I am always fascinated and bewildered, in equal measure, following elections. I am not just talking about the General Election: rather, I am referring to the outcome of any vote. In particular, I mean the response to those for whom the outcome was not the desired one.
So, back to the General Election of 2015. The Conservative party have won a majority of seats in the House of Commons, meaning that they are now the governing party. In the interests of transparency, I voted Conservative (although my constituency was one of the Labour gains from Conservative).
The first question to those who are moaning about the result is this: would you be so passionate in your arguments if the party that you voted for had won?
One of the many responses to those whose parties didn't win is the question of the way the election works. Many people are calling, and have long been calling, for some form of proportional representation saying things like "a third of the country voted for [winning party]: two thirds didn't". I understand something of the logic of this. The claim, as I understand it, is that it is not truly democratic, that is, the result in the House of Commons is not truly representative of the votes of the people.
However, much as I see some logic in that argument, I have to say that I prefer the current system. Also, we did have a referendum on the question of electoral reform on the 5th May 2011. 67.9% of people voted to keep the current system. To those who say that the current system is not truly democratic, I have to say that two thirds of the country--or just over--voted to keep the current system. Just four years ago, the democratic process has given us this system, or rather retained the system.
I shall now explain why I prefer the current system. Now, I must state that I am no expert in politics: I am just seeking to explain things as I see them (currently).
Each parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom has a representative in the House of Commons. That representative is chosen by the votes of the people who live in that constituency who are eligible to vote. This is a person who is chosen by the community to represent them. Those who stand for election work hard to try to convince people that they should be the person chosen. When the day comes, the people make their decision. The person with the most votes is chosen as the parliamentary representative of that community.
The governing party is the party that has the majority in the House of Commons. This means that they have to get 326 representatives to hold a majority over all the other parties. If a majority is not reached there remain several options, one of which is a coalition with another party (or parties) such as we had for the last five years. This seems to me the simplest, most efficient way of choosing the government.
I could be persuaded by the arguments for proportional representation, but as yet remain unconvinced. It seems that it would be a very messy situation.
For example, as constituency casts its votes, and a certain percentage is won by each would-be member of parliament. You cannot split the seats in the House of Commons, or have a system where the winning person says "I have sat in the House of Commons for the percentage of the time granted me by the percentage of the votes: it is now your turn for you 34% percent of this session." That would be ridiculous.
Another option is to look at the national percentages and give each party the task of finding members to fill that percentage of the seats. While this does make a certain amount of logical sense, it does, however, seem to me that we risk ending up with a situation in which the members of parliament are not the ones that each constituency has chosen because of the national percentages. Therefore, the result would not be truly democratic because, to meet the percentages of the vote nationally, a representative who had the most votes in that constituency might not be allowed to sit because that party might already have met their percentage of the national votes.
I admit freely that I might not understand fully enough what would be the alternative process, but I have to say that I would much prefer to be able to vote for my local representative knowing that if (s)he wins the majority of votes, then (s)he will sit in parliament for my community.
The current system may not be ideal, but I can't help thinking that is better democratically than the alternative.
