By Emma Harrison, CEO of Make Votes Matter.
Right now, everyone is talking about the local council elections in England. Whether you’re trying to figure out what this means for potholes, bin collections and social care in your area, or what it means for local authority contracts, there’s no doubt these results are seismic. Chaotic, even.
Much of the commentary this morning has focused on how disastrous the results are for Labour and the Conservatives. But that misses the bigger story: our voting system is no longer fit for purpose in a multi-party democracy.
This wasn’t a normal two-party election. Labour has been losing councillors, the Conservatives are continuing to haemorrhage support, Reform UK is making major gains, while the Liberal Democrats and Greens are also picking up votes and seats. While Reform is performing strongly, it has probably not reached 30% of the vote because support is now being spread across far more parties than our electoral system was designed to handle.
That’s the real story: voters are demanding more choice than ever before.
Polling has consistently shown people are far less loyal to the traditional two-party system. More voters are backing parties that they feel actually represent their views. That should be a healthy sign of democratic engagement. Instead, under First Past the Post, it creates bizarre and often deeply unfair outcomes where huge numbers of votes simply don’t count.
While counts are still ongoing, we are already seeing how arbitrary the results can be:
In Exeter St Loyes ward, the Conservatives secured 25.3% of the vote, Reform 25.5%. The big winner of the night? The Liberal Democrats won the seat with 25.6%.
Then there’s London Borough of Wandsworth where the Conservatives became the largest party on 31% of the vote, while Labour actually won 34% of the vote but ended up with fewer seats. Make that make sense.
In Oxford, Greens received 682 more votes than Labour, but Labour won seven more seats.
In Wigan, in Cabinet member Lisa Nandy MP’s seat, Reform secured 96% of the seats that were up for election on 46% of the vote.
And in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, the Liberal Democrats now hold all 54 council seats despite winning just 51.46% of the vote. As a result 49% of voters are left without representation. Regardless of who you support, this is not what a healthy democracy should look like.
This electoral chaos is happening at exactly the moment British politics is becoming more fractured than ever. The old assumption that politics would always revolve around two dominant parties is breaking down. Our electoral system hasn’t adapted and when millions of people vote and don’t see their views reflected in who gets elected, frustration grows. People feel ignored. Trust in politics declines. This election isn’t just a story about Labour losing support or Reform rising. It’s a warning sign that our political system is struggling to reflect how people actually vote.
British politics is undergoing unprecedented transformation. As Britain becomes more politically diverse, our institutions and systems need to meet the public where they are. We need a voting system where seats reflect votes, where people can vote for what they believe in without fear of wasting their vote, and where representation actually reflects the views of the electorate.
First Past the Post doesn’t create strong democracy, it creates poor representation. Voters, not politicians should be at the heart of our democracy. It’s time for Westminster to wake up and change the voting system so that people’s votes actually count.
