Think Tank: Abolish 'safe seats'

[gazthomas]

FPTP only minimally represents the views of its constituents. An MP in Belfast won this year with just 24.5% of the vote. [1] How can that be considered democratic? 75.5% of constituents, under this system, did not vote for that candidate. Alternative voting systems - such as my preferred system of STV, take into account the views of all constituents

Of course, constituents can and will vote for their preferred candidate, and that will in itself often lead to safe seats. But FPTP has a particular problem that it naturally trends towards a two party system, and in doing so inherently creates very safe seats.



Safe seats are created by a process called Gerrymandering, where the politicians manipulate the boundaries in order to manipulate the vote and the result of the election. In essence, this can turn a slim majority into a landslide victory. This "stupid...rubbish" is an attempt to stop the inherently undemocratic process of gerrymandering.

The outcome of the election should closely represent the proportion of views across the country. FPTP has proven that it quite simply cannot do this. We need proper electoral reform. If only we had an opportunity to vote for this (oh, wait a minute...)



This is a predicament facing millions. I have lived in a safe seat for most of my life, and I never thought my vote would have counted for anything. Labour would have won over and over again, returning the useless Tom Clarke to vegetate on the seats of Westminster. Our elections consisted of getting one or two leaflets from Labour (the same ones every year...), and occasionally a half hearted attempt from the Conservatives who in reality didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, and often fielded candidates from 50+ miles away. Democracy didn't exist. There was little point in voting, since we knew our vote wouldn't count.

Of course, in the last election, something unprecedented happened in Scotland. The country recorded record swings in the vote, as people who supported independence realised that they were not alone and had the confidence to vote SNP, swinging the country to being a collection of largely safe SNP seats. It took years and a monumental referendum for that to happen, though. And I don't think the outcome is any more democratic, either. The SNP took about 50% of the Scottish vote and gained all bar three of the seats. As an SNP supporter, I was obviously ecstatic, but I can't say it's very democratic.



As I've said, reform is needed, but sadly the nature of politics is that reform will be pushed aside by the current MPs who will argue that the current system works fine, mostly because it keeps them in work.

The SNP do argue for electoral reform. Now that they have benefited from FPTP for the first time, I'll be interested to see if their interest in reform remains constant.

References:
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_South_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

I'm agreeing with you

 

[Busaholic]

Not sure I'm keen on forcing members to vote - you end up with a lot of people voting on issues they don't know much about, which isn't really what you want when it comes to the second chamber.

It might be a way of ensuring that the present 2nd chamber practices of quite a lot of members 'signing in' in order to claim their £300 per day or whatever, then leaving after ten minutes, is got rid of. With an MP, their voting record is a matter of public scrutiny and the electorate can vote them out subsequently.On the whole, though, I agree with you that forcing people to vote is not a wonderful idea: I'd never go along with making everyone vote in a General Election, for instance.A vote should be freely given.

 

[TheKnightWho]

It might be a way of ensuring that the present 2nd chamber practices of quite a lot of members 'signing in' in order to claim their £300 per day or whatever, then leaving after ten minutes, is got rid of. With an MP, their voting record is a matter of public scrutiny and the electorate can vote them out subsequently.On the whole, though, I agree with you that forcing people to vote is not a wonderful idea: I'd never go along with making everyone vote in a General Election, for instance.A vote should be freely given.

I certainly think that's true, although that's not the only thing that the Lords do. Many of them spend huge amounts of time in committees or doing other important work.

There needs to be a decent system of accountability though, to ensure they're all doing *something*.

 

[adrock1976]

First of all, I would get rid of the monarchy, as well as a few other things, it would mean that MPs would no longer have to pledge allegiance to somebody who happens to be born into a position of privilege and power (and not forgetting the fact that Prince Phillip is a racist bigot with the various comments he's made about Asians over the years, and also out of touch with reality). The MPs would instead pledge allegiance to the constituents who elected them.

With regards to devolution, I would go for the concept of progressive federalism, where power and decisions are transferred from Westminster to county councils being made at a regional and local level. For example, York (being the administrative centre for the whole of Yorkshire region, with it being further devolved to Wakefield for the West Riding, Beverley for the East Riding, and with the county building in York serving as a dual function for the North Riding as well. Barnsley could have decisions and power made for a new South Riding area (the exact same area as the present day South Yorkshire PTE/former county council area).

The reason why I've used Yorkshire as an example above is that it was managed like that before, due to it being England's, if not the UK's largest county in terms of land mass. For other areas, the metropolitan county councils should be brought back, so as to have a co-ordinated approach to the pooling of resources as originally intended. For example, Greater Manchester Metropolitan CC would be responsible for decisions across the region, with the metropolitan borough councils responsible for local level decisions.

The present European Parliament regions or the administrative centres of counties could be used for regional level decisions, with district or borough councils responsible for local level decisions.

The voting system for the Westminster elections should be the Single Transferable Vote system for electing MPs. The number of MPs would be reduced from the present 650 so as to compensate for there being more local elected representatives at a county/regional level on the councils.

The point I'm trying to get across here is that more power and decision making should be devolved to the regions, and not being centred on Westminster/Cardiff/Edinburgh. On a final note in regards to the concept of an England Parliament, it should sit in Birmingham so as to make it accessible from most areas if we are going to go down that route.