Britain’s general election was its least representative ever
The rise of multi-party competition will build pressure for electoral reform
IT CAN SOUND like so much bleating from bad losers. Some members of the Conservative Party, which has dominated elections since the 19th century by mastering Britain’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, do not much like being on the other end of a drubbing. Labour’s majority is a “mile wide and an inch deep”, grumbled Boris Johnson, a former prime minister. Other Tories gripe that there isn’t “any enthusiasm” for the party that just routed them in the general election on July 4th. The implication is that voters have handed Sir Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, a huge majority by accident.
On one level, this is nonsense. The rules of the game are clear. The aim, in FPTP, is to come first in as many constituencies as possible; votes for losing candidates do not count. Labour’s critics on the left, who carp that the party won more votes nationally under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 and 2019, similarly struggle to grasp this basic fact.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Disproportional representation”
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From the July 13th 2024 edition
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