[Based on text from ChatGPT]
1. 2024 was a warning we cannot ignore
Independent bodies like the House of Commons Library, the Electoral Commission, the Electoral Reform Society, and various academic centres all agree: the 2024 election produced an exceptionally distorted translation of votes into seats.Make Votes Matter+4House of Commons Library+4Research Briefings+4
When:
- One party wins around two-thirds of the seats on about one-third of the vote, and
- Other parties win millions of votes for only a handful of MPs, and
- Some local MPs are chosen by barely one in seven registered voters,
we have a serious legitimacy problem – regardless of who governs.
2. Public trust and turnout are at stake
When people see that:
- Their preferred party can win millions of votes and almost no representation, while
- Others can win a “landslide” on historically low support,
they understandably ask: “Why bother?”
If we go into the next election with exactly the same rules, in an even more fragmented landscape, we risk:
- Lower turnout
- Greater disillusionment
- The further rise of parties whose principal message is, “the system is rigged”
PV won’t fix every problem in politics. But it will ensure that every MP has a genuine local majority mandate and that fewer votes feel pointless.
3. Reform is realistic within the available time
Redrawing the entire electoral system around proportional representation (e.g. STV or MMP) would be a major, complex constitutional project.
By contrast, moving from FPTP to PV for single-member, single-round elections is a manageable reform:
- It uses the same constituencies and broadly similar ballots.
- It mainly requires changes to the counting rules, training, and voter education.
- It can be legislated and implemented during a single Parliament if there is political will.
Given the time pressure before 2029 (or an earlier election), PV is the most credible, meaningful reform we can reasonably deliver in time.
Conclusion: A modest change with major democratic benefits
Switching from First Past the Post to Preferential Voting (optional ranking) before the next General Election would:
- Guarantee that every MP is backed by a real local majority
- Let people vote for who they actually want without fear of “splitting the vote”
- Reduce the chances of extreme or widely disliked candidates winning on slivers of support
- Reward candidates who can build consensus, not just fire up their base
- Keep the familiar one MP per constituency, one election day structure that people understand
In a country where trust in politics is fragile, and where 2024 has already been labelled our least representative election in modern times, we cannot afford to run the next contest under rules that systematically distort the public’s will.
Preferential Voting is not a radical experiment. It is a practical upgrade: one that honours the principle that in each community, the MP should be the candidate that most people can live with – not merely the one who happened to come first in a fractured race.
That is the minimum standard a mature democracy should expect of its electoral system. And it is a standard the UK can still meet – if we choose to change the rules before the next election.