alternatehistory.com

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?)
Top