11 hours ago
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Gaby Hinsliff (Nobody wants to defend Britain’s voting system any more – but here’s why I will, 26 February) writes that proportional representation (PR) “doesn’t guarantee that we could all just vote for what we want instead of endlessly against what we fear (ask the French)”. Yet France does not use PR, which is precisely why tactical blocking occurs there. Indeed, there is overwhelming cross-party support in France for moving towards PR.
Under first past the post (FPTP), whoever wins the most votes takes the seat, even without a majority. That means a majority of voters in a constituency can end up unrepresented, as in Gorton and Denton, where six in 10 votes were not represented. The debate becomes not who can best represent you, but who can most likely beat someone else. Much of the byelection became precisely this: Labour and Green supporters second-guessing the “anti-Reform” candidate rather than voting for what they actually wanted.
Hinsliff warns that PR risks coalitions “dangerously prone either to making disproportionately powerful kingmakers of tiny fringe parties … or making junior partners renege on their promises”. Yet Britain has experienced both: the Liberal Democrats’ broken promises in 2010 and the 10 kingmaker DUP MPs in 2017. The difference is that PR begins from representation that reflects how people voted.
If we take Hinsliff’s metric of doing “a sterling job of keeping extremists out”, she herself notes Reform could theoretically win 48% of seats on just 27% of the vote under FPTP. Under PR, such vote shares do not translate into majorities.
Ultimately voting systems should exist to reflect the will of the people. If they do not, is it rule of the people or rule by the system?
Hugo Harvey
Youth ambassador, Make Votes Matter
Polly Toynbee articulately explains why our current election system is outdated and potentially dangerous (Want to stop Farage with your vote? At the moment you can’t – and Starmer must fix that, theguardian.com, 4 March).
But, while FPTP often produces lopsided, unrepresentative outcomes – 2024 being the most recent example – PR allows tiny parties undue influence. In Germany, the Free Democrats stayed in power for many years, regardless of election results, for this reason. Imagine Nigel Farage exploiting that situation.
Despite all their current problems, maybe France’s two-round system can teach us something. If their last parliamentary election had been held under FPTP, the extreme right would have won a majority, on a minority of votes. Instead, progressive parties cooperated so that, in the second round, voters mostly had a straight choice between democratic and far-right candidates. The outcome of the Gorton and Denton byelection suggests that such a system could work here, and stop extremists sneaking into power.
Peter Loschi
Oldham, Greater Manchester
As a long-term campaigner for proportional representation, I feel strongly that we all have to understand that changing the voting system does not change people’s opinions. There will still be dishonest and disingenuous politicians who blame scapegoats rather than engaging with the complex issues that face the modern world. PR won’t make Reform go away – but what it does do is stop political parties gaming a system that is designed for two parties.
Multiple parties are good and healthy for democracy. Grownup politics is about listening to other points of view, working together and finding the best compromises available. PR won’t get rid of the bad actors but it will make it easier to keep them from dominating.
Caroline Hunt
Gwernogle, Carmarthenshire
