Our democracy is lost at sea. As the political landscape changes at a rapid pace, Britain\u2019s voting system needs to reflect the ever changing views of the British electorate. In modern political times, voting is like supermarkets, voters shop around to find the best deal rather than vote for one party all their lives. The two horse race days are well and truly over. For too long now, the views of a large chunk of the British electorate has been brushed aside and thrown into the political wilderness, as if they are completely meaningless because of a voting system stuck in Victorian times. The media is changing, smaller parties now have a foothold in terms of media representation. But ultimately no matter how many how many interviews they get on TV, how many positive newspaper articles are writing about them, they will ultimately fall victim to first past the post voting system. A system designed to stomp them down. Take UKIP as an example, 1 in 8 voters opted to vote for them at the 2015 General election. How many seats did they win? \u00a040? 50? No. 1 seat.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest failures of first past the post is the draining of voter turnout in many, many constituencies all over the UK due to \u201csafe seats\u201d. Safe seats are eroding our democracy. City by city, town by town. That\u2019s not the fault of the voters. What\u2019s the point of trekking all the way to the polling station on a bitter day in May to vote in a constituency where the incumbent party has a majority of 50%? The fact that politicians use safe seats for political gain highlights the sheer rottenness of our current political system in Britain. From Sefton to South Camberwell lie years of voter disenfranchisement, poor turnouts and contests that have been won before the election campaign had even begun. Like a drunken alcoholic, first past the post returns every 5 years to remind voters in these seats that they are powerless to make change. Some may argue that safe seats are justified as they reflect the mood of the constituency as a whole. However, there is one major flaw with this argument. The word \u201csafe\u201d doesn\u2019t belong in modern day democracy. Everything in a democratic Britain should be fiercely contested, everyone and everything should always be scrutinised at every opportunity as well as having voter engagement at the heart of everything. Because of safe seats, there has been a surge in political parties parachuting candidates into seats they may have little knowledge of or a lack of understanding of the culture these constituencies boast. This is irrelevant to political parties. They can still win the seat, and that\u2019s all that matters. This vacancy style of politics ultimately threatens the relationship between MP\u2019s and constituents, are local people really expected to trust someone who until recently lived hundreds of miles away?<\/p>\n
There has been a long standing myth that first past the post creates stable government this argument is often used by those who want to preserve the status quo, primarily for their benefit. In fairness, 5 out of 7 elections that have occurred in the past 25 years have resulted in a majority government. However, this just highlights one of first past the posts greatest flaw, allowing a party to win a majority of seats in parliament without winning a majority of votes. Majority governments themselves don\u2019t necessarily mean stable government either. How could anyone consider a majority of 12 seats in a parliament made up of 650 seats to be stable? This myth has been busted in recent times as the current UK government has split on the issue of Brexit, which was ultimately due to the fact 65% of conservative MP\u2019s supported Britain remaining in the EU. Research shows that countries that use a proportional voting method have better government and far more effective government policies. This is because a Proportional system will often create minority or coalition governments which mean that politicians have to work together and comprise to make positive change for the benefit of all. Whereas in the UK, politicians still choose to participate in a playground style of politics. Stuck in a world of tribalism and point scoring. Is it any wonder so many people in the UK are disengaged with the politician system? The abolition of first past the post would bring us a step closer to a more progressive type of politics, that focuses on what we have in common rather than what divides us.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the strongest case for abolition of first past the post is the fact that general election after general election, decade after decade first past the post has delivered results which do not represent the real political landscape of the UK. An example would be the 1983 General election which saw the SPD\/Liberal alliance win 25% of votes but only capturing 23 seats in the House of Commons. This shows the outright ignorance of the voting system and its inability to represent voters. This leads to the question, is there really a point in voting? For many in the UK voting in a general election is like screaming in the Sahara desert. You know you\u2019re doing it, but nobody can hear you. This was certainly the case for 24.3% of voters who opted for the Green Party, liberal democrats or UKIP at the 2015 general election as that loud scream resulted in just 10 seats between the 3 parties.<\/p>\n
Our democracy is lost at sea. If we can\u2019t put our values and our principals into our vote and for it to really count, we have no political compass. That\u2019s why we need to abolish the first past the post voting system and replace it with a system that means every vote will count, in every single part of the UK. If Britain\u2019s voting system isn\u2019t reformed, democracy will continue on a downward spiral and eventually mean nothing to many people across the UK. Let\u2019s embrace democracy. Let\u2019s make every vote count. Let\u2019s throw democracy a life raft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Michael Rennie is an S6 student who had been active in politics since he was 13. He was involved in writing the Youth Manifesto for the 2017 Council elections for his constituency<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Michael Rennie Our democracy is lost at sea. As the political landscape changes at a rapid pace, Britain\u2019s voting system needs to reflect the ever changing views of the British electorate. In modern political times, voting is like supermarkets, voters shop around to find the best deal rather than vote for one party all their lives. The two horse race days are well and truly over. For too long now, the views of a large chunk of the British electorate has been brushed aside and thrown into the political wilderness, as if they are completely meaningless because of a voting system stuck in VictorianRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1901,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}