Have proportionate electoral systems affected the political process in the UK?

Structure of the essay?

P1 - Party representation and proportionality

P2 - Voter choice

P3 - Type of government created

Intro/ definitions

• FPTP is the current electoral system used for UK parliament elections and local council elections in England and Wales. It is a simple plurality system.

• Proportional representation describes electoral systems in which the distribution of seats corresponds closely with the proportion of total votes case.

  • Additional Member System is used in Scottish Parliament elections, and elections to the Greater London Assembly

  • Single Transferable Vote System is used in Northern Ireland Parliament elections.

P1 - PR systems have not affected party representation and proportionality in the UK

• PR has not affected political processes in the UK as it has not had a major impact on party representation or the party system in devolved bodies, which closely correspond to representation in Westminster.

• PR aims to disperse power is the legislatures and represent all voters’ views, however despite votes for minor parties not being ‘wasted’ like under FPTP, this has not led to a large number of parties being represented.

  • Over past two decades, one party has been able to dominate politics and government in devolved legislatures of both Wales (Labour), and Scotland (SNP).

    • As a result, it can be argued that PR hasn’t created a multi-party system that differs from Westminsters plurality system.

  • AMS is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament and before 2024, also used in the Welsh Assembly. AMS is more proportional than FPTP as the second ‘top up’ vote for a party acts as a corrective to the first constituency vote.

    • The Scottish Parliament has 6 parties represented with 49% control from the SNP. The Welsh Assembly has just 4 parties represented with Labour controlling 56% of seats, and Labour been the largest party in all 6 Senedd elections.

• By contrast, Westminster has 14 parties represented, with Labour controlling 62% of seats.

  • This suggests that PR systems have had a limited impact on political processes in the UK, as they haven’t resulted in minor parties being given greater representation and power in comparison to FPTP.

P1 - PR systems have affected party representation and proportionality in the UK

• It can be argued that PR systems have had a big impact on political processes in the UK, as the high proportionality of STV and AMS have created far more proportional election results in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and thus representation as a whole.

• FPTP is very unrepresentative as it is a simple plurality system where the candidate with the largest number of votes in constituency is election as MP, even if they don’t win majority of the votes.

  • In the 2024 election, this resulted a majority of MPs being elected without over 50% of the vote in their constituency.

  • On a national level, this means that a party can win a significant majority of seats without having majority support from the electorate - a key reason why FPTP is unproportional.

  • In the 2024 election for example, the Labour party won 63% of the seats with just 33.7% of the vote, despite winning 202 seats with 32.1% of the vote in 2019.

• Crucially, it also means that the most minor parties (those without geographically concentrated support) are greatly underrepresented, as they need major support within a constituency to win a seats.

  • For example, in the 2024 election, Reform UK received 14.3% of the vote across the country, but achieved just 0.8% of the seats, 5.

• PR systems allow for more effective representation of minor parties even when they don’t have geopgraphically concentrated support.

  • No votes are ‘wasted’ under PR and the results are more representative of all voters in a constituency.

  • STV is the most proportional due to its multi-member constituencies and the Droop Formula which allocates seats in a highly proportional way that takes into account the full preferences of all voters.

    • In the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, Sinn Fein was the largest party winning 28% of seats on 29% of the vote.

P2 - PR systems have affected voter choice in the UK

• Another important argument that PR systems have affected political processes in the UK is that they offer voters far greater choice than under FPTP. This allows voters to fully demotivate political preferences and results in less disillusionment with politics.

• There is very limited voter choice under FPTP as voters only get one vote and vote for their local MP rather than the party as a whole.

  • This leads to votes for parties that don’t win a constituency being effectively ‘wasted’ and to many voters resorting to tactical voting, which is where voters select a different party to their preferred party to prevent their least favourite party from winning.

  • Pressure group, MakeVotesMatter, reported that in 2024, 1/5 voters intended to vote tactically and 58% of those who voted ended up with an MP they didn’t vote for, the highest since WWII

  • Additionally, voting behaviour expert, Stephen Fisher, notes how the Lib-Dems gained 72 seats on the premise of anti-tory voting than pro-lib-dem policy - unseated 5 previous Conservative ministers.

