Fairer elections and the threat of Reform UK

The Guardian

01-06-2025

George Monbiot captures the betrayal and despair felt by millions of Labour voters who thought they were voting for change at the last general election (How we can smash Britain's two-party system for good at the next election, 27 May).Less than a year later they have found themselves with a government pursuing much the same cruel austerity policies as the Conservative one it replaced. And he's right that Keir Starmer's cynical descent into inflammatory Powellite rhetoric is a gift to Nigel Farage.
Most voters want nothing to do with the politics of fear and division, but the UK's antiquated and unrepresentative electoral system fails to reflect the wishes of the progressive left and centre-left majority. A hung parliament is now a very real possibility after the next election. This would indeed be a huge opportunity to scrap the first-past-the-post system that has blighted British politics for so long.
As two Green MPs who overturned massive majorities to win our seats, we know it's possible for progressives to win against all the odds – and to change the electoral system, we will have to.
The Green party has long championed electoral reform. As candidates for the party's leadership, our aim is to be heading a much larger group of Green MPs in parliament, giving us the leverage and negotiating power to actually achieve such transformational change.Ellie Chowns MPGreen party, North HerefordshireAdrian Ramsay MPGreen party, Waveney Valley
George Monbiot is right to challenge the shortcomings of our electoral system. However, all electoral systems are flawed and in a democracy no individual decides what sort of government gets elected afterwards. Across Europe, where proportional representation prevails, the traditional parties of power are being replaced – not by a rainbow coalition of progressives, but by the seemingly inexorable rise of the hard right.
In Scotland, the SNP-Green coalition broke down. In the UK, when the Liberal Democrats held the balance of power, they sided with the Conservatives in inflicting ideological austerity. When we had a referendum between engagement with Europe or isolation, the majority voted for the latter.
The failure of our mainstream parties is that they have lost the ability to engage with ordinary people. Politics is the difficult task of leading the agenda while responding to the hopes and fears of wider society and all the ambiguities and compromises that are needed to do so.
The government's shift in language from restraint to support for those most in need might be the beginning of something better – we can but hope.Warren BrownIlkley, West Yorkshire
George Monbiot is spot-on in his analysis of the dysfunctions of our electoral system. One glaring danger he doesn't mention, however, can be seen in the steep rise of the Reform UK vote.
We used to hear as one of the justifications of the current system that it prevented extreme parties from gaining a significant representation. Never mind that this revealed an arrogantly undemocratic mindset, the evidence now is that the distortions of the system may precipitate precisely the opposite outcome.
Given the fragmentation of votes, it is entirely possible that, with fewer than 30% of the ballot, Reform could achieve an absolute majority in parliament at the next general election. That undemocratic disaster, quite apart from the other democratic imperatives George identifies, should be ringing alarm bells for urgent change.Stephen SmithGlasgow
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