The Snap Election Plan by Martin Bristow - HTML preview

43. Provided that the two big parties do not blunder, so that they do

not lose big levels of support in a non-marginal constituency (but

only those in which they were likely to win—the other votes are

wasted anyway), they only need to focus their efforts on those

constituencies that they are contesting. At the 2017 general election,

once those contested marginal constituencies (as defined by the

votes from the last general election) had been identified, latest

public opinion could be gauged from many sources to confirm

whether or not those constituencies were still contested. It would

also be necessary to check whether any non-marginal constituencies

had now become contested marginal constituencies.

Once the big two parties have identified contested marginal

constituencies, their next focus is on swing voters within those

constituencies. But not all swing voters count equally. Due to

FPTP’s winner-takes-all approach, support that can be won over

from the contesting candidate count as double. This is because, if

one is currently in second place, one of these votes not only takes

oneself one step closer to the post (to use the FPTP metaphor), but it

brings the post one step closer to oneself by reducing the contesting

candidate’s vote share. When defending a winning position,

preventing a voter from defecting to this competitor also has a

double effect in that it prevents the post moving closer to the

contesting candidate at the same time as preventing that candidate

getting closer to the post.

Parties understandably seek power to effect change. For the big

two parties, how much their power changes is determined by a select

few constituencies and, within those, focus is placed on key swing

voters. So, even for the two big parties, there are incentives to

concentrate their efforts on a select portion of the electorate. Should

the UK use a voting system that incentivises this narrow approach?

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FPTP is slow and cumbersome

Following general elections under PR voting systems, it can often

take months for a government to form. It might seem like things are

slower, more hesitant, and less functional than under FPTP. But the

reality is the opposite: if no government can be formed, then that is a

stark warning that the country is not ready to make policy decisions

either. Conversely, following an election that uses a PR voting

system, when a government is formed, that government knows

where it stands, has confidence in its mandate, and is able to act

decisively and responsibly. Although FPTP might seem like it is

faster, the poor decisions made mean that, in the long run, FPTP is

slow and cumbersome.

Under PR voting systems, politicians and prospective

politicians have much more room to manoeuvre than they do under

FPTP. Take France as an example. In April 2016, Macron launched

the En Marche party. Just over one year later, he was the president

of France. He was able to do this, not by working his way up an

established order, but by founding his own political party. He gave

the electorate of France an option that they would otherwise not

have had.

FPTP empowers the press

Olivia is Noah’s boss. Olivia tells Noah that, no-matter what he

thinks about how best to do his job, he will always have to do it the

same way. Would this give Noah an incentive to think for himself, or

might he be more inclined to agree with Olivia’s chosen method for

the job? Olivia then has a change of approach. She now tells Noah

that how he does his job is largely up to him, as long as the outcome

is the same. The first approach discourages original, creative, and

critical thinking, whereas the second approach does the opposite.

The same principle applies to the press. If one knows that one is

not empowered to shape one’s own country, one is more susceptible

to just accept what one is told, i.e. to believe what the press

produces. On the other hand, if one knows that, collectively with

other citizens, one’s future is determined by one’s own views, then

one cares much more about what those views are. One starts to care

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more about thinking things through oneself, with a critical and

balanced approach, because now it matters.

Free press plays an essential role in a democracy. The fact that

the press is able to write what it wants (within reason) is a strength

of the UK’s democracy, not a weakness. The fact that the electorate

is offered a wide range of sources of information is also a strength.

The fact that the electorate has the freedom to choose what it reads,

and how much weight to give each source of information, is also a

strength. Using a voting system that discourages original, creative,

and critical thinking is not a strength of the UK’s democracy.

FPTP stifles competition

When one does not like a private service, one can vote with one's

feet and take one's business elsewhere. This freedom of choice

generates competition, which is central to capitalism. And capitalism

has been the driving force behind many of the world’s discoveries

and inventions, improving health care, food production, education,

communication, transportation etc. Capitalism rewards creativity,

innovation, boldness, and progression. For this reason, it is

understandable why people have chosen to enact and enforce laws to

safeguard fair competition between entities in the business

marketplace. FPTP, through its winner-takes-all approach, does not

encourage competition: it stifles it.

