Yes, but: the winning party having less than 50% of the votes still feels incredibly undemocratic, as you get a situation where a majority of the voters picked a different choice.
Proportional systems give an outcome where a majority of voters voted for at least one of the parties in the winning coalition. Coalitions become explicit rather than internal to parties. The internationalist/isolationist split in the Conservative party that they were desperately trying to put off would have happened much earlier.
The referendum failed because only the LDs really supported it. I note that all sorts of devolved assemblies, councils, and (former) Euro elections used different systems.
Why does it feel undemocratic? I have always felt that party politics are undemocratic since my voting system (Sweden) translate to voting persons into seats in parliament. Political parties and coalitions are just systems added on top of that system that get translated into people in seats. Votes in parliament are counted per person, not per party or block, and people can vote against party line.
I would support a move to a more proportional system, but I think it's an exaggeration to describe the present system as 'incredibly undemocratic' (especially given that a clear majority of the voting population chose to keep this system in a democratic referendum not very long ago). There's plenty to criticise about the UK at present, but HN sometimes goes off the rails on this topic. I suspect that a post describing the USA as 'incredibly undemocratic' would get shorter shrift – even though the electoral college is arguably an order of magnitude more bonkers than the UK system.
Edit: I'd also add that the UK is astonishingly democratic in some respects. It is remarkable that Brexit was implemented merely because a majority voted for it. There are few countries where such important decisions of national policy would be put to a popular referendum in this way and then implemented faithfully. (I was very firmly opposed to Brexit, FWIW.)
It's not particularly egregious because it's not a national vote for a party, is it?
It's a series of (balanced) regional votes for elected representatives from equal-sized constituencies who are supposed to be responsive to that region.
Suddenly this is a massive problem for tories because it's red-faced angry right-wingers on the losing side. Whenever it contributed significantly to a tory win, it has not been a problem.
If you look at what actually happened you will see that, repeatedly, right-wing candidates lost out on a constituency-by-constituency level because the Conservatives were largely incumbents who had built up enough very personal bad reputation to be booted out, or inexperienced first-time candidates who are very rarely elected anyway and were parachuted at the last minute into seats where grandees were retiring, and the Reform candidates were a gaggle of weirdos, randoms, odd-bods, extremists and idiots who were lining up to stand for election for a party that had such a thin platform it ultimately resolves to "oooh we don'
t like them", where "them" varied a little region by region but usually meant foreigners.
(And, of course, they split part of the vote between them.)
> It's not particularly egregious because it's not a national vote for a party, is it?
You're talking with someone who thinks that it is egregious that a party that gets the minority of the vote runs the government, and the grandfather of your own comment points out that in 2024 it was with the lowest percentage vote in 30 years, which is particular.
The electorate lurched from the Conservatives farther right, and the result of that was a centrist government.
The party that has got a plurality of the vote runs the government, in fact. Same as in the USA this time, eh?
But again, in case it is not clangingly obvious yet: we don't vote for parties to control government. We don't vote for party leaders. We vote for constituency MPs, and if there are enough of them who can agree to form a government, that is what they do. Political parties are not, particularly, even essential to the process. They just speed it up.
A big chunk of why we have a Labour government this time round is Tory constituencies deciding to tactically vote Lib Dem because a Labour candidate would be less likely to gain a majority, after all. One has to assume that the people who did that meant to do it.
> The electorate lurched from the Conservatives farther right, and the result of that was a centrist government.
I dispute this concept; it's a convenient hopeful fiction being sold by hucksters and grifters. You only have to look, for example, at polls saying a majority of Leave voters would now support closer ties with Europe to resolve problems caused by Brexit. What happened is simple: people chose to have a functional government, which neither the Tories of 2024 or Reform could possibly offer. Reform is probably a generation or more away from being able to do that, and who knows if the Tories can reassemble around something mainstream before then.
What happens in practice is, parties do control the government. There are these things called "whips". Also, voters watch national media and mostly vote based on the leadership, stated manifesto etc of each party at the national level.
> What happens in practice is, parties do control the government. There are these things called "whips". Also, voters watch national media and mostly vote based on the leadership, stated manifesto etc of each party at the national level.
Don't patronise me. I'm fully aware of all of these things.
But it doesn't actually change who we vote for. If you want Reform to have more MPs, they have to have locally electable MPs. Because we vote for MPs.
If you change the system in any way that means people get candidates that parties choose on some proportional basis, you break this crucial link with the local area. We vote, locally, and we choose a person who is best for us. Time and time again this has proved to be valuable and to have generally selected quite good candidates and very good parliamentarians.
As soon as you have any other system than, locally, "I choose this person to be my representative", important things break, IMO.
But, again, this only upsets right-wingers now because they are on the losing side of it. Hasn't bothered them in the slightest before.
The idea that parliament has shifted "hard to the left", as you said earlier, is absolutely delusional, given the Centrist Dad government we now have.
Interesting to even concede that Labour and Conservatives are basically the same, but no desire for third parties being able to enter. I'm definitely not a fan of Reform in particular, it's just highlighted the issue with new parties having no chance in the UK unless they are strongly local like the DUP or SNP. Geographic distribution seems to be the biggest factor in whether a person's vote is counted or not.
> Interesting to even concede that Labour and Conservatives are basically the same, but no desire for third parties being able to enter.
Did I? You're projecting.
I voted for a third party. And that third party candidate got elected. In one of the formerly safest Tory seats in the country. Because we wanted change and we are aware of the trends of our own local politics.
New parties have no chance because first time MPs -- of all parties -- have no chance. It's rare to get selected on your first try, or to get a winnable seat on your first try. Across all parties. Because it's a process that requires practice and proper infrastructure -- competent agents, competent support, competent canvassing.
So a new party will have to find exceptional candidates, or media-addicted fame chasers, or defectors who rarely get elected because defection is frowned upon, to get anywhere in its first general election campaign. By that measure, Reform did exceptionally well.
Everyone's vote gets counted. Everyone's vote has equal weight. The system, again, elects local representatives as its method of operation. If you want a local representative of your chosen party, find someone who is locally electable to run for that party. Or run yourself.
