The Referendum Era 2010 - 2024

[Monkey Tennis]

22 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

The neanderthals in SLab are against it - Murphy and his acolytes were the biggest opponents when I was in the Labour Party - not much has changed there.

Still the same inaccurate bullshit about "that's how the Nazis got into power"    - clearly these c***s have zero understanding of history.

Nazis don't care about electoral systems - it's always about getting a foothold then seizing power.

Did the Nazis not get 37% or thereabouts anyway?

Less than that has just earned someone a FPTP landslide.

[SandyCromarty]

14 hours ago, tamthebam said:

There was a feeling that the form of PR being proposed wasn't very good. I voted For amending the voting system in that referendum despite the proposed system being imperfect. 

My maw who is 82 went to vote in this General Election and said it was a pity she could only vote for one candidate- I think people here have got used to the PR system being used in Scottish Parliament and Council elections. 

Labour should really revisit changing the voting system if only to ensure the Tories don't get back in with a huge majority ever again. But they won't. 

If there was PR in Westminster elections, Reform who had 4 million votes would have more seats than the Liberals.

[JS_FFC]

1 minute ago, SandyCromarty said:

If there was PR in Westminster elections, Reform who had 4 million votes would have more seats than the Liberals.

Well Reform would deserve more seats than the Lib Dems if that’s how people voted. I should point out though that people would probably vote very differently if there was a PR system. I think it would benefit Reform on the right and the Greens (and possibly others) on the left. 

[SandyCromarty]

7 minutes ago, JS_FFC said:

Well Reform would deserve more seats than the Lib Dems if that’s how people voted. I should point out though that people would probably vote very differently if there was a PR system. I think it would benefit Reform on the right and the Greens (and possibly others) on the left. 

The vote share was Reform 14% and Lib Dems 12%.

But PR voting which gives you a choice of candidates would have thrown up a different scenario.

For instance the Scottish conservatives MSPs are all list as I recall, under a first past the post system there would be no tory MP'S in Holyrood which is wrong given the vote share they have in Scotland.

 

 

Edited July 7 by SandyCromarty

[Granny Danger]

9 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

If there was PR in Westminster elections, Reform who had 4 million votes would have more seats than the Liberals.

Does that mean we shouldn’t have PR?

[SandyCromarty]

1 minute ago, Granny Danger said:

Does that mean we shouldn’t have PR?

Not at all, read my post above,I'm all for PR though there are arguments against it.

[Granny Danger]

1 minute ago, SandyCromarty said:

Not at all, read my post above,I'm all for PR though there are arguments against it.

The only argument against it is that political parties who we are repulsed by might get more MPs, and when you think of it that’s really not an argument against it.

[JS_FFC]

12 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

The vote share was Reform 14% and Lib Dems 12%.

But PR voting which gives you a choice of candidates would have thrown up a different scenario.

For instance the Scottish conservatives MSPs are all list as I recall, under a first past the post system there would be no tory MP'S in Holyrood which is wrong given the vote share they have in Scotland.

 

 

This is not true. In the last election they won all three seats that border England (Dumfriesshire, Galloway & West Dumfries, and Ettrick, Roxburgh & Berwickshire). They also won the Eastwood seat in Renfrewshire and Aberdeenshire West in the north east.

 

In the previous election they won Ayr too. 

6 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

The only argument against it is that political parties who we are repulsed by might get more MPs, and when you think of it that’s really not an argument against it.

Yeah I don’t buy this argument. To borrow a line from our old friend Johann Lamont we aren’t genetically programmed to vote for parties like Reform, but if enough people think their policies are a good idea then they have as much of a right to MPs as any other parties. I’d much rather argue against their policies at the ballot box than rig the system to keep them out. 

[Granny Danger]

5 minutes ago, JS_FFC said:

 

Yeah I don’t buy this argument. To borrow a line from our old friend Johann Lamont we aren’t genetically programmed to vote for parties like Reform, but if enough people think their policies are a good idea then they have as much of a right to MPs as any other parties. I’d much rather argue against their policies at the ballot box than rig the system to keep them out. 

You really need to learn to read!

[Jacksgranda]

14 hours ago, tamthebam said:

I don't know about contemporary historians but some might say there is a contemptuous historian on here... 

[JS_FFC]

2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

You really need to learn to read!

I was agreeing with you 

[Granny Danger]

Just now, JS_FFC said:

I was agreeing with you 

OK, but your opening line was ‘I don’t buy this argument’.  Maybe you need to be clearer about which argument you’re not buying.

 

[JS_FFC]

3 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

OK, but your opening line was ‘I don’t buy this argument’.  Maybe you need to be clearer about which argument you’re not buying.

 

Sorry. The argument I don’t buy is the “we shouldn’t have PR because it lets extremists in” argument. 

[SandyCromarty]

29 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

The only argument against it is that political parties who we are repulsed by might get more MPs, and when you think of it that’s really not an argument against it.

The biggest criticism is that it can lead to multi parties with no outright majority, which does happen.

Consider what I mentioned earlier where the tories would not be represented at Holyrood on a first past the post system, and the SNP would have a huge majority and virtually unopposed, not a healthy democratic situation. As it is with PR the SNP are a minority Government.

[Wee-Bey]

I think something similar to what we have at Holyrood could work at Westminster. Constituency MPs with a list vote.

Would need to be part of a wider overhaul of the entire hollowed out, rotting system though.

[Salvo Montalbano]

23 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

I know that a Labour Conference voted for PR recently, but Starmer was never enthusiastic on it.  Given the stonking majority that FPTP has just given him on 36% of 60%, I can't see his attitude changing.

In a move that shocked nobody, not least contemporary historians, Starmer said quite recently (a week or so before the election) that he was in favour of FPTP. 

[JS_FFC]

9 minutes ago, SandyCromarty said:

The biggest criticism is that it can lead to multi parties with no outright majority, which does happen.

Consider what I mentioned earlier where the tories would not be represented at Holyrood on a first past the post system, and the SNP would have a huge majority and virtually unopposed, not a healthy democratic situation. As it is with PR the SNP are a minority Government.

Again, not a valid argument imo. In Thursdays election Labour gained absolute power on 1/3 of the vote. Last time the Tories got absolute power on about 40% of the vote.

I don’t think you should be able to have a majority government unless a majority of voters actually choose you.

Coalitions and minority governments are not something to be feared. 

5 minutes ago, Cheese said:

I think something similar to what we have at Holyrood could work at Westminster. Constituency MPs with a list vote.

Would need to be part of a wider overhaul of the entire hollowed out, rotting system though.

I prefer the single transferable vote system which we use in council elections and it used widely throughout Ireland. The problem with our additional members system is that you have two classes of MSP and bad politicians who are kicked out by their voters can sneak back in through the list. 
 

Replace the 650 constituencies with 130 giant constituencies each sending 5 MPs to Westminster imo. 

[coprolite]

All ballot papers should have a basic primary school level question to test reasoning ability. 

Anyone who gets it wrong gets their vote binned. 

Democracy solved. You're welcome. 

[Wee-Bey]

2 minutes ago, coprolite said:

All ballot papers should have a basic primary school level question to test reasoning ability. 

Anyone who gets it wrong gets their vote binned. 

Democracy solved. You're welcome. 

We would need this for the candidates also.

[coprolite]

1 minute ago, Cheese said:

We would need this for the candidates also.

They might need easier questions. Maybe a colouring in?