The Conservative case for proportional representation

Quite. But why should a Conservative vote count in Wales and not in Liverpool, Manchester or Sheffield?

There is, in fact, a strong Conservative case for proportional representation

The Conservatives’ reflexive opposition to electoral reform is a mistake. There is, in fact, a strong Conservative case for proportional representation, rooted not only in the interests of the party but in the principles of good government.

Conservatism, at its best, has always understood the importance of changing in order to conserve. Disraeli’s expansion of the franchise in 1867 was hardly an enthusiastic embrace of radical democracy. Rather, it reflected a recognition that Britain’s political institutions needed to adapt to the society they governed. Defending the status quo simply because it is the status quo is not conservatism; it is political laziness.

The same principle applies today. First-past-the-post was easier to defend when the overwhelming majority of voters supported either Labour or the Conservatives, but that world has disappeared. Voters are increasingly divided between Labour, the Conservatives, Reform, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and nationalist parties. Political loyalties have weakened, while the electorate has become more fragmented.

The consequences are becoming increasingly absurd. In 2024, Labour secured a landslide parliamentary majority with less than 34 per cent of the vote. Reform won more than four million votes but just five seats, while the Liberal Democrats won 72 seats with substantially fewer votes. This is not simply a question of fairness to smaller parties. It raises serious questions about how effectively our electoral system represents the country it governs.

There is also a more straightforward argument, particularly at local level: good government requires effective opposition. Councils are responsible for billions of pounds of public spending, yet in too many places the governing party faces little meaningful scrutiny. Today, 11 per cent of councils in England and Wales have a single party controlling more than 70 per cent of the seats.

This matters regardless of which party is in power. A Labour council facing little opposition is no more desirable than a Conservative one. Without credible alternatives, governing parties become complacent, councillors face less electoral pressure, and voters have fewer opportunities to punish poor performance. Conservatives, who rightly complain about unaccountable institutions elsewhere, should recognise this problem.

First-past-the-post is helping to destroy the Conservatives’ claim to be a genuinely national party.

But there is also an argument rooted in simple political self-interest. First-past-the-post is helping to destroy the Conservatives’ claim to be a genuinely national party.

Across England, 37 councils have no Conservative councillors whatsoever – roughly 12 per cent of the total. In Wales, the figure is nine out of 22, or 41 per cent. These are not merely councils where the Conservatives cannot form an administration; they are places where voters have no Conservative representation at all.

Scotland presents a striking contrast: excluding Orkney and Shetland, with their long traditions of electing independents, just one of Scotland’s remaining 30 councils has no Conservative representation.

Is this because Scottish Conservatives are uniquely brilliant campaigners? Hardly. The difference is that Scottish local elections use the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a form of proportional representation.

The importance of this becomes clearer when comparing Liverpool and Glasgow, two cities which, over the last few decades, are hardly renowned for their enthusiasm for Conservatism.

In Liverpool’s 2008 local elections, held under FPTP, the Conservatives won 8.5 per cent of the vote and secured precisely zero councillors. A year earlier, in Glasgow’s first local election under STV, the Conservatives won 7.7 per cent and elected one councillor.

One councillor might not sound particularly impressive. But it gave Glasgow Conservatives an elected representative around whom they could organise: someone to undertake casework, campaign locally, attract activists and demonstrate that voting Conservative was not entirely pointless. This meant that, by 2017 when Ruth Davidson-mania was sweeping Scotland, the Glasgow Conservatives were in a position to win eight councillors on around 15 per cent of the vote.

In Liverpool, meanwhile, the party simply atrophied. Without elected representatives, the organisation struggled to maintain its relevance, creating a vicious circle of electoral failure and organisational decline. This is the real danger of first-past-the-post for the Conservatives.

Of course, not all proportional systems are created equal. Conservatives might understandably recoil at closed party lists, under which voters choose a party while party officials determine which candidates take the seats. But there is a better alternative: STV.

Under STV, voters rank individual candidates in multi-member constituencies, rather than simply placing a cross beside one name. Scotland typically uses wards electing three or four councillors, like in England, preserving a meaningful geographical connection between representatives and voters. For general elections constituencies would need to be larger, but voters would gain several local MPs rather than just one.

More importantly, STV gives voters greater power over which candidates are elected. Under closed lists, an ambitious politician’s career can depend heavily on securing a favourable position from the party hierarchy. Under STV, candidates from the same party can compete for voters’ preferences. This could be particularly valuable for the Conservatives, with their recent history of factionalism. A centrist voter might prefer a One Nation Tory, while someone wanting a more robustly Right-wing candidate could rank the local “hang ’em and flog ’em” Conservative first. Both could appeal to their own constituencies without demanding that every Conservative voter accept the same ideological package.

There are objections, of course. Proportional representation does make coalition government more likely and could complicate the formation of stable administrations. But pretty much every other European country manages, and the supposed stability of first-past-the-post looks rather less convincing after the political turbulence of the past decade.

Nor should Conservatives assume that an electoral system is worth defending simply because it once delivered them comfortable parliamentary majorities. A system that increasingly shuts Conservatives out of the council chamber across swathes of the country is hardly serving the party’s long-term interests.

Badenoch was right when she told Welsh voters that the new electoral system meant their votes could finally count. The mistake is believing that this principle should stop at the Welsh border.

A genuinely national Conservative Party should want to represent voters in Liverpool as much as those in Surrey, Barking as much as Bromley. If it wants to conserve its place in British political life, it should be prepared to change the system through which that politics operates.