Nothing separates the Scottish and Westminster systems more than their voting systems. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it’s proportional representation. At Westminster and local English council elections - it’s first past the post. And last week’s disappointing Labour conference rejection of PR, means that isn’t likely to change.

So what, you might think. Electoral systems are for anoraks.

That’s possibly true in Norway where PR celebrates its 100th anniversary later this month - and across Europe, the democratic hurdle of axing FPTP was generally louped so long ago, that only anoraky debate remains.

Not here. In Britain, the failure to modernise voting over centuries cements Westminster’s status as a democratic dinosaur ¬- entrenching ‘us versus them’ politics, confrontational industrial relations and a ‘might is right’ default across society and governance.

First Past the Post (FPTP) reinforces British exceptionalism and makes the unfairly elected ‘Mother of Parliaments’ a real European outlier. Yet listen to the chat about recent elections in Germany and Norway, and you hear smugness all the way.

FPTP apparently gives Brexit Britain quick results and strong government while PR gives the Europeans dither, delay and ¬- according to politics lecturer Richard Johnson – “a more transactional form of politics, based on post-election horse-trading”.

Really? What about the ConDem coalition and Tory horse-trading with the Democratic Unionists that forced through their damaging hard Brexit?

In truth, horse-trading and coalitions exist in every system. But with FPTP the two main Westminster parties are themselves coalitions. Unwieldy and unnaturally-large, they contain parties within parties. Witness the European Reform Group/Covid Recovery Group ¬- powerful beyond their size but not bold enough to stand as parties since internal capture is easier and they’d be hammered by FPTP.

How ‘strong and stable’ is a government in hock to pressure groups like these? Ask Theresa May.

Another small point - the seats won by these horse-trading parties invariably exceeds the total votes cast for them. And that’s not fair.

Almost everything wrong with Britain flows from elitism, inequality, the lass system and reliance on ideology and dogmatism. And almost all of that’s underpinned by FPTP voting. One in ten English seats hasn’t changed hands since the days of Queen Victoria (and those ultra-safe seats are overwhelmingly Conservative) - encouraging disengagement by voters who cannot change the stripe of their MPs.

Yet faced with the same challenges of Covid recovery and Green transition, an era of coalition politics and deepening citizen involvement is developing across Europe. Ireland’s Citizens Assemblies have modernised its constitution. Norwegians have just thrown out a Conservative-led coalition that tried to centralise local government (they have 422 councils compared to Scotland’s 32).

But Britain is still on the drawing board, clinging to a top-down democracy, bolstered by an outdated voting system.

British democracy suffers, and with it the case for the Union.

Westminster elections are fought entirely in ‘marginal’ seats, where a tiny number of swing voters wields disproportionate political influence.

Right now, both main parties and the whole British media care more about the opinions of “red wall” voters than Scotland or the bulk of the UK where seats will not change colour because of First Past the Post voting. This is madness.

And it’s what Keir Starmer has chosen to live with. After a year of lobbying by the Labour Campaign for a New Democracy, an astonishing 150 constituency organisations backed the switch to PR at last week’s conference, along with 80 percent of delegates. But 95 percent of affiliates (mostly trade unions) voted against.

If Starmer had encouraged Unison to support PR instead of abstaining, the motion would have gone through. Indeed, his office apparently tried to avoid a vote on the floor of conference by proposing a meaningless NEC statement instead. As Green MP Caroline Lucas said, “clearly the Labour leadership is not willing to share power, even if that means not winning”.

It’s true that Labour’s seat tally has traditionally been boosted by FPTP. But that boost has practically evaporated and is nothing like the boost always received by the Tories.

Professor Robert Ford says, “The Labour vote is now more inefficient than ever, with huge majorities in urban core seats and narrow defeats elsewhere leading to a high number of wasted votes.”

Sir John Curtice says, “for any given performance, the electoral system is inclined to reward the Conservatives more richly than Labour.”

In 20 general elections since 1950, 19 backed a combination of parties to the left of the Tories. Yet the Conservatives won power two-thirds of the time.

A Compass report suggests Labour needs a 10.5% swing to win next time - a bigger swing than in 1945 and 1997. Yet the Labour leadership still prefers to go it alone inviting near certain failure, rather than promise to implement PR in office and forge a ‘progressive alliance’ with the Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid and SNP.

Why?

Because in Macho Britain, fairness looks weak and consensus-building looks drippy. It takes conviction and courage to turn a tide littered with the debris of previous failed attempts because some predict PR will mean the end of the Labour party itself.

Indeed, with fair voting the Labour (and Tory) parties might eventually divide into their many natural constituencies, letting voters express real preferences by finally offering a real choice.

Smaller parties could still work together - but in a formal, transparent and long-lasting way. Look at the CDU/CSU coalition which has run the German Federal government for 16 years or the Social Democrat/Liberal/Green coalition that looks set to replace it.

Nothing so constructive is now likely in Britain. Boris looks set to scrap PR for English mayoral elections - at least he knows who benefits from FPTP. But now Labour can hardly oppose this naked bit of gerrymandering. Another job for the SNP.

Meanwhile, Starmer’s aversion to fair voting at Westminster strikes a deeply bum note in Scotland which uses PR at Holyrood and local elections, courtesy of previous Labour governments.

For those stewed in the damaging electoral juices of first past the post down south, Labour’s PR debacle might seem a small matter. But in Scotland it’s clear. Sir Keir Starmer has no wider vision of democracy than Boris Johnson.

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