Electoral reform: Two cheers for democracy
In a legal and constitutional sense, parliament represents us all. Yet it is a shocking fact that not a single one of the 646 members of the current House of Commons was elected by the majority of their constituents. In 2005, indeed, only one MP in three even won a majority of those who actually turned out to vote. Half a century ago, in the era of high turnouts, such things were almost unheard of. In 1955, when only the two main parties contested most parliamentary seats, only 37 MPs were not elected by a majority of those voting. In the current parliament, however, the number with minority mandates has surged to 426. With the continuing rise of multi-party politics, there are few signs that this will change in 2010 or probably at any general election soon.
Figures like these are not the sole explanation of the woeful current gulf between citizens and their MPs, of course. But this growing defect of the first-past-the-post system undoubtedly contributes to the malaise. What is more, there is a practical remedy for this disconnect that could, and should, be applied to help draw constituents and their MPs back more closely together. That change is to require that no MP is elected without the support of a majority of those voting in their constituency. Such a change would not mend our politics on its own. But if we seriously want to move from the discredited old forms of politics that have shamed the current parliament to build the new politics of which the prime minister spoke yesterday, echoing the Guardian's own campaigns last year, this must be seen as an important step on the road.
To ensure that all MPs have majority mandates requires the introduction of the alternative vote system, in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference, with second preferences transferred until one candidate has more than 50% of the total vote. The AV system preserves the principle of single-member constituencies – which in spite of the expenses scandal remains a powerful and worthwhile link – while providing MPs with a richer mandate. It was for that reason that the Labour party got AV through the Commons as long ago as 1931, only to see the measure defeated by the Tories in the Lords. Not everything changes.
Gordon Brown re-embraced both AV and a referendum on the issue at the Labour conference last year. Yesterday he went a little further, putting the pledge to hold an early post-election referendum into the constitutional reform bill, to be voted on next week. This is not just an important democratic reform. It is also a reform that is deep in the DNA of British progressive politics. The renewed sense of urgency is welcome too. It is, of course, deeply frustrating that Mr Brown's conversion has come so late in the government's lifetime. Labour was, after all, committed to a referendum on a far stronger proportional alternative when it came into office in 1997. It could have done so much more to enable the construction of a fairer electoral system for the Commons when its command of the political agenda was stronger. The delay between Mr Brown's conference speech and yesterday's announcement was yet another missed opportunity.
Mr Brown has opposed electoral reform in the past. Many of his allies sit for Neanderthal Central. He routinely talks a bigger game than he plays. His embrace of AV stops well short of the fair electoral system that many prefer. There is a risk that the bill, with its new clause, may fall when the election is called, and a concern that the AV move is more an attempt to expose the Conservatives (rightly) as enemies of reform than a serious act of constitutional rebuilding. But the plain fact is that British political life would be better off with this new voting system than without it. It deserves to succeed. Two cheers for Mr Brown. As Tennyson's Ulysses puts it, something ere the end, some work of noble note, may yet be done.