the-post were highlighted in the 1983 general election when the Liberal/SDP Alliance received 25% of the national vote, and for it got only 3.5% of the seats in parliament. This clearly seems to be unfair.

Before the arguments for and against the retention of first-past-the-post for general elections can be established, the main features of the system must first be outlined. Very simply, Britain is divided into hundreds of geographical constituencies. Voters choose between the candidates on offer in their constituency, and the candidate with the plurality of votes is elected to parliament. The party with the majority of seats forms the government. This system has the basic advantage of being the incumbent system, meaning it is widely understood and recognised. It also has the advantage of being simple to operate (compared with most other systems).

The nature of the system’s over-rewarding of the main party generally leads to a strong, single-party government. This means it easy for the government to make swift decisions and effectively implement a line of policy. It is argued that this leads to stability. It also means that when voters go to the ballot box, they are choosing the party they wish to govern the country. This gives parties a certain degree of accountability, as an unpopular government can quite easily be voted out of government at the next general elections. Proportional systems can see a minority party remain as part of the government election after election.

The single member constituency system allows MPs to become familiar with a local area, and therefore do their best to serve the interests of all those within their constituency.

For all is virtues, the first-past-the-post system has plenty of flaws.

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The single member constituency system allows MPs to become familiar with a local area, and therefore do their best to serve the interests of all those within their constituency.

For all is virtues, the first-past-the-post system has plenty of flaws.

The system which creates ‘good’ strong government, does this by heavily penalising smaller parties in favour of the main one. In 1974 Labour achieved a majority in the House of Commons from only 39.2% of the vote. This raises the question of whether it is desirable or even acceptable for the government to comprise a party which most people voted against. The representation of the beliefs of minorities are also heavily compromised. It is only when this huge penalisation of smaller parties is concentrated in a large third party when it is even noticed.

The argument of strong government isn’t even always true, as first-past-the-post doesn’t invariably produce a single-party majority. There have been three occasions in the last 50 years on which no single party has won a majority of seats.

Another important criticism of first-past-the-post is its denial of an effective voter choice. The majority of seats come from ‘safe’ constituencies in which the incumbent party will almost never lose. The result of elections is decided by approximately 100 ‘marginal’ constituencies where the result is more unpredictable. Voters in these ‘safe’ constituencies are denied an effective choice. It is quite easy for a voter to last their entire life without playing a part in successfully electing an MP. Neither do voters have choice in the selection of candidates. The selectorate of each party decides upon its candidate, and so in ‘safe’ seats it is the selectorate of the largest party which decides which candidate will be put forward and hence get into parliament.

The adversarial two-party system has been criticised for encouraging abrupt change in policy direction. These frequent reversals of policy in important areas may be damaging to the country. A neglection of the virtues of accountability, and a multi-party government would therefore create greater consistency. It could be argued that this consistency in policy would lead to greater stability than currently present under the first-past-the-post system.

The prospects for electoral reform don’t look too great. The issue is fairly unimportant to the majority of the electorate. Furthermore the nature of first-past-the-post benefits the government. A party in government backing electoral reform would have to accept the fact they would probably lose seats as a result.

Any serious debate about electoral reform has the possibility of being biased depending on individuals party allegiances i.e. a Liberal Democrat supporter may oppose the retention of first-past-the-post simply because it penalises their party, rather than because of an objective opinion that the current system is unfair and undesirable.

Support for electoral reform grew in the Labour Party during its 18 years of opposition. However after the landslide of the 1997 election, many doubters kept quiet. Presently, first-past-the-post is heavily biased against the Conservative Party. Labour won 65% of parliamentary seats from only 44% of the vote. The way votes are distributed nationally means that even if the Labour and Conservative Parties achieved an equal percentage of the vote, Labour would still hold a 79 seat majority.

However, prior to the 1997 election, Blair promised an independent enquiry (backed by the LibDems) into electoral reform and a referendum on its findings. The five-strong enquiry was led by Lord Jenkins.

Four terms were set out by the Home Secretary which the proposed electoral system should fulfil.

These are: 1. A broad proportionality between votes and seats in parliament

The maintenance of strong government

A greater degree of voter choice
The retention of the link between MPs and local areas

These four ideals aren’t necessarily readily compatible. Indeed, they correlate with a broader debate over the exact purpose of national elections. Is the priority choosing an effective executive or competent legislature? Should each voter have the right to a local MP or is it more important that the political parties get their fair share of MPs? An ideal system would include both of these options, but such a system is hard to envisage.

First-past-the-post fulfils the maintenance of strong government and provides a link between MPs and a local area, but completely ignores the other two terms set out by Jack Straw.

After considerable research, the Jenkins Report proposed a new system called AV-Plus. Under this system, voters get two separate votes. One is for their constituency MP, who will be elected by Alternative Vote. The second goes towards electing a ‘top-up’ MP, a corrective mechanism which creates greater proportionality.

The AV-Plus system fulfils all the requirements set by Straw, and so it is difficult to argue against its implementation.

The stance of the political parties on the issue of electoral reform is fairly clear-cut. The Conservatives are strongly opposed to AV-Plus, no doubt due to the suspicion that it could quite easily create an almost perpetual Lib-Lab coalition. These fears are well grounded, as Tony Blair makes no secret of his intentions to keep 21st century politics dominated by the centre-left. The Liberal Democrats are in favour of the Jenkins report’s recommendations, and would probably prefer even more radical change. Tony Blair is ‘unpersuaded’ by the case for PR, but did promise a referendum on the proposals of the Jenkin report.

The arguments against the retention of first-past-the-post for general elections are further backed when looking at all newly created elections. Throughout Europe newly created democracies adopted various forms of proportional representation. In Britain a wide variety of systems is used for different elections. The newly created Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly both use the additional member system. As did elections for the Greater London Authority. Elections for the London Mayor were by the supplementary method. The single transferable vote is used for the newly created Northern Island Assembly and for Northern Island’s elections to the European Parliament. As of 1999, the party list system is used for British elections to the European Parliament.

Each of these systems is different and invariably flawed in some way. But that isn’t the point. The point is why hasn’t first-past-the-post been used for any of these newly created elections?. Clearly our current system isn’t good enough for newly created elections. One can only assume that the only reason we still use it for general elections is the traditionally conservative British nature. Or perhaps the government realise first-past-the-post is heavily flawed but enjoy its unfairness too much to give up seats where they really count.

The Jenkins report is itself the strongest argument against the retention of first-past-the-post. There is no such argument of a similar depth and intelligence which supports retaining first-past-the-post. The Conservatives commented that’ accountability, strong government and a “fair” distribution of seats cannot be easily reconciled.’ This may be true, but AV-Plus would get far closer to this ideal than first-past-the-post does.

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