Advantages and Disadvantages of FPTP

Advantage of FPTP - Choice

• It provides a clear cut choice for voters between two main parties

Advantage of FPTP - Strong Government

• Gives rise to single party governments

• Unlikely to lead to coalition governments

• Cabinets do not need to bargain with a minority coalition partner

Advantage of FPTP - Big Tent Parties

• Parties have a broad appeal to a wide, diverse electorate

Advantage of FPTP - Adversarial Politics

• It gives rise to a coherent and strong parliamentary opposition

Advantage of FPTP - Excludes extremist parties

• Unless an extremist minority party’s electoral support is geographically concentrated, it is unlikely to win any seats under FPTP

Advantage of FPTP - Accountability

• Close link between constituents and their MP

• Geographical representation

• Geographic accountability

Advantage of FPTP - MPs over parties

• Allows voters to choose between people, rather than just between parties

Advantage of FPTP - Independent Candidates

• It gives a change for popular independent candidates to be elected

Advantage of FPTP - User-friendly

• Easy for votes to use and understand.

• This will help voter turnout

• Votes can also be counted quickly by electoral officials

Disadvantage of FPTP - Minority Rule

• Governments can be formed with minority of votes due to concentration of votes

Disadvantage of FPTP - Suppression of political diversity

• Green Party, Lib Dems and Brexit Party have a total vote of 16%

• Had a seat proportion of 2%

Disadvantage of FPTP - Misrepresentation

• Half UK voters represented by a candidate they didn’t vote for

Disadvantage of FPTP - Wasted Votes

• 71.2% of votes wasted in 2019 elections

• Government not represented

Disadvantage of FPTP - Tactical Voting

• Voting for opposition to keep a party out of power

Disadvantage of FPTP - Only Marginal Seats Matter

• Elections under FPTP are decided by a few thousand swing voters in a small number of marginal constituencies