What could possibly go wrong with a system in which the number of seats is a better reflection of the votes cast?
Published 24th Oct 2026, 06:00 BST
Of the many promises made by Prime Minster Andy Burnham on the never-never of outright victory at the next general election, the chances of which seem to be diminishing by the day, is a pledge to change the voting system for Westminster to proportional representation.
With 411 seats on 33.7 per cent of the vote last time, it’s difficult to understand just why Mr Burnham is such a fanboy for PR, apart from further wrapping himself in Europeanism and a desire to be loved as Mr Reasonable Nice Guy whenever possible. What could possibly go wrong with a system in which the number of seats is a better reflection of the votes cast?
Here, the Labour Party deluded itself that a new Scottish Parliament would “kill Nationalism stone dead” and that even with PR they would continue to dominate Scottish politics for as long as they wanted. They were prepared for perpetual coalition with the Lib Dems, but such was the giddy sense of destiny in the 1997 general election campaign, and the referendum which immediately followed, that the answer to what could possibly go wrong was precisely zero.
And the outcome? Eight years after the Scottish Parliament opened for business, Labour was out of power, and the party’s reward last year after nearly 20 hard years of opposition was its worst ever Holyrood election result.
But it should be the power afforded to narrow interests which should be of the greatest concern. It is often said about British politics that power can only be won from the centre, and with few exceptions the result has been stable government for as long as any of us can remember. Yes, there have been plenty of changes, but change does not equal instability, and as much as markets, the pull of the centre brought about the correction of Liz Truss’s swift ejection.
Given a significant section of Labour is, like most of the liberal-left spectrum, in such a thrall to all things Palestinian, I would have thought the sway of small extremist parties in Israel might have given him second thoughts, although maybe it just rules out a system in which people vote only for parties, not candidates, as in next week’s Israeli general election.
Of course Mr Burnham doesn’t need to go as far as Israel for examples of either weak government or the emergence of parties he’d find distasteful, like the right-wing Alternative for Germany or Marine le Pen’s National Rally in France. And proportional representation both North and South of the Irish Border has nurtured the growth of Sinn Fein, a party which as recently as 2020 both the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic’s Garda Commissioner said was overseen by the IRA Army Council. Which, of course, Sinn Fein denied.
Under first-past-the-post there is a chance, albeit fading very quickly, that Reform could win enough seats at the next UK election to have the right to form a government, but it could just as easily find itself no further forward than 2024. Under a proportionate system, however, it would almost certainly be guaranteed significant representation and a platform for views the left finds so abhorrent. Is that really what Mr Burnham wants?
It is, however, to the example of the Green Party that the Prime Minister should look whenever he is overcome with zeal for electoral reform, both to the antisemitism now officially adopted as party policy, but also to the impact such emboldened extremism had on an SNP which built its success on being the broadest of churches under the independence banner.
Had ex-First Minister Humza Yousaf not taken one for the team and ditched the Bute House Agreement with the Greens, then the result of last year’s Scottish elections might have been very different. The collapse of the property market through unworkable heating legislation, destruction of the oil and gas industry and extreme trans ideology would have been front and centre of the campaign and the SNP held answerable. Under PR, tails repeatedly wag dogs.
As happened in the Netherlands to Geert Wilders’ Freedom party, and is happening now to the AfD in German states, and to Reform in Holyrood, parties can refuse to deal with those they don’t like, which just hands power in the opposite direction. But in contrast to the cold shoulder for Reform, there has been no similar reaction here to the Greens’ new “Zionism is racism” position, a very thin veil for promoting the eradication of Israel.
This is what PR has brought us,.
Mr Burnham should be very, very careful what he wishes for, and even more careful what he promises.