UK Politics - Electoral Systems

Question 1

What is First Past the Post?

Answer 1

It is an electoral system where the candidate with the most number of votes is elected - victory is achieved even by having one more vote than other candidates. This can be known as the plurality system

Question 2

Why was FPTP system in the 2024 general election regarded as disproportionate?

Answer 2

Labour was the main beneficiary of

Question 3

How did labour benefit the most from FPTP in 2024?

Answer 3

• they received just over 9.7 million votes, more than half a million votes down on 2019, yet their seat total more than doubled from 211 to 412
• labour’s vote share climbed just 1.6% in 2019 to 33.7%. In 2017 under Jeremy corbyn, the party’s vote share was 40.0%
• Keir Starmer’s own constituency support in Holborn and St Pancreas fell by more than 17% to 18,884

Question 4

How did tories fair under the FPTP system in 2024?

Answer 4

Their vote share collapsed from 43.7% and 13.9mn votes in 2019 to 23.7% and 6.8mn votes and although their votes didn’t quite halve, the number of seats won fell to 121 which was under one-third of 2019s total of 365

Question 5

What did reform UK do against the conservatives in 2024?

Answer 5

They decided to stand candidates in all constituencies meaning nationally, 14.3% of votes went to reform and in 170 of the 244 seats that conservative lost such as Poole, the vote was larger for reform than the margin of conservative defeat

Question 6

What are the arguments for FPTP?

Question 7

What are the arguments against FPTP

Answer 7

• unequal votes
• suppressed political diversity
• only marginal seats matter
• misrepresentation
• wasted votes & tactical voting

Question 8

Why is there a pragmatic reason for the Conservatives to keep FPTP?

Question 9

Why do the Labour Party favour FPTP?

Question 10

Why do smaller parties oppose FPTP?

Question 11

What are examples of FPTP hindering democracy?

Answer 11

• 29.2% voted for Plaid Cymru in Ceredigion in Wales but they won the seat in 2017
• 44% voted the the conservatives in Putney, who won on sub 50% of the vote
• Clapham and Brixton hill in 2024 was at 56.5% for the labour winning candidate

Question 12

What were the 2024 results in Hendon?

Answer 12

David Pinto of Labour won 38.43% of votes , beating conservatives Ameet Jogia who got 38.39

Question 13

How does FPTP work?

Answer 13

It operates on the basis of simple plurality - the UK is split into 650 constituencies and 1 MP is allowed per constituency

Question 14

To form a majority government what must a party acquire?

Answer 14

326 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons

Question 15

How are the arguments for FPTP discredited?

Answer 15

• it isn’t decisive as two of the last four elections have been a hung parliament
• it isn’t stable - in the last fifty years, UK governments have only last on average 60% of the time they could have which is less than PR-using countries e.g. Sweden

Question 16

What are examples of votes being unequal under FPTP system?

Answer 16

In 2024, it took only 23,500 votes for labour MP’s to win a seat compared to over 820,000 per Reform UK MP and the Conservatives gained a seat for every 56000 votes per Tory Mp

Question 17

How is the FPTP system misrepresenting?

Answer 17

In 3/5 last genreral elections, at least 50% of votes went to losing candidates and at the 2024 general election, a record high 58% of voters did not get an MP they voted for e.g. in constituencies such as Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, the MP was elected with less than 1 in 3 votes

Question 18

How have votes been wasted under FPTP system?

Answer 18

• In 2024, 74% of votes were wasted which is the joint highest record with the 2015 election meaning that only 1 in 4 voters had a vote that made a difference
• in 2019 71% of votes were wasted and 68% in 2017

Question 19

Why do only marginal seats matter under FPTP?

Answer 19

There are such constituencies referred to as ‘safe states’, in which if you live there, your vote is worth very little as in that place, many seats haven’t changed in 100 years and have no opportunity to. Therefore, under FPTP, votes are decided by a few thousand ‘swing voters’ across a few constituencies

Question 20

What evidence shows that only marginal seats matter?

Answer 20

If just 533 people had voted differently in 2017, there would have been a majority government

Question 21

Why is geography an issue of FPTP?

Answer 21

For example, in 2015, 2017, 2019, the SNP always dominated Scotland constituencies, however struggled elsewhere - in the 2016 Scottish parliament election SNP gained 63 total seats,with 59/73 constituency seats

Question 22

Why may governments be seen to lack legitimacy under FPTP?

Answer 22

In 2024, Labour received only 34% of votes yet 412 seats due to a system called ‘winners bonus’ however this doesn’t correlate to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party which gained more votes in 2019 than conservative but lost. Therefore this shows that Starmer’s government may lack legitimacy

Question 23

What are some examples of ‘safe seats’?

Answer 23

• bootle - near Liverpool
• Liverpool Walton - held by Labour with a 54.89% majority
• Lewisham East - London - held by Labour with a 44.47% vote

Question 24

What are examples of marginal seats in the UK?

Question 25

What is tactical voting

Question 26

What are examples of tactical voting?

Question 27

How many votes did parties have to gain per seat in 2024?

Answer 27

• conservative - 56,000
• labour - 24,000
• Lib Dems - 49,000
• SNP - 79,000
• Plaid Cymru - 49,000
• Green - 485,000
• reform - 823,000

Question 28

Why may the alternatives to FPTP be an issue?

Answer 28

Scrapping FPTP with more likely lead to Coalition or minority governments forming which can sometimes be difficult when passing legislation or generally running the country - e.g. in 2010, Nick Clegg joined David Cameron in government however was often undermined, leading to a Lib Dem failure in the following election, despite pushing Cameron to push for same sex legislation etc,

Question 29

What does the 2011 Referendum on FPTP show?

Answer 29

67.9% voted in favour of keeping FPTP

Question 30

What is meant by proportional representation?

Answer 30

It is an umbrella term for a number of different voting system in which the proportion of votes a party receives is equal to the proportion of seats

Question 31

What are the arguments for Proportional representation?

Answer 31

• it may lead to an increase in participation due to there being less wasted votes
• promotes coalition which could be positive
• removes winners bonus
• more political diversity
• pluralism - range of parties
• fairness - in 2024 under FPTP, reform gained 14.3% of votes yet only 5 seats?
• more democratic

Question 32

What are two types of Proportional Representation?

Answer 32

Party List and AMS (additional members system)

Question 33

What are 2 types of Proportional Representation?

Answer 33

Party List and AMS

Question 34

What is Party List?

Answer 34

• it is the most proportional system of Proportional Representation, also known as National Party List, where each party lists a certain amount of MP’s for their party in a 650 seat House of Commons, and the % of votes that a party obtains becomes the of MP’s in parliament e.g. in a fictitious 100 seat parliament, a party obtaining 40% of votes will get 40 of the top MP’s on their list a seat in parliament

Question 35

What are the arguments against Party List?

Answer 35

• it generally leads to a coalition government. This can be seen in the 2021-23 Scottish parliament where SNP and Green’s formed a coalition
• it raises an issue of legitimacy as there is no MP-constituency link, meaning MP’s cannot be held accountable by the public e.g. Mike Amesbury
• could lead to extremist parties having more chance…
• it gives too much power to parties, especially to party leaders and Chief Whips who elect the lists
• it is ‘unwieldy’ - 650 MP’s in the UK would mean 650 names on a list which isn’t very practical as it is useless to the smaller parties such as the Green’s