What if the UK elections used STV from 1979 onwards?

POD: As part of the Lib-Lab pact, in 1977, the Labour party had to introduce the single transferable voting system, and lets assume it gets through parliament one way or another. So how would this affect all elections afterwards? I image a lot. As STV voting has no spoiler effect let's try, as well, to make parties more likely to split apart as the new system is a lot fairer to new parties, making them able to survive.
 
Depends how it's introduced. If it has a threshold to prevent fringe parties getting in to Parliament, then it will possibly stop parties like the BNP, National Front and TUSC into Parliament. I expect Labour would split as in OTL, the SDP wouldn't need the Liberals and might possibly overtake Labour, the Tories would end up splitting over Europe in the 90s. We'd definitely see an SDP or Liberal government I think, either in the late 80s or the 90s. In the 2010s, the Greens gain a sizeable parliamentary presence, as do UKIP.
 
I agree on that there would be an SDP/Liberal government somewhere down the line, but at first I think Thatcher would form a minority conservative government and things are pretty similar in the first election, differences would be that there is an increase in SNP and NF voters and MPS. 1983 would be where things got interesting. I forgot to mention that with STV you can have multiple MPs in one constituency, so you still need 318/635 MPs for a majority in 1979.
 
Labour would be highly unlikely to allow STV past, but if we are just handwaving that, the most likely outcome of 1979 is a Thatcher minority, supported by the Liberals, or perhaps the UUP, if the Tories do particularly well. That would probably collapse within a few years due to by elections and defections to the SDP, which might have been more common from both Labour and the Conservative MPs had they felt they could hold their seats. The SDP (probably without a formal alliance with the Liberals) would be the most likely winners of new elections, and take power with the support of the Tories. They would stand a pretty good chance of staying in power for the rest of the 1980s. After that, maybe a Kinnockite Labour get in, or the Tories make a comeback. It's really up in the air. Of course, you'd probably see the Greens do better in this situation, and probably some form of left wing and right wing populist parties would emerge at some point as well, but it's difficult to predict much beyond that without thinking in a lot more detail about specific events.
Depends how it's introduced. If it has a threshold to prevent fringe parties getting in to Parliament, then it will possibly stop parties like the BNP, National Front and TUSC into Parliament. I expect Labour would split as in OTL, the SDP wouldn't need the Liberals and might possibly overtake Labour, the Tories would end up splitting over Europe in the 90s. We'd definitely see an SDP or Liberal government I think, either in the late 80s or the 90s. In the 2010s, the Greens gain a sizeable parliamentary presence, as do UKIP.
This is STV, so their most likely wouldn't be thresholds. The system does constrain extreme parties with small amounts of support, both by having smaller multi member constituencies, and by requiring second preferences from supporters of other parties to get elected. Maybe you would see a handful of BNP MPs elected, but I doubt they would be a significant presence.

Another thing to consider is butterflies. If we get STV in the 1970s, UKIP and TUSC might never have existed. Maybe we would see something groups like the Referendum Party gaining a foothold instead.
 
I agree with the conservative minority government in 1979 with Liberal or UUP support, however
The SDP (probably without a formal alliance with the Liberals) would be the most likely winners of new elections, and take power with the support of the Tories.
I do not see a tory backed SDP, due to main figures like Roy Jenkins' support for the EU and David Owen IOTL had an uneasy relationship with the liberals, as the SDP was meant to be the alternative left-wing party as he thought the liberals did not stand for anything and he refused to join the Lib Dems forming his own fringe party, so it is unlikely he would have a great relationship with an even further right wing party.
 
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I think it would help Enoch Powell more than anyone else. The majority of people in the UK agreed with the rivers of blood speech and he was popular enough to swing the 74 election to Labour, so I think he could make a decently large party.
 
At this point Enoch Powell was part of the UUP, and close to retirement I don't think he would form a new party and just stay with the UUP. However I do not deny he could influence politics from his seat in parliament.
 
