Electoral system is clearly busted

• I WRITE in support of Barry Edwards’s letter (Clarity please Sir Keir, May 11), regarding the latter’s apparent volte face on PR, proportional representation, and its potential to create fairer, more representative and inclusive parliamentary elections and governance.

The most basic point is that under our current first-past-the-post system, FPTP, no national government, of whatever colour rosette, tribe, or composition, has ever been elected without the majority of electors having voted against it.

The closest was the 1951 election where the Labour Party gained 49.1 per cent of the votes. However most majority governments gain power with 55 to 62 per cent of the electorate having voted for someone else completely. How much longer must we endure this clearly busted system?

While welcoming Labour’s recent proposed electoral reforms to include those who pay taxes and yet, for a myriad of exclusions, are unable to vote on how they are spent, it does seem to put the cart before the horse. There seems little to gain in enlarging the franchise, including the reduction in voting age, while the electoral system itself is so bent.

If Sir Keir Starmer has changed from his support for PR, as expressed in his Labour leadership election campaign, to one that now supports maintaining the corrupt status quo, then he is really not in good company. The only other “democrazy” to use a first-past-the-post system is autocrat Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus.

Fortunately concerned constituents can avail of an approaching opportunity to “sort the system” and join in the mass lobby of parliament on May 24 called by Make Votes Matter.

I do hope that more people come and join us, as we give Sir Keir the clear opportunity to explain his and the Labour Party’s policy on changing the electoral system towards greater fairness. I hope that other residents will also seek to meet Tulip Siddiq MP on the day. Questions need answers.

Full details of how to join the lobby can be found at: https://sortthesystem.uk/

TREVOR O’FARRELL
Stratford Villas, NW1