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‘Proportional representation will lead to better politics’, Labour conference told
(leftfootforward.org)
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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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UK Politics
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I think lack of local MPs is a legitimate criticism of pure PR.
I call BS. Many MPs are parachuted into areas just because it is a safe seat. I currently have a MP who I really think is nothing more than a grifter, and yet I will be forced to vote for her as the alternative is a Tory win.
Safe seats and Gerrymandering absolutely do undermine the concept of local MPs and FPTP. But I have written to my local MP a number of times and yes, mostly it's political stuff that gets a generic response. BUT the one time it was about an unjust parking ticket, she did successfully cancel it. The big bad beast of politics do make a mockery of it, but there are plenty of hardworking MPs who do their job for their constituencies.
If we only had national MPs, who do you write to about local matters? I've never been to a local MP surgery, but if I was in some kind of trouble I might.
I have written to mine twice in the 13 years she has been in post. It was not a good experience with both events. She is as local as you can get, she used to live in my street till she moved out of the city. The problem with MPs is there is no accountability. You only have to look at how Dorries took the piss. There would be no loss by having an MP from further afield. Having one from your local area is not a guarantee they will be any better either.
Same with my MP. He's lived in this town his whole life, and I've known him (distantly) since I was 11, when he and my dad briefly worked together. They were actually friends for a while, as they shared a lot of beliefs, both political and otherwise. And we're now at the point that even my dad calls the guy useless. In fact I have not heard anyone say anything positive about him in the last 10 years, which makes it extra puzzling that he got over 50% of the vote in 2019. That's some serious passion for a guy that, seemingly, everyone and their dog knows is a slippery, incompetent hypocrite. Electoral Calculus still give him close to 50/50 odds of winning the next election too. I genuinely do not know what the appeal of this guy is.
One of the PR systems that maintains a geographic connection, like having larger constituencies with multiple MPs, would work just fine for me. If I could have a Labour or Lib Dem MP that's a bit further afield, but whose political leanings and moral character were more in tune with my own, I'd feel so much more comfortable contacting them.
I have gave this a lot of thought. This one of the better solutions I have seen pushed, imo. Each party can see how many MPs they have allocated by vote share. They can then assign them by area. The leading party can choose which areas they represent first. There would have to be some sort of system to prevent say Labour cockblocking support in a known Tory area and vice versa, but I actually think this would most likely sort it self. Every area you try to grab from an opponent means your opponent will be in a constituency that wanted you there.
I reckon if you get a system where, say, 6-8 constituencies are merged into one, and then vote for the same number of MPs as the number of constituencies merged, you'd avoid any serious issues with cockblocking. 6-8 constituencies in the same geographic area would have largely similar populations with similar voting patterns, especially if care is taken during the merging phase to group them well, so no party could cockblock the entire constituency. The MPs would then represent the whole new, larger constituency, so that anyone living in that constituency can deal with an MP of the party of their choice, rather than having a specific MP assigned to a specific town.
And maybe it's just because I live in a rural area where I've got to travel across constituency lines to get to many amenities, so I'm used to considering a fairly wide geographic area to be my "local" area... but I really wouldn't care if I had to travel 15 miles to see a Labour MP, rather than 5 miles to see a Tory one. The town 15 miles away has all the same problems as the one 5 miles away, so it's not like the Labour MP wouldn't "get" it if I went to them saying "hey, I've got this problem going on, can you help?"
The other issue you get when you batch MPs to an area is that the party in power will get a lot more work than the other parties. If you are going to write to an MP and you have a choice then you will either choose one that is aligned with the topic. or choose the one with the most power.
That's kind of already the case, though? When the MP is of a party that's in government, they probably already get more letters from constituents, because there's an expectation that they can do more because they have more power (often not actually the case, though). But people have all kinds of reasons for contacting an MP, and all kinds of criteria for selecting who they'd rather deal with: whoever is geographically closest if they need an in-person appointment, whoever is in the right party, whoever has voiced an opinion the person agrees with, whoever has spoken up on the issue the person needs help with... It would all balance out more than you'd expect.
The problem with not having it district-wide is that say one party got an entitlement to one MP. That would mean that over the entire region, they got approximately 15% of the vote. Over a constituency with 6-8 MPs, it's fine that 15% of the population get represented by 15% of the MPs. But if that single MP is assigned to a specific 1/6th of the constituency, that constituency is then 100% represented by a party that only 15% voted for, which is actually less democratic than the current system at a local level, even if nationally it's more representative.
