AHC: Have Britain implement proportional representation

kernals12

Banned
Britain is the only country in Europe that has never used proportional representation. So, how can we change that? Is there anyone in the Labour, Liberal, or Conservative parties farsighted enough to see the benefits of it? I would prefer a POD before 1945, as that would be the best time as it could prevent Labour's disastrous nationalizations.
 
The Liberal Party has been arguing for it for years (because it would give them more power) while the Conservative and Labour Parties have been poo pooing the idea fro just as long (because it would reduce their power). This Spitting Image sketch sums it up nicely.


Another example was an interview with John Prescot in the wake of the Labour Party's landslide victory in the 1997 General Election that I watched. He was asked if the government (of which he was Deputy PM) would introduce PR. His reply was along the lines of why would he want to increase the Liberal Party's representation in Parliament.

When the Liberals and Conservatives were in the only British coalition government since 1945 part of the deal was that there had to be a referendum on the AV form of PR. This was held in 2011 and was defeated 67.9% to 32.1% on a turnout of 42.2% (figures from wikipaedia).

Which nationalisations do you want prevented? And why do you think that they were disastrous? I'd argue that most of the industries that were nationalised (e.g. British Leyland and the shipbuilding industry) were in a disastrous state before hand, that it was the way the nationalisations were carried out and the way the industries were treated once nationalised that was the problem, rather than nationalisation per se was disastrous.
 

kernals12

Banned
The Liberal Party has been arguing for it for years (because it would give them more power) while the Conservative and Labour Parties have been poo pooing the idea fro just as long (because it would reduce their power). This Spitting Image sketch sums it up nicely.


Another example was an interview with John Prescot in the wake of the Labour Party's landslide victory in the 1997 General Election that I watched. He was asked if the government (of which he was Deputy PM) would introduce PR. His reply was along the lines of why would he want to increase the Liberal Party's representation in Parliament.

When the Liberals and Conservatives were in the only British coalition government since 1945 part of the deal was that there had to be a referendum on the AV form of PR. This was held in 2011 and was defeated 67.9% to 32.1% on a turnout of 42.2% (figures from wikipaedia).

Which nationalisations do you want prevented? And why do you think that they were disastrous? I'd argue that most of the industries that were nationalised (e.g. British Leyland and the shipbuilding industry) were in a disastrous state before hand, that it was the way the nationalisations were carried out and the way the industries were treated once nationalised that was the problem, rather than nationalisation per se was disastrous.
They were disastrous in that they were a costly drain on the national budget. The coal industry nationalization in particular was pretty bad. And there just is no way to make it work. Businesses operate most efficiently when they are punished for their failures and rewarded for their successes.
 
I have tried to find a plausible scenario for getting PR adopted in the UK, and have never succeeded.

For example, the Conservatives could agree in 2010 to an AV referendum because, first, they knew it was unlikely to prevail (both the FPTP defenders and "PR or nothing!" types would oppose it) and second, even if it did, it would not kill their chances of getting a majority Government--indeed, according to some sources, the Conservatives would have gotten a bigger majority in 2015 with AV. https://web.archive.org/web/20170309100055/https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/system-crisis

But STV or any other form of PR would virtually kill the Conservatives' (or Labour's) chances of forming a majority Government in the future; hardly ever has a party received a majority of the total popular vote in modern times. They would rather have risked a second election in 2010 than agree to a referendum on PR that could lead to that. In fact, that has historically been the trouble with getting any form of PR adopted in the UK--both the Conservatives and Labour, in case of a hung Parliament, would rather risk losing a new election than to foreclose the chance of their ever forming a majority Government again.
 
They were disastrous in that they were a costly drain on the national budget. The coal industry nationalization in particular was pretty bad. And there just is no way to make it work. Businesses operate most efficiently when they are punished for their failures and rewarded for their successes.
I don't necessarily disagree with that theory. However, due to the post war British consensus I doubt that having the Liberal Party permanently in coalition with the Conservative Party or the Labour Party between 1945 and 1979 will prevent any of the nationalisations of the period. If anything there could have been more because the British Liberal Party is left of centre rather than right of centre.

Also I heard a story that Sir Monty Finniston who was chairman of the British Steel Corporation (BSC) from 1973 to 1976 wanted to reduce the number of employees to increase productivity. The Government told him he couldn't. It was probably Harold Wilson (Labour PM 1964-70 and 1974-76), but could just as easily have been Edward Heath (Conservative PM 1970-74). The steel works were in areas of high unemployment and most of the redundant workers would not be able to find alternative employment. Therefore the increased profits of BSC (and it made a profit in 1973) would have been offset by the increase in Unemployment Benefit payments. If either of those parties had been in coalition with Jeremy Thorpe's Liberal Party I suspect that the Government's reply to Sir Monty's request would have been exactly the same.

However, by the time of the 1980 steel strike BSC had become so unprofitable that it lost less money while its workers were on strike than when they were working. But the argument that it would cost HM Treasury just as much to prop up unprofitable industries as it would to pay people to be unemployed in places like Consett was even stronger.
 

kernals12

Banned
I have tried to find a plausible scenario for getting PR adopted in the UK, and have never succeeded.

