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Wednesday 8 November 2023

Electoral reform and Proportional Representation in the UK

My daughter and I had a disagreement over this today.  My daughter is in favour of proportional representation.  I am not. 

Rather, in an ideal world, I would be, but considering how our nation has voted in the European Elections, the elections closest to it, I would rather keep the current system.  

In summary, other than the last European Elections, the right have won over 50% of the vote in the last few elections.  

In 2014, a combination of UKIP, the Conservatives got over 50.% of the vote, Nigel Farage getting the most votes as part of UKIP (he got most of the notes in the 2019 elections with the Brexit Party).  


In 2009, the Conservatives got the highest vote margin with 27.4% of the vote, UKIP coming second with 16.5%.  With the 6.2% of the vote that the BNP got, that meant that those on the right would have got over 50% of the total vote.  In that election, we sent two far right BNP politicians to represent us in the European Parliament.

And of course, there was the Brexit vote, with over 50% voting to impose economic sanctions on the UK.

In addition to this, if you look at polling, it can be argued that the people want the death penalty to be brought back. Also there is the support that Suella Braverman has over Asylum Seekers crossing The English Channel.

My daughter feels that we should look to Scotland which has PR and has not voted for right wing extremists, but Scotland is more left wing than England.  

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Kristallnacht. My daughter would vote for a system that I fear could bring that to the UK.  While many may think that I am being over dramatic, Italy have a far-right leader, and the same system has put similar politicians into high office in Israel.  And now we have GBeebies and TalkTV to sell us the lies that those on the right love to feed us.