The House | Burnham should take the first steps towards electoral reform in his first 100 days

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The 2024 general election saw the greatest mismatch between the share of seats parties won compared to their share of the vote. Labour received two-thirds of the seats on just a third of the vote, whereas the Greens and Reform UK received just over one per cent of the seats between them for their combined 20 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, millions of votes didn’t count, with over 70 per cent cast – 21.2m – not directly affecting the outcome.

Part of the reason for this is that Westminster’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system is designed for two parties and cannot cope with the multiparty politics we now have. This trend is not going away: the last general election was the first ever where four parties received over 10 per cent of the vote, and we now have five parties polling consistently over 10 per cent. The result is that Parliament is becoming less representative of the way people voted, and the next could be even more unrepresentative.

The link between what people express at the ballot box and the parliaments they get matters, which is why there are mounting calls for a move to proportional representation (PR). Simply put, PR is about making sure Parliament more accurately represents the way the country voted. We would argue that is the strongest foundation for our democracy.

To his credit, Burnham has himself diagnosed this problem, saying people feel politics isn’t working for them and that he backs moving to PR as part of a necessary “rewiring” of Westminster. In this, the new PM reflects growing support for electoral reform, as the British Social Attitudes Survey has recorded a consistent majority for scrapping FPTP in recent years for the first time since it started polling the question in the 1980s.

So, what happens next? Burnham has said he wants to win a mandate for PR by having it in the next Labour manifesto. Here again, he has considerable support within his own party. A solid majority of Labour members back PR, as do eight of the 11 Labour-affiliated trade unions, and there is a growing caucus of MPs now calling for electoral reform that spans all wings and factions of the party, as well as other parties in Parliament.

Next comes the thorny issue of which electoral system to propose. The UK already has decades of experience of proportional systems that maintain a strong constituency link, such as the Single Transferable Vote in Northern Ireland and the Additional Member System in Scotland and London.

Inaction would leave our democracy on a dangerous trajectory

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Burnham has backed a review of the voting system by an independent commission that would then recommend a system of PR for the UK to adopt.

This echoes the Royal Commission that New Zealand had in the 1980s, which laid the foundation for its move to PR from FPTP in 1996. Meanwhile, over 90 Labour MPs have backed the idea of a National Commission on PR.

Whatever the review mechanism, there is an important principle here: that there should be a truly impartial look at how to make our electoral system work better for voters.  

Like any new PM, Burnham will be instantly beset by numerous pressing and grave issues as he settles into Downing Street. Launching a commission need not distract from those priorities. It would establish an independent process while ministers get on with governing.

A manifesto commitment on electoral reform requires substantive policy development. A genuinely independent commission should be given time to conduct the work that would later inform that commitment, taking public and expert evidence, assessing the options and making recommendations against clear democratic principles. 

Time is of the essence for our democracy. We have a dysfunctional electoral system that is producing parliaments that look less and less like how people voted, at a time when trust in politics is at a record low. Inaction would leave our democracy on a dangerous trajectory. 

Burnham has long been one of the most passionate advocates for a politics at Westminster that better represents the whole country. In 2023, he argued: “I don’t believe all people in all places will be equally represented in Westminster until every vote matters.” 

Launching an independent commission in the first 100 days of his premiership to look at how to make Parliament properly reflect the way the country votes would be a crucial first step towards realising that vision.

Darren Hughes is Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society