For example, the Conservatives could agree in 2010 to an AV referendum because, first, they knew it was unlikely to prevail (both the FPTP defenders and "PR or nothing!" types would oppose it) and second, even if it did, it would not kill their chances of getting a majority Government--indeed, according to some sources, the Conservatives would have gotten a bigger majority in 2015 with AV. https://web.archive.org/web/20170309100055/https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/system-crisis

But STV or any other form of PR would virtually kill the Conservatives' (or Labour's) chances of forming a majority Government in the future; hardly ever has a party received a majority of the total popular vote in modern times. They would rather have risked a second election in 2010 than agree to a referendum on PR that could lead to that. In fact, that has historically been the trouble with getting any form of PR adopted in the UK--both the Conservatives and Labour, in case of a hung Parliament, would rather risk losing a new election than to foreclose the chance of their ever forming a majority Government again.
But it would reduce their losses in elections where either comes out second. A good time for the implementation of PR would be the 1950s when the liberals were at their nadir and Britain was basically a two-party state.
 
I have tried to find a plausible scenario for getting PR adopted in the UK, and have never succeeded.

For example, the Conservatives could agree in 2010 to an AV referendum because, first, they knew it was unlikely to prevail (both the FPTP defenders and "PR or nothing!" types would oppose it) and second, even if it did, it would not kill their chances of getting a majority Government--indeed, according to some sources, the Conservatives would have gotten a bigger majority in 2015 with AV. https://web.archive.org/web/20170309100055/https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/system-crisis

But STV or any other form of PR would virtually kill the Conservatives' (or Labour's) chances of forming a majority Government in the future; hardly ever has a party received a majority of the total popular vote in modern times. They would rather have risked a second election in 2010 than agree to a referendum on PR that could lead to that. In fact, that has historically been the trouble with getting any form of PR adopted in the UK--both the Conservatives and Labour, in case of a hung Parliament, would rather risk losing a new election than to foreclose the chance of their ever forming a majority Government again.
I think the solution to these issues is to have changes take place at a time where the Labour-Conservative duopoly isn't as strong. STV was considered at a Speakers Conference in 1918, but was ultimately rejected. That seems one of the most likely points where Britain could have achieved PR.

Alternatively, you could have a third party make a big leap forward to lead a government and implement PR as part of its programme. The best shot at that is having the Alliance win in the early 1980s, either as part of a majority (unlikely) or in a coalition with whichever one of the two old parties, who would now have a vested interest in PR to prevent them collapsing at the next election.

Its possible to get it done within the current party system as well, but you need to find a way to get around the problem that Clegg encountered in 2011, which led to the issue becoming a chance for the electorate to vent at a third party that is propping up the government.

I think that a Labour or a Tory PM with a favourable view of PR (Blair, Hurd, and Alan Johnson all come time to mind) could give it away in the right circumstances as part of a coalition deal. In that situation, where the Prime Minister is leading the Yes campaign, rather than a discredited junior coalition partner, victory is achievable, provided the government is popular enough.
 
I think that a Labour or a Tory PM with a favourable view of PR (Blair, Hurd, and Alan Johnson all come time to mind) could give it away in the right circumstances as part of a coalition deal. In that situation, where the Prime Minister is leading the Yes campaign, rather than a discredited junior coalition partner, victory is achievable, provided the government is popular enough.

Was Blair ever really sympathetic to PR? He expressed a very skeptical view of it in a 1987 New Statesman article. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f7yY-0--dsEsv-M3cMrHFEv_92TkHYXEJ9VDFPfmNhw/edit

***
"New Statesman 4 September 1987


"Tony Blair


"Electoral reform ain’t the answer


"UNTIL NOW, support for proportional representation was confined to the Liberal/SDP Alliance and to lone voices in the two main parties. But this year no fewer than 15 resolutions for the Labour Party’s annual conference favour proportional representation (PR) or some sort of electoral reform.

"It is argued that Labour has now lost three elections in a row, its support is irretrievably stuck at 30 per cent, give or take a few points, and that the only route back is to combine our vote with the other “anti-Thatcher” votes -- either through a pact with the Liberals (or whatever political Pushme-Pullyou results from the merger talks), or through PR.

"In other words, Labour’s new enthusiasts for PR put their case not primarily on grounds of constitutional principle, but as a strategy for power. The implications of their case are fundamental: that Labour cannot ever again win a majority of seats in parliament; and that what cannot be achieved through the front door of majority government can be bundled in by the back door of coalitions and electoral pacts.

"This view rests on dangerous delusions. It is obvious that we cannot confuse an “anti-Thatcher” majority with a “pro-Labour” one. What is less obvious, though as the Alliance unravels it becomes more so, is the inadequacy of the very notion of an “anti-Thatcher” majority. There are Alliance voters, probably even a majority, whose predominant characteristic is dislike of the Tories. But at present, there is a substantial minority of Alliance voters who are equally anti-Labour, as the Greenwich by-election showed. So, under PR, there is no guarantee that the 1987 election would have produced a Labour-led coalition. It was this fallacy of the cohesive “anti-Thatcher” majority that lay at the root of Tactical Voting 87’s difficulties in the general election.

