Electoral reform could destroy the Labour party
Labour is playing with fire to consider electoral reform at a time when it’s share of voter support is so low, says Eliot Wilson
Electoral reform is one of those issues to which most people give little thought, but for those to whom it matters, it matters a great deal. Changing the voting system for the House of Commons from first-past-the-post has long been a priority for the Liberal Democrats, who believe it disadvantages them and is unfair; the Green Party also support change, as did Reform UK’s manifesto at the last election.
As the phoney war over Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership grinds on, however, the most prominent two men who would be king, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and ex-health secretary Wes Streeting, have both expressed their support for electoral reform. Burnham told The Observer last month he was “committed to proportional representation”, while Streeting has made it known he wants to replace first-past-the post.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have ever tried to alter what has been the predominant method of choosing MPs since the Representation of the People Act 1884, although the Commons was not universally elected by first-past-the-post until the abolition of the university seats and two-member constituencies in 1950. The Speaker’s Conference on Electoral Reform of 1916-17, chaired by Speaker Lowther when there was a coalition government during the First World War, considered but did not recommend a switch to the single transferable vote system.
The attitude of Burnham and Streeting reflects a shift of opinion within the Labour Party. Two-thirds of party members favour moving to a proportional system of voting, while eight of Labour’s 11 affiliated trades unions, including the two largest, Unison and Unite the Union, also support electoral reform. Only the GMB is actively opposed to change. In 2022, Labour’s annual conference passed a resolution stating that the party “must make a commitment to introduce proportional representation for general elections in the next manifesto”, though it was not binding and was ignored by Sir Keir Starmer.
No doubt the two pretenders to the throne are sincere, though three years ago Streeting seemed relaxed that proportional representation would not be in Labour’s manifesto at a general election. He was also dismissive of conversations about potential coalitions, which most forms of PR would make almost inevitable. But it is very likely too that both men believe a commitment to electoral reform could attract voters on the progressive left and stem the loss of support to the Greens and their high-profile leader Zack Polanski (though their rise has stalled slightly in recent weeks).
This is a strange and hazardous time for Labour to embrace a proportional system of voting. At the general election in 2024, Starmer led the party to victory and secured a majority in the House of Commons of 175, winning more seats than Labour has ever done except for Sir Tony Blair’s landslides of 1997 and 2001. But that was achieved on a share of the vote of just 33.7 per cent, only 1.6 per cent higher than Jeremy Corbyn achieved in 2019 when the Conservatives won a majority of 80.
The position is starker than that. Only once in recorded history has a government been formed on a smaller share of the vote, the first ever Labour administration of January-November 1924, a minority government propped up with ad hoc Liberal support. Until the 1980s, the second largest party would generally be supported by a larger proportion of voters than backed Labour in 2024.
A three-headed hydra
There are several alternative systems a government seeking to replace first-past-the-post could choose, including strict proportional representation, single transferable vote and mixed-member PR, as well as open and closed party lists. The one common feature is that they would all be likely to return a House of Commons with more similar-sized parties rather than the Conservative-Labour duopoly Britain has been used to for more than a century. It is consequently unlikely that one party would win a majority of seats and therefore a coalition government would be the expected outcome.
Last month Electoral Calculus compiled opinion poll results and predicted a general election outcome of Reform UK with 245 MPs, 116 Conservatives, 83 Labour, 61 Liberal Democrats, 61 Greens, 46 SNP Members, 15 Plaid Cymru, five “others” and the 18 MPs from Northern Ireland. Given that 326 MPs are needed to achieve a bare majority of two, that shows the challenge which could face a Labour leader. Even if the party performed rather better at a future election run under some kind of PR, Burnham or Streeting (or A.N. Other) could be forced to contemplate a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, though on the Electoral Calculus figures even that three-headed hydra would fall far short.
Perhaps Burnham and Streeting are willing to immolate themselves and the Labour Party on the pyre of a supposedly “fair” voting system. But choosing one of the party’s lowest points of electoral support in terms of vote share to embrace reform could turn into a kind of political suttee
Labour’s Deputy Leader Lucy Powell, a close Burnham ally, has talked, as many on the left do, of a “progressive alliance”. It has been hard to see in recent years much love lost among Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, let alone the separatists of the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Imagine trying to construct a coherent policy on the war in Gaza or tackling illegal migration across that kind of spectrum of opinion. Yet that would be exactly what an aspirant Labour Prime Minister would have to do.
Perhaps Burnham and Streeting are willing to immolate themselves and the Labour Party on the pyre of a supposedly “fair” voting system. But choosing one of the party’s lowest points of electoral support in terms of vote share to embrace reform could turn into a kind of political suttee. Labour has never won more than 50 per cent of the vote, though Clement Attlee managed 49.7 per cent in 1945, and the Conservatives have achieved it very rarely.
Are Burnham and Streeting principled, reckless, overconfident or simply blind to the likely consequences of their actions? The cost of finding out could be perilously high.
Eliot Wilson is an author and historian