Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.
The horrible consequences of calling the election too soon are multiplying. Since writing about this unforced error a fortnight ago, three more horrible things have happened.
Firstly, in the world’s most risible game of musical chairs, the Chairman of the Conservative Party was left without a seat when the music stopped.
CCHQ’s solution was to impose him on the good folk of Basildon and Billericay by means of a one person shortlist. Instead of fulfilling his role as a leading spokesman for the party, he’s now having to defend his own position instead – and doing it badly.
Also not facing rival candidates was Nigel Farage, who sprung a last-minute surprise by becoming leader of Reform UK. That too was a consequence of the premature election. If Rishi Sunak hadn’t snapped, Farage would have been in America by the autumn.
Another significant date (the 80th anniversary of D-Day) was very much a fixed point in the calendar. Indeed, we’re told that the Prime Minister’s plan to nick-off early and leave David Cameron to fill in for him at the leaders’ photoshoot was arranged well ahead of the election announcement.
In other words, the outrage would have happened anyway. Nevertheless, the worst time for it happen was in the thick of the campaign. Any other time might have given the men in grey suits a chance to do their thing.
Oh well, we are where we are… and that’s facing electoral wipe-out.
Just how complete a wipe-out depends in large part on the performance of Reform UK. The polling companies are divided. Some of them, like YouGov, have the Faragistes vying with us for second place; others, like Savanta, have them firmly in third and only just ahead of the Lib Dems.
Certainly, there’s a range of scenarios in which the right-of-centre vote is so badly split as to give the left-of-centre parties more than 80 per cent the seats. For instance, Reform could hurt us so badly that our seat total falls to double figures.
But, from their point of view, we’re such a bunch of bed-blockers that they could conceivably come second and yet only win one or two seats.
On a combined vote share of less than 40 per cent, but a near even Tory-Reform split, there are no good outcomes. A Labour majority of 300 plus with the Lib Dems as the official opposition may be a worst-case scenario, but it’s not implausible.
And that brings me to the issue of the electoral system.
When the Right is united, First-past-the-post (FPTP) works pretty well for conservatism, at least in the UK as a whole. But, at present, the Right is riven. As mentioned, there’s a very real danger that the workings of FPTP will give the centre-Left, and Labour in particular, a near monopoly of seats.
So, for the sake of fairness – and, much more importantly, effective opposition – there is on the face of it a case to be made for electoral reform.
Proportional representation (PR) has its well-known downsides, of course, but it would ensure a left-right balance in the Commons that is broadly reflective of the country as a whole. So, with Farage and Reform UK already in favour of PR, might we not see the next generation of Conservative MPs (assuming that we have any) also coming out in favour?
Despite what I’ve said, I hope not. By all means, let’s have the argument – but now is no time to go wobbly on First-past-the-post.
For a start, the last thing we need is more short-termism. The reason why we’re in the state we’re in is that successive Conservative leaders have failed to do anything that remotely resembles a properly thought-out long-term plan: not David Cameron, not Theresa May, not Boris Johnson, not Liz Truss, and not (for all his talk of having one) Sunak.
To respond to a historically-bad election result with a sudden pivot on the electoral system would only reinforce all the worst knee-jerk tendencies of the media-sickened Tory mind.
In any case, and even if the case for it was overwhelming, what could we now do to bring about electoral reform? I very much doubt that Sir Keir Starmer would use a super-majority in the Commons to get rid of his super-majority in the Commons.
There’s no denying that FPTP has its distortions. This is especially true when it comes to smaller parties whose support isn’t geographically concentrated.
Consider the 2015 general election, when the Lib Dems won eight per cent of the vote but just 1.2 per cent of the seats. UKIP’s fate was even more extreme, in return for 13 per cent of the vote – and third place – all they got was Clacton (or, to put it another way, 0.15 per cent of the seats).
That’s rough. But is it really unfair?
As Nigel Lawson once put it, to govern is to decide. If, in a democracy, the people get to choose the government, then it seems appropriate that they too make a meaningful decision. Voters, of course, are entitled to plump for a protest party – but like not voting at all or spoiling one’s ballot paper, this amounts to opting out.
It strikes me as entirely fair that such votes elect fewer MPs than those based on a grown-up choice. A free and healthy society is one that tolerates minority pursuits, but it needn’t go out of its way to indulge them.
It’s worth noting that when it to comes to the main party of opposition – which does fulfil a necessary function – FPTP is usually quite proportional. In 2019, Labour won 32 per cent of the vote and 31 per cent of the seats; in 2017 the corresponding figures were 40 per cent and 40 per cent; in 2015, 30 per cent and 36 per cent.
Conservative oppositions haven’t always fared as well: for instance, we won 31 per cent of votes and 25 per cent of seats in 1997. That is not, however, such a big discrepancy, and it would have been smaller with more equally-sized constituencies (which FPTP in no way precludes).
If, on 4 July, we end up with about a quarter of the vote and around 150 seats, that would an objectively terrible result for us – but not a wildly disproportionate one.
Admittedly, the outcome in seats could be much, much worse than that. As mentioned, the Conservative and Reform parties could end up cancelling each other out, leaving the next Parliament with very few right-of-centre MPs.
But such a freak result would be the consequence of a freak set of causes, including the extraordinarily poor judgement of the last three prime ministers. Johnson, Truss and Sunak all decided to ignore the mandate of 2019 – and paid the price. If we do end up with a rump parliamentary party, then the thrashing will be thoroughly deserved.
Farage correctly points out that his party is not to blame for the last five years. Indeed, his people stood aside in 2019 to give the Conservatives every chance to take back control. The wasting of millions of Reform votes this year would, therefore, be regrettable.
Except it’s not as if they’ll have no effect. Like those who once voted for UKIP and then the Brexit Party, Reform supporters are voting to make a point – and the more extreme the result produced by the workings of the electoral system, the more the point will be hammered home.
For British conservatism it will be a lesson that is still remembered a hundred years hence. Our own party will either have to undergo root-and-branch reform or be replaced by a new political movement.
Either way, the ramifications will be more significant than electing a handful of Reform MPs to talk rubbish about climate change. It would be a protest vote for the ages – and one whose impact is more likely to be magnified by the electoral system than smothered by it.
This is why we should treasure first-past-the-post. It is an arrangement under which failure has consequences. As conservatives, this is a principle we ought always to uphold and apply throughout the public realm. We’d be in a much better position if we had.