Should British Elections Use Proportional Representation?

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Should British General Elections be conducted using a system of Proportional Representation? As the results came in for the 2010 election, it became pretty clear that the First Past The Post system had failed to give us a conclusive answer as to which party should be the next to form government and, as a result, we ended up with the first coalition government since the Second World War. The circumstances that lead to the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition made people question whether it was time for Britain to reform its electoral system in time for the next election, and the term “proportional representation” became printed across the media as a way for Britain to gain a fairer voting system with fairer results. As events unfolded The Telegraph reported, just two days after the ballots had closed, that 48% of voters supported the implementation of a Proportional Representation system , which may not seem a great amount but is still a higher percentage than a first party has gained since Labour in 1966. It is also worth noting that even though the First Past the Post system allowed the Liberal Democrats to be part of government for the first time, the party remains a strong supporter of electoral reform to a system of Proportional Representation , as the Liberal Democrats have more to gain from the implementation of this system than any of the other other parties.

In this essay I will argue that British General Elections should be conducted using a system of Proportional Representation. First, I will argue that the system would be more democratic as every vote that is cast would be represented and this ...

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...s, be more representative, leading to policies that better reflect the average voter and smaller parties that actually have some influence in parliament. Voter apathy would likely decrease with a system that increased the value of every vote and my research has also concluded that many of the myths concerning the negatives of PR systems are unsubstantiated or are unlikely to apply in Britain. There are numerous Proportionally Representative democracies and numerous PR voting systems that have been developed, so Britain could choose that which would best suit it’s populace. The problem will be having to convince a government that has got in under the current system that the system needs to be changed, but given that one of the parties in power is pushing for a change , we may, if we’re lucky, be voting for a more democratic Britain come the next general election.

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