A landslide it was not, there is a case for electoral reform.
I am glad that both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have done well in the recent elections. Some newspapers have suggested it has been a Labour landslide victory, but this was not really the case.
Votes
Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have seen a minimal increase in their share of the vote. The massive increase in the number of their MPs is just the consequence of how the vote was distributed across the other parties. In essence, our first-past-the-post electoral system has given very disproportionate results.
Labour won almost two thirds of the parliamentary seats with just one third (33.7%) of the vote. Conversely, Reform UK won only 5 MPs despite a larger share of the vote than the Liberal Democrats, who won 72 MPs.
Our electoral system could give a parliamentary majority to extremists. What we have seen in many countries is that extremists can win a third of the votes, and this could give them a majority in our House of Commons.
With a proportional or semi-proportional electoral system extremists could be more easily kept out of government or, at least, could be forced to dilute their policies in a coalition government.
Contradictory aspirations
Voters often have contradictory aspirations. We want better public services, but also lower taxes. Some do not like migrants but want fully staffed public services and economic growth. We know we need more houses, but we may not like them being built in our neighbourhood. Residents in touristic areas may not like tourists, but their local economy is dependent on tourism.
Here enters the scene the populists, like Nigel Farage. They tell us that we can have our cake and eat it. Actually, we can’t.
When it comes to migration, we already have rules limiting visas to workers required in sectors with occupation shortages or workers more likely to benefit our country.
Immigration
The reason why immigration has not reduced under various Conservative governments, despite their anti-migration rhetoric, is because it would have been self-damaging.
It would be easy to reduce migration immediately by 400,000 a year, simply by abolishing study visas. We have not done it because we would lose a big source of income and we would need to increase taxation to fund our universities, many of which are heavily dependent on the income from foreign students.
Similarly, it would be easy to slash work visas, but we would damage our public services and we would also reduce economic growth, and we may also need to increase taxes.
In my experience, when you have a sensible conversation, the main concern is usually not migration per se, but fears that migrants may not integrate and might create parallel societies in which they remain extraneous to the values of the host country.
In reality migrants often integrate well, and the main obstacle has been the lack of integration policies.
Nigel Farage is a man full of contradictions: he has doubts about migrants’ contribution to our economy. However, his main policy (Brexit) has closed down one of the most advantageous migration arrangements.
The EU’s freedom of movement allowed migration in both directions, with many moving from the UK to the EU to study, work, get married or just to enjoy the sun. Furthermore, EU migrant have been shown to pay more in taxes and have higher employment rates than UK citizens.
There are two lessons that we can learn from the recent elections
One is that electoral reform would be fairer and could protect us from extreme policies. Keir Starmer is wrong in rejecting electoral reform despite the Labour party conference voting for it in 2022.
The second lesson is that if you imitate Nigel Farage, as the Tories have done in recent years by adopting the same language and postures, then a chunk of the electorate will decide to vote for the original populist brand.
Throughout this election campaign the Tories have never confronted Farage to demonstrate the fallacies in his arguments, except when Farage tried to justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As a consequence, they lost votes to Farage, as well as to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The number of MPs in the newly elected House of Commons bears little resemblance with how people voted. Our electoral system could open the way to extremism.
