Why proportional representation will be Labour’s only saviour

Everyone’s whispering about it: the Conservatives pulled a blinder offering the Lib Dems the referendum on changing the voting system at the beginning of the Coalition’s term. Doubtless if it had be run at the same time as the 2015 General Election, things may well have turned out very differently. As it was, Cameron et al made their ‘partner’ show their hand too early; the Lib Dems should have kept those cards closer to their chest in the hope of winning the larger pot in the end.

The new Labour leader  – when announced in September – has to announce support for a change to the voting system as soon as possible.  Labour must seize the perceived mantle on democracy and appeal to the broad (yes, majority!) of those who feel disenfranchised by the election result. Of course this would also be great news for those who support The Green Party, The Liberal Democrats and yes – gasp – UKIP; but sometimes one must embrace one’s enemy in order to vanquish them. Writing this week in the London Review of Books, the Hon. David Runciman –  Politics fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge – makes a strong case for coalition governments, proportionally elected. He writes: ‘Majority governments flatter to deceive. They are not more decisive. They are just more biddable.’ Yet even that aside, for Labour, there is an even bigger reason for bringing proportional representation (PR) back to the table: Scotland.

Labour is looking into the political abyss: unless Nicola Sturgeon gets embroiled in a major scandal or nationalists start donning brown shirts, then Scotland is lost to Labour.  For the Conservatives, the status quo in Scotland suits them fine: keep the SNP sweet enough without giving them another referendum, keep the fiscal terms of the Barnett formula intact and boom: another 5 years as the map of Scotland is once again swept yellow. Labour will never gain an outright majority under the first-past-the-post system whilst Sturgeon reigns supreme. For all the Tories that bemoan the unfairness of the Barnett Formula they must recognize that it does one thing for them: it keeps the SNP popular thus keeping Labour out.

So – in a political move straight out of Machiavelli’s (or Frank Underwood’s) handbook – Labour must introduce P.R. Yes, it will change politics in Britain forever. Yes, Westminster will be very, very different. But Labour isn’t the party of stagnation; we are not conservative with a small ‘c’. If progress and innovation are to be at the heart of the forthcoming ‘New New Labour’ then to release the true power of each individual vote is an important thing to champion. There is a strong likelihood that with P.R on the ticket, many voters of the Greens and Lib Dems will switch their vote to tactically favour Labour. Besides, as Runciman points out: it is hardly as if majority governments have tackled inequality. Indeed under such governments, ‘the drift towards inequality has been inexorable.’ Time for something new.

What that voting system might look like is for others to debate. Many will feel it important that a sense of local representation remains within our elected M.Ps – I agree. But things have been too dull for too long; there is a swell, albeit a slow one, to make each and every vote count. It is the way to engage the young;  it is the way to stop the feeling of disenfranchisement; it is the way to tell the next generation that we are a true democracy, without telling a little white lie.