A choice of possible legacies for Starmer

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There is a lot not to like about the new voting system which will be used for the Senedd elections next year. Whilst most seem to object to the idea of voting for parties rather than individuals, I tend to see that as little more than validation of what already happens: people tend to vote for parties not individuals, even if individual candidates prefer to believe that their ‘personal’ vote is a bigger factor than it is in practice. I've been there myself. The bigger issue for me is that, effectively, only first votes count – votes cast for any party which does not win enough votes to gain a seat are effectively worthless. It is simply not true, as proponents of the system claim, that it means that ‘every vote counts’. Like many others, I would prefer a system of STV, which overcomes both of those objections.

As systems go, however, it’s still better than the one we use for Westminster elections. At the last election, Labour gained absolute power and almost two-thirds of the seats. This is described as an overwhelming victory, despite Labour receiving only a little over one third of the vote. Latest opinion polls (and there’s a lot which can change in the interim, including a high probability of a Farage-led implosion) suggest that it’s a trick which might be repeated by Reform Ltd at the next election. It would, again, be described as a huge victory. Opinion polls for the Senedd suggest a similar level of performance by Reform Ltd in terms of votes which, translated into seats, might even make them the largest party – but they would be a very long way short of a majority. And given that their only conceivable coalition partner is the Tories, there is a vanishingly small probability that they will get anywhere near forming a government. Some have talked about how excluding the ‘winners’ from government is somehow undemocratic, but the problem is with language not democracy. A party which can only win around one third of the vote and cannot find one or more coalition partners to get it up to 50% of the membership of the Senedd hasn’t ‘won’ the election, even if it has more votes than any other party. The only thing they’ve ‘won’ is a few seats, the same as any other party represented in the Senedd. Generations of dealing with a system based on first past the post has led us to a degree of confusion about what ‘winning’ means, and we need to recalibrate our language. The ‘winners’ of an election held under a system of proportional representation are those who end up with enough partners close enough in outlook to them to be able to form a government.

There should be a lesson there for Westminster parties (and most especially Labour) in that first past the post may well gift absolute power to Farage and Reform Ltd, but a system of proportional representation would be likely to lead to a very different outcome. As Polly Toynbee pointed out in Monday’s Guardian, based on current polling Sir Starmer has a choice of legacy: he could be the man who reformed the UK’s electoral system or he could be the man who gifted the UK to Farage. The omens are not good. Not just because this is not a man who never seems particularly enamoured with the idea of changing very much at all, but because he also seems to belong to that strand of thought which has long dominated the Labour Party which would prefer to exercise absolute power occasionally (leaving the Tories or even Reform Ltd to hold similarly absolute power the rest of the time) than share power almost continuously. Choosing between enabling Farage and blocking him ought to be what is jokingly called a no-brainer, but Sir Starmer seems likely to make it literally so, by avoiding the engagement of a single neuron in the process.