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Change starts at the top, but the top is

controlled by wealth

I suspect that there are Britons up and down the country who go to

work every day thinking this: I want to work hard and I want to pay

taxes, but why should I have no meaningful say in the regulatory

framework in which I work? If I’m lucky enough to live in a

marginal constituency, I might be able to choose between two

(rarely three) parties, but that’s not real choice. I can see obvious

improvements that can be made with the funding, laws, and

regulations that determine how the industry in which I work

functions, but my vote is meaningless.

To make matters worse, the UK’s tax laws are heavily

influenced, not by the will of the people, but by the UK’s wealthy

individuals and corporations. These laws, in turn, help them become

wealthier, having yet more influence at the top.

In the public sector, bosses do the best with the framework in

which they work. Their bosses do likewise. At the top is

government, but, at present, government is not controlled by the

people but by wealthy corporations, powerful lobby groups, trade

unions and wealthy individuals. FPTP ensures that the real power

lies in the hands of those who fund the government and opposition.

The plan in this book aims to redress this imbalance, to put control

back into the hands of the masses.

Conclusion

I would like to write that FPTP has served the UK well, and that it is

the right time to move on. In reality, though, I would look back on

FPTP as 130+ years of missed opportunity.

From the perspective of democracy, FPTP’s only strength is its

ease of processing. Going against it are unfairness, inequality,

intolerance, wastefulness, division, and suppression. But if the

arguments against FPTP are so strong, why has it lasted this long?

And why does the voting system persist in so many countries across

the world? The next chapter discusses this conundrum.


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The First-Past-the-Post

Conundrum

Lead-in

In the last chapter, I argued why FPTP should be replaced with a

different voting system for UK general elections. The arguments that

I made against FPTP are strong but, in my view, justified. But if

FPTP really is as unfit for purpose as I have argued, why has it

lasted this long in the UK? The UK is not alone in this conundrum; a

further 59 of the world’s 167 democracies use FPTP, including two

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

countries. In this chapter I discuss why FPTP is difficult to displace,

what efforts have been made across the world to do so, and what has

worked.

When FPTP begins

To understand where FPTP gets its resoluteness and stubbornness,

we need to understand the forces that are at work within a FPTP

environment. I will call on another thought experiment to explain

this, and it looks at what would happen if a PR voting system were

replaced by FPTP for a country’s general elections.

Let’s imagine that a country uses a PR voting system for its

general elections and has six political parties (from left to right,

politically): one far-left-wing party, one left-wing party, one centre-

left wing party, one centre-right wing party, one right-wing party,

and one far-right-wing party. Now let’s suppose that the nationwide

support shares (by votes) for the parties are 5:15:30:30:15:5

respectively. Let’s also suppose that this support is distributed

roughly evenly across the country. Now the electorate chooses to

replace the PR voting system with FPTP.

FPTP’s winner-takes-all dynamic comes immediately into

effect. From the self-interest perspective of a party, a party has much

to gain by being a clear front-runner in any one constituency,

because it would eliminate all competition. Since the support for the

various parties is spread roughly evenly across the country, there

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would be much to be gained by either a new party being founded

that became a clear front-runner, or two or more parties merging to

achieve the same effect. Since the nation’s views are already

represented by the six parties, any other party would not get

anything like enough support to be a clear front-runner. So that

leaves the incentive of mergers.

Parties would naturally merge with those that are closest to

them in their ideologies. So, the far-left-wing party would not merge

with the far-right-wing party. Even if they just agreed to disagree,

the new bigger party would struggle to convince voters to vote for

them. What about the far-left-wing party merging with the left-wing

party? They might be close enough in their views, but the combined

support share would only be 20 %, putting it nowhere close to being

a clear front-runner. The same principles would apply to those

parties on the right. The natural mergers, therefore, would either be

the left-wing party with the centre-left wing party, or the equivalent

on the right. The first two parties to merge in this way would have a

vote share of 45 % compared to the next-best party on 30 %. This

would make the resulting party a clear front-runner (15 percentage

points and 50 % ahead of the next-best party), giving it a huge

advantage over the rest of the field. Its support share would be 45 %

but its seat share could end up being 100 % (with no opposition at

all in the House of Commons). Let’s say that a merger takes place

between the left-wing party and the centre-left wing party, and that

the resulting party calls itself the Lefties. The support shares are

now 5:45:30:15:5.