"The real question for the Labour Party is why it is not achieving sufficient electoral support. It must face this question irrespective of whether we retain the present electoral system or change it, whether we stand for election alone or in a pact. The campaign for PR is just the latest excuse for avoiding decisive choices about the party’s future.

"A coalition still has to decide its economic policy, its industrial policy, what it intends to do about defence or foreign affairs or trade union law. An electoral pact must decide these things before it has even the prospect of power. Yet these are all the very decisions that Labour faces now. It can’t escape them by electoral reform or a pact, it can only postpone them. The reasons why people didn’t vote Labour at the last three elections won’t disappear through some mystical process of coalition.

"There is no decision that would be justifiable for Labour to make in order to win power in a coalition that it should not be making anyway for itself. Conversely, there is no decision that is unjustifiable for Labour to make alone that becomes justifiable by virtue of coalition. If a set of policies form an acceptable basis for coalition, they should be an acceptable basis for majority government..."

***

True, New Labour in 1997 was theoretically committed to electoral reform--which did not necessarily mean true PR but could for example mean alternative vote ("instant runoff"). Yet Blair himself seems to have retained and indeed increased his earlier skepticism:

"Yet beyond this formal commitment to a referendum on electoral reform for Westminster elections, Blair's leadership, both in Opposition and subsequently in Office, was characterized by constant equivocation, with Blair himself simultaneously acknowledging the unfairness of aspects of the first-past-the-post system whilst remaining 'unpersuaded' of the case for a (more) proportional electoral system, not least because of the likelihood that 'small parties' would 'end up wielding disproportionate power' (Blair, 1996: 319-20).

"Indeed, in the wake of the 1987 election defeat, Blair had appeared even more dismissive of electoral reform, observing that 'Labour's new enthusiasts for PR put their case for not primarily on grounds of constitutional principle, but as a strategy for power', whereupon 'what cannot be achieved through the front door of majority government can be bundled in by the back door of coalitions and electoral impacts'. Yet this approach reflected 'dangerous delusions', according to Blair, for it sought to avoid the 'real question' as to 'why it [the Labour Party) is not achieving sufficient electoral support' (emphasis in original). As such, he alleged that 'The campaign for PR is just the latest excuse for avoiding decisive choices about the Party's future' (New Statesman, 4 September 1987). Certainly, Blair was concerned that some of his Labour colleagues were beginning to 'see PR as a panacea for their problems' (Sopel, 1995: 132).

"Reform of Britain's electoral system was, therefore, always likely to constitute one of the most equivocal parts of New Labour's professed commitment to constitutional reform, and so it proved. Tony Blair's equivocation enabled both proponents and opponents in the Labour Party to claim that he shared their view on the issue. Certainly, the scale of New Labour's election victories in 1997 and 2001 seemed to reinforce Tony Blair's reluctance to commit himself one may or another, although he certainly seemed to have become more sceptical about electoral reform during the course of his premiership..".

https://books.google.com/books?id=JsaHDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA34
 
Was Blair ever really sympathetic to PR? He expressed a very skeptical view of it in a 1987 New Statesman article.
I am fairly sure Blair did support PR- which is probably part of the reason why PR was brought in for Devolved legislatures and the European Elections under New Labour- but I believe Ashdown won him over during the nineties, after this article was published. Like most politicians from the main two parties, I don't think he'd die in a ditch for it (which is why we never got it for Westminster elections) but there is at least a decent chance he would come out in favour if there were a referendum.
 
Short of replicating New Zealand's 1975-1993 experience*, I think the best window for proportional representation in the UK is 1923 or so. Have the Liberals in power, but make them realise that their long-term survival hinges on switching the voting system while they still have the opportunity to do so.

*Consisting of wholesale abuse of the Elective Dictatorship model, a succession of genuinely broken election results, and a public desire to punish the entire Political Class by putting it on a very tight leash. Oh, and the minor parties that would benefit wouldn't be a pre-existing party like the Liberals, but protest breakaways from the Big Two. So it's less pro-Liberal, and more anti-Duopoly**.

**Though another thing to note about our experience with proportional representation: it has the paradoxical effect of hurting minor parties, because voters have to take them seriously. FPP creates the luxury of a safe, protest vote that doesn't exist when every vote matters.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
hough another thing to note about our experience with proportional representation: it has the paradoxical effect of hurting minor parties, because voters have to take them seriously. FPP creates the luxury of a safe, protest vote that doesn't exist when every vote matters.
If the voters actually analyze each party's policies and vote based on their merits under PR, then the Liberals would bag the 1929 election with their superior manifesto (especially compared to the Tories' do-nothing manifestos) instead of winning just fifty-something seats under FPTP.
 
Getting the 1919 Speakers Conference on Devolution to reach agreement on devolved legislatures including some form of proportional representation was probably the best chance. I think PR was introduced in the Scottish Parliament largely as a way to stop the SNP ever winning - didn't work obviously...
 
Top