July 2024 General Election: Our dodgy Victorian Voting System strikes again!
The following are vote and seat share figures for the 2024 General Election based on those published by the BBC:-
| Party | % Votes won | % Seats taken |
|---|---|---|
| Labour | 33.7% | 63.4% |
| Conservative | 23.7% | 18.6% |
| Reform UK | 14.3% | 0.8% |
| Liberal Democrat | 12.2% | 11.1% |
| Green | 6.7% | 0.6% |
| Scottish Nationalist | 2.5% | 1.4% |
| Plaid Cymru | 0.7% | 0.6% |
| Others | 6.2% | 3.5% |
A child of 10 could see that the figures in the second column do not tally with those in the first column
Thanks to our undemocratic voting system, British voters have been lumbered with a Labour Party Supermajority that two thirds of voters did not vote for.
Specifically:
- The Labour Party took 63.4% of the seats even though they had won only 33.7% of the vote;
- The Conservatives were slightly under-represented, with 18.6% of the seats to show for 23.7% of the vote;
- Reform UK were third in terms of votes won but had only 0.8% of the seats to show for their 14.3% of the vote; the Liberal Democrats polled fewer votes than Reform UK but took far more seats;
- The Green Party had just 0.6% of the seats to show for their 6.7% of the poll.
Our current Victorian “First-past-the-post” voting system is an undemocratic and inefficient apparatus which wastes most of the votes fed into it. The system then produces a distorted result with the remainder courtesy of X voting in 650 single member constituencies, which allows a candidate to win a seat with a minority of the vote. It would in theory be possible for First-past-the-post to enable one party to take every single seat in the House of Commons on a minority of the vote. Arguably the Labour Party were well on their way to achieving this on 4th July 2024.
It has to be said that, while the 30% disparity between seats taken and votes won is bad enough for a Westminster election, such electoral injustices are commonplace in local government; for example. in 2022, Labour took all the seats in the London Borough of Lewisham with just 52% of the vote, a 48% disparity.
Was this General Election result a one-off? As the table of previous results below shows, with the worst disparities highlighted, the First-past-the-post voting system has been producing distorted results for years:-
Clearly, our antiquated “First-past-the-post” voting system is not fit for purpose. Signing away your democratic rights with the mark of illiteracy in single member constituencies enables MPs to be elected on a minority of the constituency vote. In this election, 85% of MPs were so elected in July 2024. This means that the votes of millions of citizens will have counted for nothing. Moreover, seats won by a party do not necessarily reflect the level of support for that party, nor are outcomes consistent or certain; votes can determine the result of an election according to where they are cast, not for whom they are cast.
First-past-the-post is knackered and has been malfunctioning for decades. This time, however, the system has misbehaved quite spectacularly, catapulting a party out of political obscurity into an unassailable position of power, even though they do not enjoy the support of two thirds of those who voted.
There is no rhyme or reason to First-past-the-post. You might as well throw dice. But why is this, exactly? These web pages take you through the mechanical deficiencies of First-past-the-post and show how a new way of voting would up-rate the efficiency of our voting apparatus.