Being fully aware of its unfair dominance, and of the risk of

being challenged, might the Lefties try to consolidate their position

further by merging with another party? Unlike monopolies in an

unregulated business world, the Lefties can’t see themselves doing

this. They are already having to contend with managing the internal

party dynamics of two opposing sets of beliefs, and they really

couldn’t see themselves functioning as a party if they merged with

another party. So, they rule out another merger.

The winner-takes-all dynamic continues with the remaining

parties. This is because the remaining parties, despite having a 55 %

support share between them, would win few seats, if any. There is a

strong incentive for each smaller party to merge with at least one

other party, to try to become competitive again. Not only that, but

there would be the added bonus that, once there are two parties that

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are clear of the rest of the pack, tactical voting works in favour of

those two bigger parties.

Let’s take the reasons why the Lefties decided not to try to

merge again, and generalise by stating that a party does not merge

with a party that is more than one step away from it on the

simplified left-right political spectrum that we’re using. That leaves

two possible remaining mergers: the centre-right wing party with the

right-wing party; and the right-wing party with the far-right-wing

party. The latter merger would achieve nothing useful, as the

resulting party would only have a 20 % support share. That leaves

the former merger, and let’s call the resulting party the Righties.

There are now only four parties, and their support-share

proportions are 5:45:45:5. Henceforth, despite the Lefties and

Righties having internal party conflicts, they would have much to

lose by reversing the steps that the dynamics of FPTP encouraged

them to take. That is, they would each have much to lose by splitting

into two separate parties. This setup, of having two big parties and

the rest as smaller parties, represents a stable FPTP environment.

The smaller parties can improve their chances by concentrating their

efforts geographically, but they will always struggle to gain any

significant seat share. Their best chance would be to wait until there

is a hung parliament, then hope to be a kingmaker.

FPTP was adopted in the UK in 1884 with the passing of the

Third Reform Act 1884. At that point, there were two dominant

parties (Conservative and Liberal), and it was considered a privilege

to be given a choice of these two. FPTP was therefore in this stable

state from the outset, and people were generally content with it.

We’ve seen why FPTP evolves to a two-party political

environment, but what stops the electorate reverting back to a PR

voting system? The answer is that FPTP entrenches itself by means

of a virtuous cycle (from the perspective of FPTP itself and those

who support it) or a vicious cycle (from the perspective of anyone

who wants change). Since latest UK polls suggest that the majority

of the UK want a different voting system, I shall use the latter term.

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The vicious FPTP cycle

FPTP makes it difficult to elect those who would do away with it.

The UK version of this vicious cycle goes like this:

1. At a UK general election, the FPTP’s winner-takes-all approach

benefits the two dominant parties: Conservative and Labour. This

ensures that they are either in government or in official opposition.

2. Legislation is driven by these two parties, one more so than the

other, depending on which is in government and which is in

opposition.

3. Large corporations, wealthy individuals, and trade unions, know

this. They support one of these two parties financially to help them

achieve power, so that the country’s legislation is shaped in their

favour. This naturally involves putting significant pressure on the

party to keep FPTP.

4. To ensure that they remain competitive against the other party,

these two dominant parties depend on this funding.

5. The culture within the two dominant parties is therefore to

support keeping FPTP. In fact, ideally, the matter would not be

debated at all. Individuals within these two parties who are against

FPTP know that there is little to gain by speaking up about it, and

much to lose in terms of career setbacks.

6. Those who openly support FPTP, or at least choose not to speak

out about its inadequacies, are selected as constituency candidates,

progress further within each party, and fill higher roles. This

consolidates the FPTP culture.

7. At the next general election, the cycle repeats, thus reinforcing

itself.

Many believe that the driving force behind this vicious cycle is not

the funding of the two dominant parties, but instead their MPs.

Many believe that the majority of Conservative and Labour MPs,

when in private, support FPTP. But I don’t believe this. I believe that

the vast majority of Conservative and Labour MPs know, deep

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within them, the damage that FPTP is doing to the UK, and privately

wish it were gone. It might appear as if they are all in the game

together, but that’s only because they are making the most of a

system that they, individually, are powerless to change. I do believe

that, if the matter was taken out of their hands, and the system

changed to a fairer, more competitive, and more progressive one, the

majority of politicians from these two parties would be delighted.

After all, it is a passion to change things for the better that entices

would-be politicians into the profession, not a desire to alienate

themselves from the country that they claim to love.

