It’s been a peculiar year. From the start, 2024 was billed as the “year of elections”. That much is true. Voters from Rwanda and Iran to Russia, India and the US were to go to the polls.
Looking back, we can say many examples of voting were not necessarily the same as a well-functioning democracy, including – unfortunately – here in the UK. Some quasi-democratic states used the mechanism of allowing people to vote to claim legitimacy for those already in power. In Iran, the majority of voters chose not to bother voting at all.
There were, however, decisive results in important contests, too. The US showed a clear and undisputed victory for Donald Trump. In the UK, the Labour party won a landslide. But perhaps the greatest success for the idea of democracy was in India, where almost a billion people went to the polls in the biggest election in world history. Again, whatever you think of the results, and of the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this triumph for political debate was evidence that the opinions of ordinary people can count.
In London a few days ago, I took part in the launch of a new report launched at Westminster to try to revive the British system of electing our governments. The report is called Free but not Fair: British Elections and How to Restore Trust in Politics and it was produced for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Elections.
All-party parliamentary groups are simply voluntary groups of British MPs who co-operate across party lines to try to solve problems and make things work better. They are one of the very good things about the British system. This Fair Elections group has more than 100 members, and these MPs from different parties and backgrounds broadly agree that the Westminster system has significant problems that need to be addressed through co-operation with political opponents.
The group report argues that three inter-related problems make British politics a turn off for many voters. The first problem – and most obvious – is that the Westminster “First Past the Post” system of voting is out of date. The MPs involved want an Electoral Commission set up to recommend a better and fairer system.
This is a long hard battle, but change will probably win eventually and the statistics in the report are extraordinary.
Many British people are so turned off that they do not even register to vote. Many of those who do register to vote cannot be bothered to turn up to do so. That means, according to the highly regarded Institute for Public Policy Research, the turnout of everyone eligible to vote in this year’s UK general election was just 53 per cent. Of those, a third voted for the Labour party, which won two thirds of the seats. That means the UK now has a Labour government with a huge majority based on the endorsement of only about 18 per cent of adults who could have voted.
Every democratic system has its problems, but this is extraordinary. Privately (and sometimes publicly), many Labour MPs understand something needs to change. The report proposes a National Commission on Electoral Reform.
It could also look at the very peculiar fact that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have very different systems for their parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. England has lost out, in the name of “tradition”.
The other two parts of the report call for action on “dark money and hidden influence” and “disinformation”. The recommendations include closing loopholes on political donations. MPs mentioned to me that they fear the UK might go the way of the US where a few billionaires make enormous donations that can sway millions of voters, leaving other voters feeling powerless.
The third area, covering disinformation, is probably the most difficult. How can anyone legislate to prevent lying in public life? The report calls this the “legal but harmful” problem because “we all have the right to free speech but no one has the right of unlimited amplification of content that is likely to spread harmful disinformation”. Unfortunately, as was seen over the summer, Islamophobic content fuelled demonstrations in some areas that resulted in street violence and riots.
And so, the British electorate should enter the new year with a sense of qualified optimism. The optimism is grounded in the idea that important questions are now being addressed by politicians of different parties who want a better system.
The obvious qualification is that some of these areas – in particular electoral reform – have been discussed for years and may be seen as a distraction from the core economic and social issues that Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants to address. Yet I have always been encouraged by words from the American civil rights activist John Lewis. Congressman Lewis demanded change with the words: “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”
Indeed. It’s time for a change. Having elections is important. Having truly fair elections is much more important still.
