Emma Best is a London-wide member of the London Assembly.
The Conservative Party is at risk of making a historic error. While the melodrama of the last year has left the party preoccupied with avoiding defeat at the next election, it is failing to grapple with an issue that could determine its fortunes far beyond 2024: the end of First Past the Post (FPTP).
Proportional representation (PR) will likely happen in our lifetime. But the way the electoral math is forming ahead of the next election it could be far sooner than we anticipate.
Despite Sir Keir Starmer’s double-digit lead in the polls, few imagine he is cantering to a repeat of the 1997 landslide. He lacks the charisma of Tony Blair, and his lead is more in protest at the last year of turmoil than voters wanting a Labour government.
One of the laws of politics is that polls narrow as a general election nears, and as the Conservatives govern focused on improving the economy, the electoral pendulum will start to swing back.
That will greatly increase the chances of a hung parliament in which Starmer’s only way to Number 10, should Labour emerge as the largest party, is via an electoral pact where the price exacted by smaller parties would be proportional representation.
The Conservative Party needs to be prepared for that scenario and have a sensible solution of its own to offer. If not, the danger is that electoral reform will happen in a left-wing silo, resulting in a new system fundamentally built to lock us out.
The current lack of engagement with this prospect is not only a strategic error but also one at stark variance with the Party’s history. For two centuries, the Conservatives led the way on, and then thrived after, the major reforms to our electoral system, be it the second Great Reform Act (spearheaded by Disraeli in 1867) or the 1928 Equal Franchise Act (delivered under Stanley Baldwin), which gave all women the vote.
In more recent times, after the first 1974 election saw the travesty of Labour securing more seats with fewer votes than the Conservatives, the party had sizeable caucus backing a move to a proportional electoral system that included cabinet figures such as Douglas Hurd and Sir Peter Bottomley.
As well as breaking with Conservatism’s historical stance, the party’s abstention from the debate around electoral reform is also at odds that traditional Tory strength: pragmatism. The Conservative ability to adapt to political realities is a crucial component of what has made us the most successful political party on the planet. We urgently need to locate it again in this debate.
The prospect of electoral reform arises not only from a specter of a left-wing coalition but support for it is also rising in the country. Last year, the British Social Attitudes Survey recorded public support for a move to PR had risen to over 50 per cent for the first time since it began in 1983.
It is also a mistake to view PR as a merely looming disaster for the Conservatives. This is often the default view in the party – but it is not grounded in the evidence.
Firstly, we should be confident in our party and its record. People don’t vote Conservative purely due to a lack of choice enforced by the current voting system; they do so because of our philosophy, common-sense values, and the record of successive Conservative governments.
This is why when we have fought under PR systems across the UK, the Conservative Party has thrived and exceeded expectations.
Take London. It is often billed as a Labour city, yet on the Greater London Assembly I am one of nine Conservatives to just 11 Labour members.
Likewise, in Scotland after 1997, when we lost all of our Scottish MPs, the consensus was that Conservatism was extinct north of the border. But under the leadership of Ruth Davidson we became the second largest party, beating Labour into third place under the respective proportional systems in the Scottish parliamentary and local elections.
Yes, a more proportional system at Westminster, such as the Additional Member System (AMS) used in Scotland and Wales, would leave more room for Labour and smaller parties to try and come into our heartlands, but it would also allow us the same opportunity in theirs. It would be an opportunity to reach millions of new prospective Conservative voters and have conversations we have never had before.
Competition is a virtue we extol in all other areas of British life, so it is a strange omission that we do not see its benefits in our political system?
I understand that as a proponent of PR I am in a minority in my party. Nor am I labouring under the illusion that this piece will instantly sway the majority of members to the cause.
However, I am deeply concerned that we do not have a thought-out or well-argued position on what could be the most significant change to our political system in recent memory. PR is likely coming, and it we need to engage so that it happens in a conservative way that runs with the grain of our political traditions.
If so, it is a debate we can and should face confidently, as we have throughout our history – not try to hide away from.
Tories should be confident in the wide appeal of our values and work to ensure we build an electoral system that is fair and represents what the country wants. Let’s be confident that, more often that not, that will be, as it has been in the past, Conservative government.