Those who would not be delighted with a PR voting system

would be, of course, those companies, individuals, and trade unions

who have, for decades, enjoyed favourable legislation. But they too

would quickly adjust. And, in time, many of them would realise the

benefits that a PR voting system would bring to the UK, not just the

social side of it, but also the knock-on effect, in time, of consumer

confidence and general wellbeing within the nation.

Of course, the Conservative and Labour parties would no-

longer enjoy the dominance that they currently enjoy, and many

MPs would lose their roles. But for every Conservative and Labour

seat lost, it would be gained by another party. And many might be

better suited to another party anyway, e.g. UKIP for many

Conservative MPs, and a new left-wing party for many Labour MPs.

Any change of voting system would not decrease the number of

roles on offer. In fact, I believe that politics in general would

expand. The number of seats in the House of Commons would not

necessarily change, but, as more of the public became engaged in

politics, so would the demand increase for better representation. Not

only that, but all parties would gain from a system that gives them

power that they have fairly earned, and power that they are fully

expected to use by the electorate.

Now that we understand the dynamics that are at work in the

FPTP environment, we can start to look at how FPTP might be

unravelled. To that end, I will now look into the mechanics of how

FPTP might be replaced with another system.

Working backwards

I will now identify the key sequence of events that would bring

about reform of the House of Commons voting system, working

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back-to-front. If the electorate wanted to replace FPTP with a PR

voting system, the end goal would clearly be to pass the necessary

legislation. I will now discuss how an arbitrary piece of legislation is

enacted, by working backwards from this end goal.

11. To enact a piece of legislation, an Act of Parliament is needed.

10. An Act of Parliament is born when a bill is granted Royal

Assent.

9. A bill is granted Royal Assent when the monarch decides that a

bill should be granted Royal Assent.

8. Although the decision of the monarch to grant a bill Royal Assent

is, ultimately, down to the monarch, it is conventional that the

monarch should, when passed a bill, grant that bill Royal Assent.

7. A monarch receives a bill when the House of Lords passes one to

the monarch. In this case, the bill would have started in the House of

Commons. This order may be reversed, but the procedure is similar.

I will continue with the order House of Commons ! House of

Lords ! Monarch.

6. The House of Lords passes a bill to the monarch for one of three

reasons: (a) if it finds the House of Commons recommendations on

the bill acceptable; (b) if one year has passed since it received the

bill from the House of Commons; or (c) if the requirements of the

Salisbury Convention are met, in which case the bill is passed to the

monarch with only limited delay (more on this later).

5. I will start with 6 (a). For the House of Lords to find a House of

Commons bill acceptable, the bill must pass through the House of

Lords’s various stages of scrutiny and voting. The scrutinising and

voting is done by the members of the House of Lords, who are

known as lords (also known as peers). Henceforth, I will use the

term ‘peer’ instead of ‘lord’, as it seems to be the one that is more

common. When I use ‘peer’ in this book, it will be in this specific

sense, not the general one.

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4. Whether or not a bill passes through the House of Lords depends

on the political inclinations of the peers. This now needs further

explanation.

Unlike the House of Commons, the House of Lords does not have a

fixed number of members. There are currently (December 2017) 797

peers. This breaks down to: affiliated to a party (561 peers),

crossbencher (184), non-affiliated—i.e. previously affiliated (28),

and bishop (24). Unlike the House of Commons, members of the

House of Lords are entitled to retain their seats for life. When a peer

chooses to resign or retire (this was not even possible prior to 2014),

or if a peer dies, what happens next depends on how that peer is

classified. In addition to the above classifications, peers may be ‘life

peers’ (682) or ‘hereditary peers’ (91) (the remaining 24 are the

bishops). If a peer’s seat is vacated, and the peer was a hereditary

peer, the seat is immediately filled by election by either some, or all,

of the House of Lords peers, depending on the previous peer’s party

affiliations. If the previous peer was a bishop (24), the Church of

England appoints a peer to take his/her place. The seats of all other

peers, if they resign, retire, or have the misfortune of dying, are not

automatically filled. So, in theory, the House of Lords could have as

few as 115 peers (according to existing legislation) if all the life

peers’ seats were vacated. To recap, the only seats that must be

filled, if vacant, are those belonging to hereditary peers (91) and

bishops (24).

Are you still with me? If so, the question remains: how are the 682

life peers appointed? The answer requires anoth