Starmer could make history if he ended the UK's obsolete voting system

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer chairs the first meeting of his cabinet in 10 Downing Street following a landslide Labour win in last year's general election. Reuters

In politics as in medicine, if you can figure out the problem you may be able to find a cure. So what exactly is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s problem? He has an overwhelming majority in the Westminster Parliament, another four years in power, improving relations with the European Union and has secured a degree of US President Donald Trump’s attention in a dangerous world.

In some ways, Mr Starmer could be a reasonably happy man at the end of his first year in Downing Street. Yet, news headlines are full of Mr Starmer’s “U-turns” on policy, based on rebellions or threatened rebellions in his own Labour party. This, and the abysmal performance of the Conservative party has contributed to disenchanted voters searching for change.

Some tell opinion pollsters they may support Nigel Farage’s latest right-wing political vehicle, Reform, at the next election. Newspaper commentaries sometimes conclude that Mr Starmer is not quite up to the job and suggest Mr Farage could be the next British prime minister, even though Reform has only five MPs and the Labour has more than 400 in the 650-member Parliament. Nevertheless, something big is churning in UK politics.

There's a reason why Labour is so alarmed right now by Nigel Farage’s Reform party

The previous 14 years of Conservative rule are widely regarded – even privately by some Conservatives themselves – as often a shambles. Labour attracted voters in the 2024 general election in part because they were the only real alternative to more Conservative failures. Voters in democracies often just want a change. Labour won the 1997 General Election under Tony Blair because voters were fed up with the Conservatives.

By the 2010 election they were tired of Labour. In 2025, it is clear that large sections of British voters are now tired of both Labour and the Conservatives, and are thinking Reform might be worth a look. In opinion polls, Reform is often marginally leading the others and taking most of its votes from disaffected former Conservatives.

But opinion polls almost four years before another general election are little more than talking points rather than decisive endorsements of Mr Farage or Reform party policies (whatever they may be).

As I travel the country on a book tour talking with audiences about what might be wrong with Britain, one common theme is that we no longer have a “two-party system” but we have an antiquated “first-past-the-post” voting system which is obviously unfair.

Labour and the Conservatives for years divided power between themselves. But in 2025 Liberal Democrats, Greens, Reform, plus parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all demonstrate that the UK is nowadays a complex multi-party democracy with a sclerotic electoral system out of step with every democracy in Europe.

We are sometimes taught at school that the British system is “the envy of the world”. It isn’t. European countries have their political problems but generally they have different types of proportional representation (PR) systems. That means voters do not feel their vote can be “wasted” as it may be in the British system where an MP can be elected with only, say, a third of the votes because the other two thirds are split between several rival parties. Even within the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have PR systems. If a fairer system works for them, why is England left out?

In researching my latest book, Britain is Better Than This, I asked former British officials that question repeatedly. In the 1990s, some thought Labour would switch to proportional representation. Mr Blair won a landslide in 1997 and, as the former officials told me, he decided not to change a system that had made him prime minister. Mr Starmer is in a similar position.

The antiquated British system meant last year he won an astonishing two thirds of the seats in Parliament based on just one third of the votes. But that’s why Labour is so alarmed right now by Mr Farage’s Reform party. Opinion polls put Reform on a third of the votes. That means under the current system Reform could win a landslide of seats with support from just a third of voters at the next election.

The lessons are obvious. Just enough British voters currently dislike both Labour and the Conservatives to switch to Reform and give Mr Farage as huge a majority as Mr Starmer now enjoys and Mr Blair had in 1997. That’s just the way the British system works, although in talking to voters across the UK I’m convinced a majority of them do not think this system works for them.

Mr Starmer could therefore make history by committing to ending the antiquated and undemocratic British voting system. There is a downside, for him if not for the country: it might be difficult for Labour, the Conservatives, Reform or any other party to win a landslide majority.

Instead, the British Parliament would more closely reflect the differences and divisions among British voters. And what would be wrong with that? Isn’t that what democracies are supposed to be about?