Electoral reform: a proposal for consideration by those standing for election as Labour leader.
The result of the 2019 election - a Conservative government given a large majority on 45% of the vote - makes the political case on the left/centre left for electoral reform irrefutable. See also election results going back to the war.
(I’m not concerned with arguing the merits here: see my timeline and @electoralreform.)
However, Labour should also be wary of letting constitutional reform take over its first years in office. In particular, referendums take time and drain attention and energy. Labour will have many other things to do.
The conclusion that should be drawn is not to abandon electoral reform but to get it done quickly, without a referendum.
There is no rule or convention that electoral reform requires a referendum. The AV referendum in 2011 was a compromise against the background that neither coalition party proposed that system in its manifesto.
Rather, the commitment to move to PR should just be written in as a manifesto commitment and then done.
But Labour should invite all parties to a convention to decide what the new system should be: the Scottish “top up” system or the Irish STV system.
The Tories would not come. But all/most other parties probably would: and the aim would be to get an agreement that they would all agree to put in their manifestos.
You would then have a system that parties getting more than 50% of the vote and a majority of seats would have put forward. It would have all the legitimacy that is needed in our system and can properly simply be done by legislation.
You could add House of Lords reform to the agenda, but since that is an area that the Tories’ promised commission is to be allowed to look at, I’d park that for the moment.
And here is a very good piece on why Labour should go for PR. Like roulette, the left will sometimes win big in FPTP. But overall, the game is stacked to the right.