Emma Best is a London-wide member of the London Assembly.
The Conservative Party is at risk of making a historic error. While the melodrama of the last year has left the party preoccupied with avoiding defeat at the next election, it is failing to grapple with an issue that could determine its fortunes far beyond 2024: the end of First Past the Post (FPTP).
Proportional representation (PR) will likely happen in our lifetime. But the way the electoral math is forming ahead of the next election it could be far sooner than we anticipate.
Despite Sir Keir Starmer’s double-digit lead in the polls, few imagine he is cantering to a repeat of the 1997 landslide. He lacks the charisma of Tony Blair, and his lead is more in protest at the last year of turmoil than voters wanting a Labour government.
One of the laws of politics is that polls narrow as a general election nears, and as the Conservatives govern focused on improving the economy, the electoral pendulum will start to swing back.
That will greatly increase the chances of a hung parliament in which Starmer’s only way to Number 10, should Labour emerge as the largest party, is via an electoral pact where the price exacted by smaller parties would be proportional representation.
The Conservative Party needs to be prepared for that scenario and have a sensible solution of its own to offer. If not, the danger is that electoral reform will happen in a left-wing silo, resulting in a new system fundamentally built to lock us out.
The current lack of engagement with this prospect is not only a strategic error but also one at stark variance with the Party’s history. For two centuries, the Conservatives led the way on, and then thrived after, the major reforms to our electoral system, be it the second Great Reform Act (spearheaded by Disraeli in 1867) or the 1928 Equal Franchise Act (delivered under Stanley Baldwin), which gave all women the vote.
In more recent times, after the first 1974 election saw the travesty of Labour securing more seats with fewer votes than the Conservatives, the party had sizeable caucus backing a move to a proportional electoral system that included cabinet figures such as Douglas Hurd and Sir Peter Bottomley.
As well as breaking with Conservatism’s historical stance, the party’s abstention from the debate around electoral reform is also at odds that traditional Tory strength: pragmatism. The Conservative ability to adapt to political realities is a crucial component of what has made us the most successful political party on the planet. We urgently need to locate it again in this debate.
The prospect of electoral reform arises not only from a specter of a left-wing coalition but support for it is also rising in the country. Last year, the British Social Attitudes Survey recorded public support for a move to PR had risen to over 50 per cent for the first time since it began in 1983.
It is also a mistake to view PR as a merely looming disaster for the Conservatives. This is often the default view in the party – but it is not grounded in the evidence.
Firstly, we should be confident in our party and its record. People don’t vote Conservative purely due to a lack of choice enforced by the current voting system; they do so because of our philosophy, common-sense values, and the record of successive Conservative governments.
This is why when we have fought under PR systems across the UK, the Conservative Party has thrived and exceeded expectations.
Take London. It is often billed as a Labour city, yet on the Greater London Assembly I am one of nine Conservatives to just 11 Labour members.
Likewise, in Scotland after 1997, when we lost all of our Scottish MPs, the consensus was that Conservatism was extinct north of the border. But under the leadership of Ruth Davidson we became the second largest party, beating Labour into third place under the respective proportional systems in the Scottish parliamentary and local elections.
Yes, a more proportional system at Westminster, such as the Additional Member System (AMS) used in Scotland and Wales, would leave more room for Labour and smaller parties to try and come into our heartlands, but it would also allow us the same opportunity in theirs. It would be an opportunity to reach millions of new prospective Conservative voters and have conversations we have never had before.
Competition is a virtue we extol in all other areas of British life, so it is a strange omission that we do not see its benefits in our political system?
I understand that as a proponent of PR I am in a minority in my party. Nor am I labouring under the illusion that this piece will instantly sway the majority of members to the cause.
However, I am deeply concerned that we do not have a thought-out or well-argued position on what could be the most significant change to our political system in recent memory. PR is likely coming, and it we need to engage so that it happens in a conservative way that runs with the grain of our political traditions.
If so, it is a debate we can and should face confidently, as we have throughout our history – not try to hide away from.
Tories should be confident in the wide appeal of our values and work to ensure we build an electoral system that is fair and represents what the country wants. Let’s be confident that, more often that not, that will be, as it has been in the past, Conservative government.