2w ago

Here is the single thing Labour can do to see off Reform and make British politics work

www.theguardian.com

Here is the single thing Labour can do to see off Reform and make British politics work | Will Hayward

7 comments

Can't believe Farage is still a thing. Are we all really this collectively stupid? :(
- Farage should never have been a thing. But the media can't seem to leave tge prick alone
  
  Also, if the system you use to make decisions is insanely unbalanced (FPTP), and you ask it insane questions ("should Nige be within shouting distance of any position of power?") then the answers it gives aren't really worth taking seriously.
- Oh yes.
  Reform recently took over my local county council. Then they closed a community centre.
  Response from the Facebook Crazies? "Why have Labour done this?" 🤡
As a non-Brit, I watch what's happening like it's a slow motion car wreck.
France has 2 round parliamentary elections.
First round: You vote for someone to represent your constituency. Only 2 candidates remain.
Second round: Two weeks later, it's the second round. You vote for one of the 2 candidates that won the first round. The winner becomes an MP.
Throughout France, Marine Lepen candidates won 35% to 40% of the votes in the first round. They qualified for the second round. Luckily, in the second round, citizens rallied against Lepen candidates, voting for whoever was their opponent.
What will happen if Nigel Farage gets 35% or 40% 😲? You don't have a second round...
If France used the FPTP voting system, Marine Lepen would be ruling the country with a huge majority in Parliament.
- That's cool. They tricked a transferable voting system into thinking it was fptp. But we can't just copy the French, this is England. The racists would never accept it.
- Slightly tangential, but something that really pisses me off is how we had something like this system for elections for mayors and some other local positions.
  The Supplementary Vote was used for all combined authority mayoral elections until the Elections Act 2022 abolished it. It was basically the Alternative Vote (Instant Runoff/Ranked Choice Voting) but limited to two choices: the top two candidates who received the most preferences would advance to a runoff which used the second choices. It's similar to the French system but it's all done on the same ballot instead over two separate votes.
  The Tories had it in their manifesto to replace it with FPTP, and they did that through the EA2022. I knew they weren't on board with changing parliamentary elections to a better system, but getting rid of (marginally better) established systems says a lot to me about what they think about democracy.

7 comments