It could be argued that Britain is over due a electoral reform; however could also be argued that our current electoral system is fine and democratic. With in this blog you shall see evidence on both sides.
On one side it could be argued that our current electoral system is fine; known as FPTP (First Past The Post). It is properly titled as 'simple majorities in single member constituencies'. In 2011 there was a referendum which was held regarding the change of the electoral system, the Government purposed to change it to the AV system which is know as the alternative vote, however the out come was a no. It is argued that there are many reasons why it didn't succeed. For example the referendum campaign alerted many people of the negatives of the alternative system. Also the main supporters of the reform who were the Liberal Democrats had became rather unpopular by 2011.
However it could be argued that the current system places too much power into the hands of a single party that does not enjoy majority support. This is seen as undemocratic at the best and dangerous at the worst. Electoral reform would almost result in no party winning an overall majority in Parliament on its own. Therefore it could force the big parties to compromise and also have a possibility of having to go into coalitions with other parties, this would ensure that one party couldn't have too much power. Furthermore, if the winning party was no longer guaranteed the majority in the Commons, MPs themselves would gain influence and would make the government more accountable.
In addition to the point that was just made, it could be argued that the UK is naturally a two-party system. The conflict between the government and opposition, between the two traditional parties, is part of the political culture. The people are used to it and it gives them a sense of security and stability. The FPTP system underpins the two-party system and so maintains the political traditions of the country. According to the Conservatives they believe it is worth preserving. By contrast, the reform threatens the firmly established tradition. When the coalition occurred it first proved popular, however it has been shaken as the Liberal Democrats were accused of being too weak, therefore this strengthened the argument against change of the voting system.
However there a plenty of problems of FPTP, for example governments are being elected on a minority of the votes cast in the general elections. In the past two years excluding 2015, this problem worsened; to the extent that the Labour victory of 2005 was secured with a mere 32.5 per cent of the total vote, this shows that the current electoral system isn't truly democratic as it could be argued that how can 35.5 percent be a majority? Therefore how does it make the government accountable for the people? This can then lead to declining voter turnouts, which could be to disillusionment with the electoral system that is widely perceived to be unfair may be one of the causes of political disengagement. Another problem is that many votes are wasted, especially for the smaller parties such as UKIP and Greens, also the voters are given a narrow choice, they only have one vote and no say in which candidates shall be put forward from in each party.
In addition to this I personally believe that an electoral reform would be beneficial with improving democracy with in the UK; due to the UK being just a two-party system and once the people of the state don't trust the two main parties it means a majority aren't represented.
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