electoral reform and the minor parties
Since 1997 there has been substantial electoral reform in Britain - although the system for electing Members of Parliament to Westminster (the First Past The Post system) remains firmly in place with little prospect of change before the next General Election. FPTP is still the system in operation for elections to County Councils and Unitary Authorities at local government level.
However in the last few years we have seen
(a) the introduction of the Additional Member System (AMS) for elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly
(b) the use of Alternative Vote to elect the London Mayor
(c) the introduction of a regional closed party list system for direct elections to the European Parliament
(d) the use of Single Transferable Vote (STV) for electing representatives to the new Northern Ireland Assembly
How have these new systems affected Britain's minority parties?
The most enthusiastic supporters of electoral reform are normally those parties who claim to be disadvantaged by the current system. The Liberal Democrats (and formerly the SDP and Liberals) have been consistent in wanting to ditch First Past The Post and replace it with a new electoral system. They argue that the simple majority system leads to under-representation of smaller parties whose vote is fairly evenly spread across the country but insufficient to win many seats against the leading two parties, Labour and the Conservatives.
Case Study 1: Scottish Parliament Elections and Welsh Assembly Elections in 1999
The elections to the newly established Scottish parliament were held in May 1999 using the Additional Member System. Under AMS, the existing 73 Scottish "Westminster" constituencies were fought using FPTP. A further 54 seats were allocated using a top-up procedure.
Each region of Scotland was allocated a number of top-up seats, distributed among parties by use of the "highest-average" calculation. Voters had cast a second vote for a political party. These second votes were counted and then allocated to parties on the basis of the highest average vote. But parties that had won seats under the FPTP elections started off with a higher divider - so that parties with no or few seats under FPTP were more likely to win the top-up seats.
The final result in Scotland demonstrated how electoral reform benefits parties with little hope of significant representation under FPTP. Labour secured fifty-three seats under FPTP and would have earned a decisive majority in the new Scottish Parliament had only FPTP been used. The Liberal Democrats came second with twelve seats and the SNP gained seven. The Conservatives made no headway at all under FPTP.
But the top-up procedure gave them eighteen seats (14% of the total available seats) whilst the SNP did even better with twenty-eight extra MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) and five extra for the Liberal Democrats. The Green Party was also able to secure one seat in the new Parliament.
The net result was that Labour failed to win an overall majority and had to enter into a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.
In Wales, 40 seats were determined using FPTP and another 20 seats were allocated using the top-up formula. Under FPTP, Labour won 27 seats, the Welsh Nationalists Plaid Cymru gained 9 seats, the Liberal Democrats 3 and the Conservatives just a solitary seat.
The top-up allocation provided Labour with just one more seat. And the eight extra seats for both Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives together with another 3 seats for the Liberal Democrats was sufficient, as in Scotland, to stop Labour short of a ruling majority in the Welsh Assembly.
The impact of new electoral arrangements for these devolved institutions has had a major effect on the nature of politics in Scotland and Wales. Under FPTP, Labour would have won easy victories with large majorities. The Additional Member System created a new electoral landscape and a move towards coalition politics.
Case Study 2: European Parliament Elections 1999
The 1999 European Parliament elections were the first to be held under a regional closed party list system. The "closed" aspect of the list system was criticised by many commentators at the time. It gives huge power to political parties in determining which candidates appear on the list and the position on the list that they occupy. Voters could only cast one vote for a party - they could not express preferences between candidates. And, there was no provision for candidates within a party list to move up and down the list depending on their popularity with the voter.
In fact, the turnout throughout Britain was only 23% - a pathetically low figure and testimony to the lack of engagement that voters felt with the whole process of sending representatives to the European Parliament.
How did the party list system impact on smaller parties? Conservatives and Labour once again dominated the final allocation of seats. Together they won 65 seats. But in 1999, the Liberal Democrats won 10 seats (their previous best performance in 1994 was just 2 seats) and the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru each won a brace of seats. The Greens also secured two seats and the UK Independence Party went one better.The effect was that seats were allocated in much closer proportion to votes.
It is clear from these two case studies that electoral reform tends to favour smaller political parties who have little hope of making headway under First Past The Post. These are real results from real elections. The Liberal Democrats have gained a share of power in Scotland. Greens have achieved election to the European Parliament. The Nationalists have done well (although their concentrated support has helped them in FPTP elections to Westminster).
Perhaps the greatest impact has been for the Conservatives. In the 1997 General Election, the Conservatives failed to win a single seat in Scotland or Wales. They won only one seat in the June 2001 General Election. At least with the introduction of the Additional Member System, they now have a meaningful representation in Scotland and Wales. Given that FPTP is systemically biased against them, perhaps support for reform to Westminster elections might gradually increase as we head towards a General Election in 2005 or 2006.
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