I agree with the conservative minority government in 1979 with Liberal or UUP support, however I do not see a tory backed SDP, due to main figures like Roy Jenkins' support for the EU and David Owen IOTL had an uneasy relationship with the liberals, as the SDP was meant to be the alternative left-wing party as he thought the liberals did not stand for anything and he refused to join the Lib Dems forming his own fringe party, so it is unlikely he would have a great relationship with an even further right wing party.
Europe was nothing like the issue among Conservatives back then as it was today. Only the Powellite fringe were really eurosceptics. Labour, on the other hand, had adopted withdrawal from the EEC as part of their platform at this time, so they are scarcely a viable alternative partner for the SDP, and that is before you consider the acrimony over the split, which continued to exist for some time.

I think you have misunderstood Owen's attitudes toward the Liberals. He didn't get on with them, not because they were too right wing, but often because they weren't right wing enough. His ideology was pretty much a softer form of Thatcherism by the time he became SDP leader. In fact, Steel preferred to do a deal with Labour in a hung parliament, whilst Owen wanted to work with the Tories. So if anything, he would be more likely to back a deal with the Conservatives than the other members of the Gang of Four.
 
I think you have misunderstood Owen's attitudes toward the Liberals. He didn't get on with them, not because they were too right wing, but often because they weren't right wing enough. His ideology was pretty much a softer form of Thatcherism by the time he became SDP leader. In fact, Steel preferred to do a deal with Labour in a hung parliament, whilst Owen wanted to work with the Tories. So if anything, he would be more likely to back a deal with the Conservatives than the other members of the Gang of Four.
The source of my information is the series of BBC parliament documentaries turning points, hosted by Steve Richards. He stated that, he could be wrong, David Owen did not like the Liberal Party, for example Richards recounts
During the 2017 election campaign […], he said to me, and I was surprised by this as you can imagine, that he given a quite significant donation to Corbyn's Labour party, he said he liked the Labour manifesto, he thought it was pretty close to some of the Social Democrat manifestoes in the 1980s, and more recently David Owen gave an interview to the BBC where he said "it is quite possible Jeremy Corbyn could be Prime Minister", he didn't seem all deterred by that. So it is a reminder that the SDP from the beginning was Social Democratic and Left of Centre.
From this information I gathered that David Owen was still a left wing figure, even though I still agree the SDP would not form a coalition or minority government with the Labour Party.
 
The source of my information is the series of BBC parliament documentaries turning points, hosted by Steve Richards. He stated that, he could be wrong, David Owen did not like the Liberal Party, for example Richards recounts From this information I gathered that David Owen was still a left wing figure, even though I still agree the SDP would not form a coalition or minority government with the Labour Party.
Welcome to the confusing world of David Owen's political views.You are correct that he has basically gone back to the left now, but his views have shifted quite a lot over the years. There were several Spitting Image sketches devoted to this very topic, so it was a running joke, even in the 1980s.

He started as probably the most left wing of the Gang of Four, who essentially wanted the SDP to replace Labour as the main social democratic party, then at some point after the Limehouse declaration, he began shifting to the right, and basically started arguing for a more compassionate version of Thatcherism.

He became more and more eurosceptic in the following decades, but he also began drifting back to the left after the financial crisis, and that is essentially where he is right now.
 
Here are the results,
Con, 285
Lab, 231
Lib, 89
SNP, 13

NF, 7
UUP, 5
Plaid, 2
SDLP, Alliance, DUP, 1

A minority government is set up by the Conservatives with a Confidence and Supply agreement with the liberals.
 
Here are the results,
Con, 285
Lab, 231
Lib, 89
SNP, 13

NF, 7
UUP, 5
Plaid, 2
SDLP, Alliance, DUP, 1

A minority government is set up by the Conservatives with a Confidence and Supply agreement with the liberals.
Are those the purely proportional results from OTL? Because butterflies and voters not being as inhibited by the 'wasted vote argument would probably mean things go a little differently in this situation. Plus, the system being used is STV, which tends to overepresent larger parties slightly, and also gives a bonus to middle of the road, non offensive smaller parties. So I'd expect both the Tories and Labour to do slightly better, and the NF not to win any seats at all. They didn't do very well in most constituencies IOTL, and second preferences would kill them under STV.
 
