this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
29 points (100.0% liked)

UK Politics

73 readers
1 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Lib Dem leader says people lending their votes to rival parties could shut the door on Conservatives at Westminster for years to come

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is extremely sad that we have to resort to using up our one chance in every five years to say what we don't want from the country's political parties. I would much rather use it on saying what would be good for the British people and not who would be bad. We have polls to verify what we do want, and yet we never get that opinion across to the people who are running for office. The idea that Starmer is holding the Labour to ransom over the fear of not removing the Tories is an abuse.

We need a PR voting system to stop the crazy that has been allowed into government. This idea that PR voting would allow the far right in is redundant. We are currently enduring a government that is being compared to the Nazi's. A comparison with a lot of credibility. Our rights have been stripped away. They have a loud voice within the party that really wants to remove us from the ECHR. Good luck striking when that happens. Tolpuddle martyrs mark two inbound.

There is the idea that it would stop us choosing our local MP; this is ludicrous. Parachuting MPs into safe seats is a fairly familiar occurrence. A lot of the time you don't get to choose your own candidate. There is an abundance of MPs who are neither local nor chosen by their own area. FPTP gives rise to a brand of placeholder MPs, who are in office purely to vote the partyline. Sometimes it is the thicker the better as it allows government legislation to be passed without hinderance. Having thick MPs who have no other priority than to keep themselves in a job is what kept Johnson in for so long.

The only good point for FPTP, imo, is that it is simple, but that simplicity just leaves it wide open to abuse.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Germany's version of PR keeps local MPs

[–] theinspectorst@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The UK's versions of PR do too. We literally have in the UK right now:

  • STV elections for the Northern Irish assembly and Scottish local government; and

  • AV+ elections for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

Both are ways of delivering proportionality and geographic representation at the same time (though STV is vastly superior - AV+ delivers proportionality by having two categories of representatives, whereas STV has both features incorporated into a single system).

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Agreed. Yeah AV+ is essentially what the Germans have too

[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not sure Mixed Member PR and AV are that close to be honest....

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oh I might just be confusing them