What now for the British election

Last Thursday, the British people voted in one of their tightest elections in recent decades.

The result is what many expected: no single party won enough seats to reach the 326-seat majority, leaving a hung parliament.

It’s a familiar situation to many countries around the world that are used to two or more parties combining to form a government. But in Britain, it seems to provoke fear and uncertainty, which is a sign that their primitive election system is in need of change.

The system

The British Parliament (law-making body) is made up of 650 individual seats. These seats represent 650 election constituencies, or districts.

Every five years on election day, each district holds its own election. Whoever wins that election wins that area’s seat in Parliament.

Britain has two main parties – the left wing pro-worker Labour party, and the right wing pro-business Tory party.

Traditionally, one of these two parties has won enough district seats on their own to reach a majority and form a government (the leader of that party becomes the prime minister).

However, a third party has started winning seats in recent years – the Liberal Democrats, another left-wing party.

This has complicated the maths a bit. If it’s a close election between the two main parties, the number of seats won by the Liberal Democrats can mean neither of the big two have enough to reach a majority.

This is what happened on Thursday.

The result

Out of all the district elections, the Tory party won 306, Labour won 258, and the Liberal Democrats won 57 (other parties won 28 and 1 is undeclared due to a 3-week delay after a candidate died).

The Tories fell just short of getting the 326-seat majority needed to pass laws.

As per election rules, they cannot form a government on this basis. Instead they, or the other parties, must combine to form a coalition government.

What now

Because the two main parties are unlikely to form a coalition together, the party that is likely to be part of a government either way is the Liberal Democrats.

Their leader Nick Clegg is now in negotiations with the Tory party leader David Cameron.

Clegg says he has four demands: fair tax reform, helping education in poor areas, a less finance-based economy, and most importantly, a change to the election system.

Cameron, however, has indicated that he is not prepared to agree to election changes, but only a committee to have a look at it.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Gordon Brown waits. If Clegg and Cameron can’t come to an agreement, Clegg will go to Brown to see what he can offer.

The Liberal Democrats and Labour are a lot closer in policies and values (both claim to represent the poorer and middle classes). And Labour has said it is happy to change the electoral voting system, suggesting a deal between the two parties could probably be reached.

However, with 315 seats, Labour and the Liberal Democrats would still not have a majority. They would need to build a coalition with the smaller parties (some of whom have indicated a desire for such a “progressive alliance”).

If an agreement is reached by any parties, the leaders would then need to run it by their party members. This could take several weeks and might not necessarily get approved.

If it does get approved, the coalition parties will be officially invited by the Queen to form the new government.

The election flaws

What this election has shown though is that Britain’s “first-past-the-post” election rules need changing.

About 23% of the population voted for the Liberal Democrats. However, they only got 9% of the seats.

This is because in the districts where Labour or the Tories won, their votes meant nothing.

Many supporters of the Liberal Democrats also realised this and voted strategically for their second choice.

It’s believed this concept stopped the Liberal Democrats from receiving a higher proportion of the votes (they were polling over 30% a week before the election).

This is why Clegg, and to an extent Brown, are calling for proportional representation (PR).

PR is used by many countries around the world including Finland, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

Under this system, the percentage of a national vote that each party gets equals the percentage of seats they get in parliament. Parties will then group together to form a majority.

The Scottish and Welsh parliaments use such a system but the main British parliament has been reluctant to change.

As negotiations take place, the key issue it seems will be this electoral change. Will the Tories agree to Nick Clegg’s demands, or will he be forced to team up with a willing Labour instead. Britain is indeed at a cross roads.

By The Casual Truth

Photo – Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg