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# Electoral reform in the UK
- URL: https://violet-wood.ghost.io/electoral-reform-in-the-uk/
- Published: 2026-08-28T15:36:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-28T15:36:03.000Z
- Author: Violet Wood
- Tags: Politics

These are exciting times for electoral reformers. The Representation of the People Bill currently before Parliament includes a number of provisions designed to widen public participation in elections: lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, introducing automatic voter registration, and widening the forms of ID that must be produced in order to vote.

The issue of greatest political interest is whether to change the voting system itself for general elections. At the next stage of the Bill's consideration, next week, MPs will be voting on an amendment to establish a national commission on the electoral system. It has the backing of a majority of Labour MPs. The new Prime Minister has supported the principle of electoral reform for a long time. 

There are many different kinds of electoral system. At the risk of oversimplifying things, the UK has tried one kind of system (First Past the Post), considered another kind of system (the Alternative Vote), and may eventually be persuaded to adopt a third kind of system (Proportional Representation).

### First Past the Post (FPTP)

In this system, the UK is divided into a large number of local constituencies (currently 650), each electing one member of Parliament. Constituency boundaries are periodically revised in an attempt to ensure that all constituencies have an approximately equal number of electors. In the election, each elector may cast only one vote. The candidate receiving the highest number of votes is elected as the constituency MP. 

Supporters of FPTP argue that it has been in use for several centuries; it is clear and easy to understand; and it usually results in majority government by a single party, theoretically enabling strong and decisive political leadership. These arguments are not strong. Just because something has always been done one way, that does not mean it cannot be done in a different and better way in future. Other systems can be explained clearly, without making the implicit assumption that the electorate is stupid. And a majority government does not guarantee that the business of government will be effectively carried out – just look at the final months of the last Conservative government under Sunak, and the record of its Labour successor under Starmer.

Whatever the merits of these arguments, no one pretends that FPTP is a fair electoral system. It's possible for individual MPs – and entire governments – to be elected despite receiving the backing of only a minority of voters. The 2024 general election result was an extreme example. Labour gained 63% of the seats in Parliament despite receiving only 34% of the vote. In contrast, Reform gained only 1% of the seats despite receiving 14% of the votes.

Also, the way the system works, many constituencies are regarded as safe for one main party or another, so that the overall outcome is disproportionately affected by a small number of swing voters in a small number of constituencies. 

Finally, the FPTP system might have made some sense when there were only two main parties and the electorate had a clear choice between them. But the era of two-party politics in the UK is over. Leaving aside the nationalist parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there are now five main political parties in the UK. In current polling, Labour, Reform and the Conservatives are close together at between 20% and 25%, with the Greens and the Liberal Democrats between 10% and 20%. FPTP does not work well in a system with multiple political parties.

### Alternative Vote (AV) 

Towards the end of the 20th century, and at the start of the 21st century, AV was the fashionable electoral alternative. The AV system still relies on a large number of local constituencies each electing one MP. But instead of one vote, electors can vote for any number of candidates in descending order of preference (eg 1 for their first choice, 2 for their second and so on). When the polls close, the number of first preferences is counted. Any candidate obtaining more than 50% of first preferences is automatically elected. If no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated, and the second preferences for that candidate are promoted to first preferences and distributed to the other candidates accordingly. The process continues until one candidate eventually receives more than 50% of the votes. The system, using the single transferable vote process, is more sophisticated than FPTP and arguably fairer in that the choices of a larger number of voters are taken into account in one way or another. But it is still not a proportional system.

The Labour Party developed an interest in electoral reform during its long years of opposition from 1979 to 1997\. After winning the 1997 election, Labour set up a commission on electoral reform chaired by their elder statesman, Roy Jenkins. The commission recommended a referendum on a new electoral system known as AV+, essentially using the Alternative Vote for single-MP constituencies but with an element of proportionality. This semi-proportional system was not taken forward.

In the 2010 general election, no party had an overall majority. Negotiations between the parties resulted in a coalition between the Conservatives (the largest single party) and the Liberal Democrats with a commitment to a referendum on electoral reform. The version that was put to the British public in 2011 was the pure AV system with no attempt at proportionality. The Liberal Democrats and other progressive parties campaigned in favour, whereas the Conservatives campaigned against. In the referendum, the public decisively rejected the AV proposal with 68% of the votes cast against it.

Why did the UK's political leadership propose a system of AV rather than proportional representation? They thought AV was more likely to deliver single-party majority governments. Also they wanted to retain the long-established constituency system with its close link between the MP and the local public. But single-member constituencies are a relatively recent phenomenon. For centuries, constituencies elected two members of Parliament. Single-member constituencies were unusual until the late 19th century. It was not until 1950 that all constituencies became single-member.

Also, while many MPs stay close to their constituents, some do not. Nigel Farage MP is the most blatant example. He wanted to get into Parliament at the 2024 election and decided to stand for Clacton as it was the most right-wing constituency he could find. He was duly elected. For nearly two years after that, until he resigned to force a byelection in Clacton, he spent very little time in the constituency and held no surgeries for his constituents.

### Proportional Representation (PR)

The basic principle of PR is that the number of parliamentary seats gained by each party should closely reflect the total number of votes it receives. In practice, PR systems are not completely proportional. Some systems impose an electoral threshhold such that a party must gain a specified minimum proportion of votes (eg 5%) in order to gain a seat in Parliament. This is designed to close the door on small extremist parties.

PR systems tend to vary considerably. For example some are based on party lists, where the electorate votes for a party, and a certain number of candidates on each party list are elected in proportion to the total number of votes cast for the party. The party list can be closed (candidate names are private) or open (candidate names are published).

Some systems rely on multi-member constituencies. In these, a number of MPs are elected for constituencies considerably larger than the current UK constituencies, with the number of MPs from each party determined in relation to the number of votes cast.

And there are mixed systems, retaining an intermediate number of constituencies electing a single MP on some form of single transferable vote, but with a top-up from party lists so that the overall parliamentary makeup accurately reflects the overall number of votes cast for each party.

There are arguments for and against each particular system. These would be examined by the national commission on electoral reform which is being proposed for the Representation of the People Bill next week.

Opponents of PR argue that it tends to result in coalition governments, as if these were generally weaker and less decisive than governments elected by FPTP. It is the case that PR systems tend to require parties to work together on a platform which will contain compromises on some policy positions. But PR systems have been adopted in most European countries and in practice the resulting governments seem to operate at least as effectively as in the UK.

One would expect political parties in the UK to decide their position on PR by reference to whether it will work to their narrow political advantage rather than whether it would be good for the country as a whole. Back in 2024, when Reform gained 1% of the parliamentary seats on 14% of the votes, Nigel Farage was vocal in his support of PR. More recently, when Reform were topping the polls with distinct prospects of forming a majority government, he has said very little about PR.

One of the main advantages of a PR system is that voters can safely vote for their chosen candidate, instead of having to vote negatively – and tactically – to stop the election of the candidate they don't want. Tactical voting has recently been used to great effect to stop the election of Reform MPs in successive byelections. I can see the appeal of a PR system to progressive parties as a whole, since it offers the best guarantee that the UK will not vote for the nightmare scenario of a majority Reform government on a minority of the vote under FPTP.