To answer you question, no they are not just the proportional vote. The proportional vote is similar to these results. Personally I believe that this election would not change much popular vote wise, because I believe that the liberals would not gain any massive increase only until Michael foot becomes Labour leader, labour's soft left vote would go to the SDP and Liberal Parties, and after the economic turmoil of thatcher's first term many left leaning conservatives would vote liberal and in 1983 there campaign will be a lot like Jeremy Thorpe's one of being something different. I think that the 1983 election is where things will get more interesting. I believe the NF would get MPs in Parliament as more people in working class areas would vote for them as there first preference.
 

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I don't see how NF manages to pick up seats.

They would have to finish in the top two (possibly top three) to have a shot. Once that hurdle is achieved they would have to gain more preferences than the established parties.

As someone who has extensive experience with STV (i.e. I have work in politics in Australia for the last 15 years), I don't see it as probably.

One seat would be a fluke.
 
From my knowledge I just assumed that NF would gain a few seats due to them having quite a large following and I thought people would embrace it more due to the introduction of stv
 
Unless one or more of the mainland parties use the advent of STV to try their hand in Ulster and succeed in winning seats, there are going to be 12 rather than 8 representatives of Irish parties.
 
I actually think that 1979 would still result in a Conservative majority - remember that majority governments aren't uncommon under STV (just look at Fianna Fail's record) and that, pre-Alliance, Liberal voters were often either centre-right (most Liberal seats were in rural, typically conservative, areas) or protest voters. So I'd wager that, in this alternate 1979, most Liberal transfers would head the Conservatives' way and provide Mrs. Thatcher with a majority of about a dozen seats or so.
 
I like your theory, and on reflection I believe I gave the conservatives a lot less seats than they should, I just do not see them getting a majority. The conservatives probably will get 290-310 seats.
 
I actually think that 1979 would still result in a Conservative majority - remember that majority governments aren't uncommon under STV (just look at Fianna Fail's record) and that, pre-Alliance, Liberal voters were often either centre-right (most Liberal seats were in rural, typically conservative, areas) or protest voters. So I'd wager that, in this alternate 1979, most Liberal transfers would head the Conservatives' way and provide Mrs. Thatcher with a majority of about a dozen seats or so.
The Tories won slightly under 44% of the vote in 1979. Looking at FF's historical performances, they have generally fallen just short of a majority when winning around those levels of support. And that's before we take into account the possibility that more voters could opt for the Liberals or the NF in this scenario, leaving them with even lower support than IOTL. I am uncertain that the Liberals generally took more from the Conservatives than Labour pre-Thatcher. After all, the Alliance, and then the Lib Dems, also did better in Tory seats today, because although they take more votes from Labour, these are generally from middle class southerners, who are generally spread across seats which Labour don't win for the most part. It seems entirely possible that the same was true back in the 1970s, even if the Liberals were ideologically closer to the Tories at that point. Also, despite the Winter of Discontent, Callaghan was generally more popular than Thatcher, and his party's programme was less radical to boot, so it could be that Labour do better off of second preferences than the Tories do.

So the likelihood is that the Conservatives would just fall short. But that is just presuming that the way STV is implemented is similar to what we have seen in RoI. If Labour has allowed it to be past in the first place, then it's entirely possible that they would insist of smaller member constituencies with generally 3-4 seats each, which would of course mean that the larger parties outperform their % of first preferences by a larger margin, and maybe that would be enough to take Thatcher over the line.
 
I would imagine labour would prefer smaller constituencies, so they would benefit the most out of it, but at the time did the liberals have a preference between smaller or larger constituencies?
 
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