Liberal Democrats Lead Bristol City Council to Call for Making Votes Fairer
At the latest meeting of Bristol City Council on Tuesday 8th October, the Council passed a motion calling upon the Government to make votes fairer and implement a proportional representation voting system. The motion Electoral Reform was submitted by Liberal Democrat Councillors and received cross-party support.
All elections in England are now currently held using the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system, which sees the candidate with the most votes elected. This system has long been criticised for disadvantaging smaller political parties, and for returning winning candidates that have relatively low support across the population.
In June’s General Election this year, which was held using FPTP, Keir Starmer’s Labour won a huge majority in Parliament, taking 63.2% of seats in the House of Commons – despite only winning 33.7% of the popular vote. In contrast, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party got 0.8% of seats, despite securing 14.3% of votes cast across the country.
The Liberal Democrat’s motion sought to call out the unjustness of the FPTP voting system and seeks to encourage the Government to implement an alternative system to make votes fairer and increase voter turnout.
In particular, it calls for the Government to implement proportional representation - a type of voting system that seeks to reconcile the composition of candidates elected to the breakdown of votes cast.
Alternative voting systems are already in use in Scotland, and the Welsh Senedd are currently in the process of drawing up proposals to change how the next set of devolved elections are run.
Mover of the motion, Cllr Stephen Williams (Liberal Democrats), said “Ensuring that we have fair electoral system is crucial to ensure that people are accurately represented and see value in turning out to cast their votes and make their voices heard.
“At a time when people’s faith in politics is at such a low, this motion calling upon the Government to implement a Proportional Representation system is more important than ever”.
In addition to ensuring communities are accurately reflected in the political makeup of the bodies they elect, the motion also called for the scrapping of the previous Conservative Government’s controversial Voter ID laws and the introduction automatic voter registration, along with the expansion of the franchise to 16-year-olds.
On the latter, Cllr Williams added “I really hope the new government lowers the voting age. I've campaigned for this for twenty years, proposing a Bill in Parliament in 2005, which was defeated and then a motion in 2013, which was passed by MPs but never enacted.
“Young people have a strong interest in all the big issues from housing to climate change. Their voices need to be heard and they need a say in who represents them."
The Liberal Democrats’ motion received support from Make Votes Matter Bristol, an established non-partisan campaigning group in Bristol supporting electoral reform in the UK, who submitted a public statement to the Council meeting in support.
“We believe that immediate implementation of a fair proportionally representative voting system for all UK elections at every level will give a fair voice and fair representation in parliament and elsewhere to all political views and will much more accurately reflect the political will of the electorate as a whole” the statement reads.
It further adds “It will make our electoral system a much more properly democratic one, and consequently our representative bodies much more democratically elected. Bristol Make Votes Matter supports this Silver Motion to Bristol City Council.”
With the passing of the motion, Bristol City Council joins a number of English Local Authorities who have come out in public support of electoral reform.
Notes to editors:
- The agenda and copy of the motion may be found here: ModernGov - bristol.gov.uk
- More information on Make Votes Matter may be found here: Home - Make Votes Matter