Our Candidate in Weston-super-Mare got this letter published in his local paper. Well done Clive!
SMALLER PARTIES GET A BIGGER SAY IN POLL
UKIP and the Green Party polled five million votes between them and each party ended up with one seat.
The SNP polled fewer than one-and-a-half million votes and won 56 seats. That’s over 90 times more seats per vote. Do we need any more proof that “first-past-the-post” has to go? This system of voting does two things. It skews the result of an election by giving the largest parties a disproportionate number of seats for the votes they got.
More insidiously, it alters the way many people vote. If the candidate who represents their views has little chance of winning, many people instead vote for the candidate who is most likely to defeat the one they do not want to win.
In other words, instead of voting for the candidate they want, they vote against the one they don’t.
If every vote is to count, we need proportional representation. In a multi-party democracy, first past the post is anti-democratic and must be replaced.
5% of the national vote = 56 seats. Clearly FPTP isn't democratic, it's a farce. However, don't worry because the Labour and the Conservative parties, along with their MSM lackeys, told us it provides 'strong' government. Well, they would wouldn't they.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the Labour Party and the Conservative Party benefit from FPTP you won't get PR.
DeleteBe careful what you wish for. The object of proportional representation is to keep new parties from replacing old parties. Under PR, the Lib Dems would not now be on the way out. In our system, we vote for an MP to represent our constituencies in the UK parliament. Those constituencies have to be won council by council, constituency by constituency. It's hard, but you cannot avoid doing that work. There are no short-cuts.
ReplyDelete