Our campaign for democratic reform is rising from the grassroots and reaching the people in power. Here are the top lines and stories from the UK, Parliament and trade unions.
In the UK
The latest YouGov poll, released on 28th October, shows the chaos that will be caused by retaining the First Past the Post system as voters continue the shift away from two party politics and vote for multiple parties.
Darren Hughes, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society asks how can we hold parties to account when the system doesn’t respond?
He said:
“Look at what’s happening to Labour now. The party is losing voters to its left, to the Greens, to smaller progressive parties, to those who want bolder climate action and more equal economics. In a healthy democracy, that would be a clear signal: Labour’s voters wants a more progressive direction.
But under First Past the Post, those shifts don’t pull politics leftward, they tilt it the other way. Split votes on the left hand more seats to the right. The system punishes diversity of opinion and rewards tactical silence.”
In Parliament
We await the publication of the Elections Bill, meanwhile the House of Commons Library has published a series of briefings that cover voting age, recall elections and intimidation of candidates and voters – giving us clues about some of the potential content.
You can find out more about the Government’s intentions by reading their policy paper, Restoring trust in our democracy: Our strategy for modern and secure elections
In this era of disinformation protecting the integrity of our elections has never been more urgent. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections has been looking at how to clean up political campaigning and advertising.
Check to see if your MP is a member and if not, please drop them a line to encourage them to join.
In Unions
CWU held a successful political forum ‘to consider and recommend its position on electoral reform’. The session was held as an open debate with Professor Rob Ford speaking in favour of proportional representation (PR) and Gautam Kambhampati from Labour for the Constitution advocating for First Past The Post.
Contributions from the floor were mainly in favour of PR and members were reassured to hear that you could have PR and maintain the constituency link with your MP.
In his blog for Politics for the Many, Ed Baldwin, political lead for CWU South East region, argues that PR would give workers more power and help secure workers’ rights for a generation, not just one term
CWU will vote on whether to support electoral reform at their conference in May.
Our motions for trade unions to take to their Branches includes our call for an independent national commission for electoral reform. We are especially keen for unions who do not yet have policy to consider supporting our campaign for fair elections. If you want help with background information, speeches or organising then we’d be happy to help. Just drop us a line at [email protected]