Welcome to the “democracy casino”. That’s the assessment of the Electoral Reform Society in light of the local elections and the weird and wonderful results they threw up in councils across England earlier this month. This might not sound like news: an organisation dedicated to reforming Britain’s electoral system sounding the alarm over the distorted outcomes just produced by the electoral system it wants to reform is very much a “dog bites man” kind of story. But do they have a point?
Make Votes Matter, the grassroots campaign group for changing Britain’s voting system from first past the post (FPTP) to a form of proportional representation (PR), has helpfully crunched the numbers. Its new report, published as the Labour Party was tearing itself apart over whether Andy Burnham should be allowed to stand in the Makerfield by-election, contains some fascinating statistics. Some 60 per cent of council seats were won with just 35 per cent of vote, while a staggering 85 per cent of councillors were elected without majority support for their party (compared to just 35 per cent in 2021). To look at things from the losing side, 58 per cent of votes cast went to candidates who were not elected, and 13 per cent went to parties who won no seats on their council.
OK, one might argue, it’s not brilliant that vote share doesn’t match up with seats, but a win is still a win, right? In response to which, the report highlights two councils – Wandsworth and Milton Keynes – where parties that won the most votes failed to win the most seats. In Wandsworth, this meant Labour, which won on vote share, was denied control of the borough, while the Greens, who won 17.3 per cent, got no seats. In Milton Keynes, the party that won the most seats – the Liberal Democrats – actually came fourth in terms of votes cast.
There is more, but let’s just say these are not the only strange anomalies. Nor would you expect them to be, given how the vote share in England is split across five parties: Reform (26 per cent), Greens (18 per cent), Labour (17 per cent), Conservatives 17 per cent) and Lib Dems (16 per cent). “Five parties polling in double digits is incompatible with a voting system that gives one party sweeping powers at the expense of others,” argues the Make Votes Matter report. A system designed to produce clear results between two parties is buckling in the new electoral landscape, with so many colours that the map resembles Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.
Right now, this feels like a secondary issue. Political oxygen is being sucked up by the concern over whether we are soon to see a change in prime minister – and if so, who? But behind the scenes in Westminster, this fragmented rainbow map is part of that conversation. The Makerfield by-election is focusing minds, with a debate underway in Green circles about how fiercely to contend the seat and risk splitting the vote and letting in Reform. Meanwhile, reality is dawning for Labour that, under FPTP, it could face the same catastrophe the Tories suffered in 2024, losing votes and seats to all parties on all sides. Then there’s the fact Burnham told a packed conference event seven months ago that “PR’s time has come”. Might a new Labour leader take a new approach to a question that has divided the wider party from the parliamentary front bench for years?
Don’t expect any of this to take centre-stage in the Westminster psychodrama, but keep an eye on the trends. What the Electoral Reform Society calls the “snakes and ladders” game of FPTP is increasingly making elections harder to predict and severing the connection between how people vote and the representatives they get. That’s not a new phenomenon, but what is new is the party in government waking up to the threat and realising they no longer benefit from the status quo. Changing the voting system mid-parliament would be a massive gamble, even for a government riding high in the polls, which this one evidently is not. But whatever chance-based board game analogy you want to use, the local elections show that keeping the current system is a gamble too.
[Further reading: The long coup]
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