Only one (deliverable) thing is radical enough for me now:
https://www.omfif.org/2024/07/keir-star ... al-system/
Extraordinary UK election result shows how broken [the electoral system] is
While Labour basks in the glow of a thumping 170-seat majority, smarter heads in the party – and indeed across the political spectrum – should quickly turn to consider the UK electoral system that delivered it to them.
Labour has won two-thirds of the seats on little more than one-third of the votes cast. In what was billed as a pivotal moment for the country, 40% of the electorate didn’t bother to exercise their right to choose an MP or government. Voter turn-out was almost 10 percentage points lower than five years ago. Around 20% of those who could have voted chose Labour, whose share of the polling was lower than the party achieved in 2017 while led by unelectable Jeremy Corbyn.
The Liberal Democrats increased their number of MPs by almost 10 times as many as in 2019, while their share of the vote remained static. Meanwhile two challenger parties – Reform and the Greens – picked up a combined 20% of all votes cast but will have little more than 1% of MPs between them in the new parliament.
This was a single-issue election – get rid of the Conservatives – and rightly so after eight years of chaos that began with the referendum on European Union membership in 2016. But it is not a mandate for Keir Starmer and Labour.
For five years, the Tory party deluded itself that its 80-seat majority in 2019 was a ringing endorsement of Boris Johnson. But much of the red wall that turned blue consisted of traditional Labour voters who could not stomach the idea of a government led by hard-left Corbyn. The Johnson coalition was built on sand. Labour would do well to understand its own unstable coalition from day one of its administration.
If it is to win the next election, it will need to deliver on its mandate and show it is fit to govern. Labour and the Liberal Democrats will both find that simply not being the Tories will not be enough to maintain their performance in the next general election.
Starmer’s majority gives him a unique opportunity to reset UK politics. Such a low turn-out reflects the disillusion felt across the country – and not just a lack of enthusiasm for traditionally dominant parties. The UK’s first-past-the-post system does not work. Unless or until every vote counts, apathy will persist and anger at the political class will grow.
The incoming prime minister should immediately propose a review of the UK electoral system that will be complete within two years.
I am already extremely irritated by the failure of both the incoming government and much of the commentary to point out that Labour's majority is not a ringing endorsement of their message. It is nothing of the sort, and the only way Labour can truly show they understand this is by committing to electoral reform and opening up a public debate about what sort of electoral reform is needed.
If there was another general election next week, with the HoC as it currently stands, the result could easily be a hung parliament. And that is before Labour have even had a chance to do anything wrong. That is not a comfortable place to be radical from. It is certainly going to be interesting to see what they actually do though.
conclusion:
No doubt Labour – like any new government – will be wary of expending political time and capital changing the electoral system when it has other priorities in the economy, health, education and the environment. And turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. But Starmer has a remarkable, and pivotal, opportunity to re-enfranchise the UK electorate and immediately consolidate his right to govern. Throughout the campaign, he repeated the mantra ‘country first, party second’. Over to you, prime minister.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
