Starmer’s case for electoral reform

But in reality it speaks to a larger issue in British politics: the public have, by and large, had enough of politicians. We don’t trust politicians to be honest, we’ve lost confidence that they can get anything done, we think they’re in it for themselves.

Those problems will all be exacerbated by a mounting sense that parliament doesn’t represent the will of the people – a perennial complaint of those who would seek to reform the UK’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, but one that is now a fast-growing cause.

Close to half of those who voted in this election cast their ballot for a party other than Labour and the Conservatives (42.6 per cent of them, to be precise), but they collectively won just 107 seats, just one in six of the total available.

Restoring trust in politics means trying to convince people their vote matters, firstly in electing people who will serve their constituents and not themselves, secondly in having their votes feel significant by reflecting the makeup of the chamber, and finally and crucially in actually making a difference to their day-to-day lives.

All of these fall more on the governing party than any other – and the last is the work of a full parliamentary term. But Keir Starmer, as a new prime minister, has genuine power to do something about the first two, if he can be bold enough to look beyond narrow political interest.

The first thing and most obvious thing Keir Starmer should do – as early as is humanly possible – is reform and tighten the rules governing both his ministers and MPs in general. Several proposals to do this were in the Labour manifesto, and these should be rolled out before summer recess: a truly independent advisor on the ministerial code, limits to MPs’ second jobs, and more would be both popular and good policy.

But while a general election is still a distant prospect, Starmer should announce a far wider review into the rules governing them. Most of the UK’s election rules pre-date the internet and are hopelessly archaic – too prescriptive and byzantine in some places, and completely non-existent in others.

The UK needs a new, 21st century rulebook for conduct during its elections. This could be led first by a non-partisan review, but should be supervised by some form of cross-party commission.

Matters that are politically contentious, like Labour’s pledge to reduce the voting age to 16, could be kept aside from this process, to keep it narrowly focused.

Parliament itself would need wider change, though, if it is to be more representative. There are those who would push to elect the House of Commons by a “pure” system of proportional representation. There are both substantive reasons and political reasons this is likely to be a non-starter.

The substantive reasons are that the constituency system does matter: the public expect their MP to be a local champion, as well as a last resort when they need help from the state. The MP as super-social worker has become a vital part of the UK’s fraying safety net, and its absence would be felt by vulnerable families.

Beyond that, pure PR systems allow the leaders of parties to select their candidates in order on ‘lists’, guaranteeing that loyalists will be elected first and those people who might cause trouble will only be elected if the party does far better than expected. There are systems that combine constituency links with proportionality – the additional member system used in Scotland and Wales is just this – but these have their own issues.

Crucially, such a system would likely be dead on arrival because it would spell the death of the Labour Party. Broad coalition parties like Labour have factions from quite different political traditions.

Such parties fracture under PR. Asking Labour to throw out the electoral system that has just handed it a landslide, to replace it with one that would fracture the party and lead to a future of messy compromise, is a tough ask.

There is one obvious fix: Labour could be bolder than it plans when it comes to the House of Lords, and suggest abolishing it outright and replacing it with an elected House, which could use some form of PR.

That gives a chance to improve representation, strengthen the second chamber (while keeping its role as a scrutiny chamber clear), without doing the politically impossible. Some small fraction of the chamber could be reserved for governments to appoint “experts” as ministers, but as appointments for the duration of their service, rather than for life.

If the small-r reform bug bit Starmer, though, he needn’t leave the Commons entirely untouched. Instead of our current system of putting a cross in the box next to one candidate, the UK could shift to a system called Alternative Vote. This allows voters to rank as many candidates as they like in order of preference.

After each round of voting, the count is checked to see if any candidate has a majority of votes. If no-one does, the last ranked candidate is eliminated and their votes reallocated. The result is that everyone, in any seat, can give their first preference to their favourite party – without “letting the wrong side in”.

The eventual candidate is the overall preferred candidate of more than half of voters. It could benefit smaller parties by showing their ‘true’ level of support, while big parties would lose the complaint that voting for others might “let the Tories/Labour in”. And the constituency link would remain intact.

There is precedent to changing system between classic first-past-the-post and supplemental vote (which operates similarly but not quite identically to alternative vote) without a referendum – because it used to be the system that was used to elect UK metro mayors, before the Tories changed it last parliament to first-past-the-post, in a move widely seen as changing the system to suit their own political ends (it failed, they retained just one mayoralty).

Surely the Conservatives would not complain at a change in the other direction, especially at a time those in their own ranks are calling for an overhaul?

Changing the mechanics of parliament is rarely a vote-winner, and it is easily overtaken by events once in government. But even if their effect would be indirect, doing at least some of these could help begin to restore trust in parliament and its systems. Will Starmer strike while he can?