After Labour won the 1997 general election, the Blair government established a commission, headed by Roy Jenkins, to investigate whether Britain's electoral system should be changed. The final report of the Jenkins Commission, issued in September 1998, recommended that the voting system ought to be changed to the Alternative Vote Plus - essentially a modified form of MMP whereby constituency MPs are elected via AV.

Blair himself was somewhat supportive of the report's findings, yet many cabinet ministers were not and so the government never implemented its recommendations.

But what if Blair did go ahead with the report and Britain's electoral system was changed to AV+ in 1999?

(This BBC graphic from the time suggests that if AV+ had been used for 1997 then Labour would still have held a majority, albeit a dramatically reduced one. So is a Hung Parliament in 2001 on the cards ITTL?)
 
The results very much depend on the number of top-up seats vs. the number of constituency seats.

The Lib Dems are helped quite a bit here, as, possibly, are the Greens.
 
It could quite possibly mean that this odious cunt and his gang of utter cunts might actually get a seat or two:

MJGHLK22J5BSZE4RQ2GCYAY5U4


They nearly did under first past the post.
 

Zen9

Banned
I think some overplay the risks of extremist parties gaining seats, and ignore the cathartic effect of having such extemist exposed to media scrutiny.
Other countries have voting systems that let the extemist vote get representation and the sky does not fall down because such extremist voters are a tiny minority.

Anyway AV+, I'll have to reread about. But anything more representative of the populationsouthern votes runs immense risk to Labour and Conservative in fracturing their internal coalitions.
 
I think you under-estimate the BNP, because I've seen otherwise educated, intelligent people fall for their racist shite to the point of being about to vote for them.

Quite a few polls suggested, alarmingly, that the BNP might have taken at least one, possibly two seats in the 2010 elections under FFTP. Had Blair implemented his policies, Nick Griffin could well have been in the House of Commons. To be fair, there's some even more odious cunts in there than him (at least one war criminal who's now a peace envoy to that region!) and it would have been... interesting had he indeed gained a seat.
 
Quite a few polls suggested, alarmingly, that the BNP might have taken at least one, possibly two seats in the 2010 elections under FFTP. Had Blair implemented his policies, Nick Griffin could well have been in the House of Commons. To be fair, there's some even more odious cunts in there than him (at least one war criminal who's now a peace envoy to that region!) and it would have been... interesting had he indeed gained a seat.
Griffin lost Barking by 18,000 votes in 2010. The BNP didn't come anywhere near winning a seat in a FPTP Election. It's quite possible they could do so under AV+, though they may not if there is a threshold needed for winning top up seats.
 
Maybe Blair would win another majority in 2001 if everyone had voted the same way as they had IOTL, but it needs to be remembered that PR would most likely change voting behaviour as well. Quite a few Labour voters might go for the Lib Dems, the Greens, or, in certain places, the BNP, if they are confident that it will no longer be a wasted vote. As I've said above, there might be a threshold of 3-5% imposed on the lists when they realise that there is a decent chance that the BNP might get in some of the larger regions. If they do that, then it's possible that no other party would get into parliament that didn't IOTL. If not, then you'll probably have Greens, and maybe UKIP and the BNP too; but not in significant enough numbers to make a huge difference.

Blair would be reduced to a minority; a coalition with the Lib Dems (who would obviously have far more MPs) would be the most likely option-which would clearly put a spanner in the works when it comes to Iraq. If Blair remains staunchly behind the invasion, and Kennedy is still opposed, then the government might collapse over it. Honestly, anything can happen from there. It actually sounds like a relatively plausible PoD for a Lib Dem government-with PR, a distrusted PM, and an unpopular opposition leader in IDS, Kennedy could well harness Lib Dem opposition to the war to become the largest party in a hung parliament.
 
Which would be catastrophic because? They will still be without power.

Because the BNP winning a seat in parliament means that a sizable minority of the voting public are siding with the type of bastard who think going 'paki bashing' is a legitimate form of entertainment, or that the Holocaust was a good idea and the Jews had it coming.

It also gives them a legitimate platform on which to spout their vile poison.

Well, I suppose even racist cunts are allowed democratic representation - even though their representatives believe nothing of the sort.
 
The worst thing is that Griffin was a better human being with marginally less-racist policies than his predecessor, John Tyndall, a man who need no introduction.
 
Top