When Labour was obliged to introduce proportional representation for elections to the European parliament, Jack Straw chose the most unattractive system he could find. He did not want the idea catching on and fuelling demands for PR in Westminster elections.
He chose the D’Hondt method because it denies voters the ability to choose between different candidates from the same party and, crucially for the argument of this post, does not allow votes to be transferred between parties.
A tweet from Nick Reeves explains the implications of this for the Liberal Democrats:
I am a Tigger sceptic, but if we want to maximise the number of pro-EU MEPs elected then we need to have a joint list with the Independent G and to bring in the Greens in too.D'Hondt is roughly proportional, but in a 6 seat constituency if a party gets 20% it should get an MEP elected, if its gets 10% it almost certainly won't. Now imagine three Remain parties all getting around 8-12%— Nick Reeves #FinalSayForAll #FBPE (@nickreeves9876) April 13, 2019
Parties can’t deliver their voters en bloc – and I can imagine some Greens declining to vote for a list that features Tiggers who used to be Conservatives – but I expect such a list would largely unite Remain voters.
But it’s not going to happen.
There Euro elections represent the Tiggers one chance of establishing themselves as a national force and being treated as such by the media.
In their ideal world, remember, they would not form a pact with the Liberal Democrats but replace us.
I don’t expect the Tiggers to do particualarly well in the Euro elections, but they certainly have to give them a go.
Sadly, I do expect them to do well enough to make it harder for Lib Dem and Green candidates to get elected.
3 comments:
Would a joint list be allowed under the rules of the election? Does it have to be one party per list?
If it did happen, we might see the return of zipping! That would make for some interesting negotiations.
So Labour 'fixed it' to maintain the 2 parties to remain top dogs even in a fairer? voting system.It looks to me that some sort of arrangement is needed between the smaller parties
Please see my own blog on this topic:
keynesianliberal.blogspot.com
also posted today.
I feel very strongly that, despite the problems, we should pull out all the stops to put together a "Remain" list, comprising Liberal Democrat, Green and Tigger candidates, but under the one Remain label
The scheme I outline is absurdly generous o the Tiggers, but they are "flavour of the month" (just as the Alliance was for a while in the 80s), and we shouldn't let pride get in the way of this opportunity, for this one election (if it takes place) only
Do please look at keynesianliberal.blogspot.com and use any influence you have to get our HQ to get cracking on this. We have ten days before nomination day for lists to be handed in.
Post a Comment