I think we both agree there will never be a perfect solution. For myself I would take on most things so long as we remove the FPTP system and not adopt any other system that has the same flaws.
Yep, we definitely completely agree on that! PR has its flaws, but FPTP is much worse.
Yer, we need systems for locals to get rid of shit local MPs without having to wait for an election.
most are probably happy with mine. Not many have anything to do with their MPs. Most are happy that their tribal party is in the seat.
You could easily argue PR is about tribal voting. Part of me would like parties to disappear all together. But your always going to get groups forming. So I'd losen them by outlawing things like three line whip.
MPs should represent all of those in the constituency. Regardless of their voting. Mine in her letters is clearly trying to win people round. I'd never vote for her, but I still expect her to do her job as a local MP.
You could never outlaw a 3 line whip when a party runs on a manifesto. When an MP stands on a manifesto then it is reasonable to expect them to vote for that pledge.
You will always get tribal voting. Even now with the shambles that the Tories are, you will still see 25% who support them. The reverse would be true with Labour. The problem we have atm is that there is no real choice but to vote tribally. Tactical voting should never be a thing. How can it be a good thing to vote for what you do not want.
When the party goes against the manifesto, I don't MP should be forced to go with the party. It makes a mockery of the whole system.
It's a significant criticism to me. Our FPTP parliamentary system isn't great for representing the majority of people's views, but having fixed sized constituencies with local MPs is a bit advantage.
Ideally power should be devolved to be as close to the citizens as possible. Having a single person responsible for representing your community is much better in my opinion than having some group of people who represent a party who never visit your part of the country.
The surgeries MPs do in their local areas are a really powerful way for people to raise their issues and get heard. Plenty of national campaigns and law changes have been brought about by passionate people getting their MP on board.
There are obvious failings with this (Dories. Johnson. Etc) so some form of recall would be welcome.
STV for local representatives is an easy win without any major reforms to get candidates who represent their constituency as ideally as possible.
I'm for PR, but figuring out the best way to set up PR alongside local MPs is going to be a large debate and very tricky to get right. Much like abolishing the monarchy, it's a large constitutional change that we'd have to trust to the people in charge who it affects, and if done poorly could be very destabilising.
A few years ago in a former life I actually spent a lot of time developing a democratic model and it's hard to get right. One of the things we set up that worked really well actually aligns with what that glittery knob head's group advocates for.
A jury style system where people are randomly and fairly selected to be representatives of the people (age, gender, race, sec, etc) and get paid to serve a term of x amount of time, hear debates from proponents and opposition to policies, and form a consensus on issues would be pretty great. If we ever decide to get rid of the house of Lords I'd like to see it replaced by something like that.
Apologies for the really long reply, you raise great points and it's a topic I'm interested in discussing.
Edit: conditional - constitutional. Damn autocorrect.
Good post. I also think citizen assemblies need to be used more. Also majors.
We clearly now need a way of dealing with local MPs when they go rogue. No just when they don't do the job, but also when they change party or get kicked out.
I'd also get rid of the whole three line whip thing. Least for local MPs. Free them for complete compliance with the party. Put a tension between them and party.
The reason I like Mixed Member PR is the keeping of local MPs. It's used in Germany and New Zealand.
The monarchy I'd deal with separately. Let a proper democratic bed in first. The monarchy is always one bad monarch away from reform anyway.
I used to agree. But over the years i have seen any value totally troubced by party politics.
Few local citizens have any real representation willing to listen under fptp today of much in the last 20 or so years.
STV or others may improove that with multi MPs. But its hard to see we are lossing anything real with the current system.
Any improovement need different pilitical motive then we have now. MPs think of representation as soldiers in a war. Ready to be sacrificed for the party line. Or there ow. Career. We need politicians who stand for local ideals first. Then party based on those local voters will.
Sorry late rant got me there
I'm not sure that argues against MMPR that I'm advocating.
Given the comment I replyed to.
I have no idea why you would think it was. I was arguing local representation dose not really exist in FPTP as it is envissanged,
I'm arguing that local MPs are worth having, but FPTP is unrepresentative. With MMPR you get the best of both worlds.