Saturday 16 November 2019

The folly of believing PR is the answer.

When  a 'personality' is asked their opinion about the perilous state of our parliament and goverance they invariably suggest that things would be improved with the introduction of a PR voting system.

This was certainly the case when I caught part of an interview, on Newsnight, with the comedian David Mitchell.

The advocates of PR believe that it would produce a more representative parliament consisting, as it would, of a greater number of political parties being represented.

I have long believed that our FPTP system, for all its faults, is still better than the endless coalitions that PR tends to produce. For those who believe PR is the missing 'Silver Bullet' we need to improve our governance I list below the three key reasons why it very quickly, after its introduction, makes matters worse.

First and foremost, a system of PR gives no more power to the people over their politicians between elections than they have now.

Second, at the time of an election nobody can be certain what parts of any party's election manifesto will prevail.

Third, a level of corruption becomes inbuilt as the parties do deals behind closed doors which of course excludes any participation by the people. And there is absolutely no proof, in countries with PR, that they are better governed.

Also it should be remembered that our two main parties are in themselves coalitions with a spectrum of views and opinions so at least we currently know which coalition of views will likely form the next government while PR simply produces more division and uncertainty.

The solution to improve our governance is to recognise the inherent sovereignty of the people and give them real power over their MPs and other officials.

Our six demands, not PR, are what is needed to improve our democracy and system of government.      

1 comment:

  1. Excellent stuff Niall. I tried to post an explanation but it was too big to post so I have emailed you instead.

    ReplyDelete