• This contrasts with the more proportional systems used in the devolved bodies, such as STV where voters rank their preferences and choose between representatives from the same party

  • As a result, there is less of a feeling that voting is unfair and undermines the legitimacy of the government like there is in the UK where many voters have expressed dissatisfaction with FPTP.

P2 - PR systems have not affected voter choice in the UK

• While PR may lead to greater voter choice than under FPTP in England, it can be argued that it has not affected political processes in the UK as it hasn’t driven increased turnout and therefore better engaged voters in politics.

• Turnout in elections to both Westminster and the devolved assemblies is low despite devolved bodies having more proportional election systems.

  • In the 2024 Westminster election, turnout was just 59.9%, whilst the 2021 Scottish Parliament election and 2021 Senedd election had turnouts of just 63% and 46% respectively, despite being conducted under AMS.

• An important reason for this is that complicated PR systems such as AMS and STV can confuse voters, which acts as a barrier to increased participation and lead to ‘donkey voting’. STV is long and complex as multiple MLA’s are elected to each constituency.

  • As a result, in 2022, Northern Ireland Assembly elections, there were 11,000 spoilt ballots which represented 1.3% of all votes cast.

  • Overall, voter choice is therefore limited under both FPTP and PR systems used in devolved bodies. Even though it is for different reasons in each, this suggests that PR systems haven’t had a major impact on political processes in the UK as voter choice is limited in both.

P3 - PR systems have not affected type of government in the UK

• Perhaps the most compelling argument that PR systems have not fundamentally affected political processes in the UK is the type of government they have created.

• One of FPTPs key benefits is that it usually produces strong, single-party majoritarian governments. These governments have a strong mandate and are able to carry out their programme of government and being about effective change,

  • This is due to the ‘winners’ bonus’ where the party with the most votes highly benefits and enjoys a significant majority of the seats in Parliament, even when they don’t receive a majority of votes.

  • In the 1980s, this enabled Thatcher to bring about widespread changes to the economy, whilst in 1997 it gave Blair’s government the mandate to carry out extensive constitutional reforms.

  • In 2024, Starmer won a 174 seat majority with just 33.7 of the vote, but there was limited public outrage.

• It can be argued that PR hasn’t had a major impact on political processes in the UK, as the governments produced by PR in the devolved assemblies function much like that of those in Westminster.

  • Under AMS in Scotland and Wales, the governments have been generally stable and able to deliver major reforms.

  • In Scotland, the SNP have dominated government since 2007 and were 1 seat short of an absolute majority in 2021. Scottish governments have tended to last the full 5 year term and been able to take radical action.

    • For example, in 2022, the Scottish government raised the higher rate of income tax so it was 2% higher than the rest of the UK.

P3 - PR systems have affected type of government in the UK

• On the other hand, it can be argued that PR has significantly affected political processes in the UK as PR systems in the devolved bodies have produced more minority and coalition governments, which function differently to majoritarian Westminster governments in a number of ways.

• As PR is more plural, it means that rather than being able to form a government alone, this often forces the largest party to form a coalition government and get support from another party, or to form a minority government.

  • This has a major impact on political processes in the devolved bodies as these governments tend to be less stable, which leads to watered down policies and governments struggling to implement significant changes.

  • This can be seen in the breakdown of the Scottish government in April 2024; First Minister, Humza Yousaf decided to end the coalition agreements after the Greens strongly criticised the SNP for abandoning a key climate change target, and pausing the prescription of puberty blockers to new patients at Scotland’s gender services clinic for young people.

    • This shows a key disadvantage of AMS; it routinely leads to coalition and minority governments which are vulnerable to instability and often fail to implement policy changes,

  • Similarly, in Northern Ireland, STV creates coalition governments between the DUP and Sinn Fein, which agree on ver little. As a result, these governments are prone to indecision.

    • For example, Stormont was suspended for nearly 2 years following the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly elections as the DUP refused to go into coalition with Sinn Fein in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.