Change is urgently needed
Although a range of reforms are needed, including local government in England, devolution and a House of Lords with a democratic mandate, the key starting point is a proportional electoral system for general elections. That’s where the power is and that’s where change begins.
Our existing voting system, known as First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) drives widespread distrust and alienation with our politics: voters cast their vote for one candidate from a particular political party. The party candidate with the highest number of votes wins, even if that is well below half the total votes cast.
A system that offered true voter choice would give a high proportion of voters a representative for whom they had voted, waste as few votes as possible and allow voters to express their true preferences. This simply doesn’t happen under FPTP.
There are three proportional – fair and equal – voting systems already in use for elections in the UK and the Liberal Democrats have long favoured a particular one: Single Transferable Vote (STV). Under STV, people can choose not just the party they prefer but individual candidates as well.
The Labour Government has made several commitments in its parliamentary programme to democratic reforms. Being the largest-ever parliamentary party committed to fair and equal votes, the Liberal Democrats will hold Labour to account by pressing for decisive moves towards a politics which works. We will press the government not to sit complacently on the laurels of their massive, artificial majority but to Put Country Before Party while they have the power to make positive and progressive change.
Make no mistake: changing our politics is about challenging power and control. People and parties that try to justify FPTP conjure up fallacious justifications. The truth is they like a system that gives them disproportionate, undemocratic power.
To them a functioning democracy where people feel connected and listened to – and where a majority view holds sway - is not as important as grabbing power by whatever means.
But the public is increasingly seeing through the lies. We know change is essential and that’s why we fight so hard for reform.
British people deserve a politics that works equally and for us all.
Read about the various proportional voting systems and why the Liberal Democrats favour the Single Transferable Vote (STV) here.