ON September 7 2023, four major electoral reform groups, Make Votes Matter, Compass, Unlock Democracy and Get PR Done (GPRD), will come together to discuss how other countries have managed to change their electoral systems. Socialists should be supporting them.

In a 2022 poll run by Survation, it was shown that “a majority of people want water, energy, rail, buses, Royal Mail and the NHS to be run in the public sector.”

You would think then that at least one of the three main British political parties who want our votes would be offering such nationalisation as policy; clearly it would be a vote winner.

However, not the Tories, not the Lib Dems, not even Labour, are offering nationalisation as a party policy.  

If none of the main parties are offering what the majority of the population wants, clearly something is broken and British democracy is “democracy” in name only.

You can vote for whoever you like, but the current first past the post electoral system is skewed to make us vote for the established parties.

We are constantly told: “If we don’t vote Labour the Tories will win.” Well, when Labour are also rubbish, that’s not much help.

It’s not that we don’t know how to make democracy better than this; it’s that we’re struggling to get the people who are winning with the current system (Labour and the Tories) to change the system.

Why would they change a system that lets them repeatedly win? They share power between themselves and over the last century the Tories have been in power nearly two-thirds of the time — more than that if we acknowledge that many don’t accept “New Labour” was ever really Labour.

There are over 100 countries worldwide using some form of proportional representation (PR). Under PR, if people want nationalisation, they can vote for parties supporting nationalisation.

They don’t have to vote for the second worst to stop the worst from winning. Under PR, if the three main parties all refused to offer nationalisation, they wouldn’t be the three main parties for very long.

Make Votes Matter, Compass, Unlock Democracy and GPRD are running a pro-PR webinar on September 7 at 7pm to discuss this burning issue. This online event is open to all who wish to register.

The key speaker will be Dr Dennis Pilon, chair of the political science department at York University in Toronto, Canada.

Bob Bater of the GPRD steering group stated: “Dr Pilon is widely acknowledged internationally as an expert in his field. Pilon has made a special study of how PR came to be introduced in all current democracies which use it.”

A question and answer session will follow the speaker slot.

Free tickets for this event are available at www.tinyurl.com/gprdevent.