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The only possibility as I see it would be a 2029 election where Labour loses their majority and is forced to go into coalition with the Lib Dems, who put electoral reform as a condition of their support.
In 2010 Nick Clegg was bamboozled by Cameron into agreeing on a referendum on version of FPTP which was almost as disproportional as the current system, I can't see them making that mistake again. I would expect them to demand actual change to the voting system without a referendum that could go wrong.
It has happened before elsewhere.
I voted Reform, and I'm very annoyed about the vote : seat ratio, but I'd still be hesitant to rush headlong into changing our voting system on the basis of one freaky election. European countries with proportional voting don't seem to have significantly happier and more representative politics, and FPTP has mostly worked for 200 years. I think our problem boils down to the professionalisation of politics more than to our voting system. Having 4 parties of PPE graduates doing backdoor deals doesn't necessarily seem like an improvement.
If we had a democratic voter system, we wouldn't be in a situation where the two main parties agree on Open Borders and the public has to choose the lesser of two evils. Sure, the current system can indirectly force the Tories to move to the right when they see their votes going to Reform, but imagine what a Conservative-Reform coalition would look like! Farage as Immigration Minister, Tice as Minister for de-Wokifying Institutions or whatever. Instead, the public gets a choice between Islington dinner party guests with blue ties, and Islington dinner party guests with red ties.
I agree completely. But as I say, proportional voting doesn't seem to be sufficient for producing a democratic system (look at the Cordon Sanitaire in France, or the way that the AfD are treated) and I'm also aware that we've had our current parliamentary system for 300 years give or take and changing it based on a twenty-year crisis is a drastic step.
(Imagine a Lib Dem, Labour, Muslim Independents, Green and Conservative Wets coalition and shudder).
I don't think you can reasonably describe disproportionate (and therefore undemocratic) voting as a recent issue. FPTP has been pushing out 3rd+ parties since we've had modern political parties. The Liberals were crowded out by Labour a century ago. Just because FPTP was more successful in the past doesn't make it more legitimate. There are more than two political positions and there always will be.
FPTP is like the rent control of politics, rewarding incumbents and disadvantaging everyone else.
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I mean, I get not liking it, but a coalition that gets 50% of the seats and around ~50% of the votes is not anti-democratic.
If the people who voted for those parties don't like the fact they made a grand coalition, they can vote for other parties who won't do that, until the far-right gains enough support a grand coalition isn't possible.
I don't know. On the one hand that's true, on the other... there's something off about having people whose ideologies and needs are utterly incompatible linking hands to make sure Those Awful People never get anything they want. It's naked warfare, and I think it's also damaging because you get governments that can't run the country because they don't agree on anything. Basically you get FPTP back again but more impenetrable.
Only if you assume that politics under proportional representation is a perfect market with no market failures. But imagine a situation where, for example, the professional classes treat anyone associated with a populist party like a leper. (Oh, how I wish this were a hypothetical...) That means that anyone with experience of government doesn't join the populist party but stays with a centrist party which is enforcing the cordon sanitaire. A hypothetical voter might want to vote for a party that is competent and has a populist manifesto, but they can't because circumstances prevent such a party from forming.
What, would it be more democratic to somehow force them to make coalitions with Those Awful People if they don't want to? Generally, no-ones misleading the voters about anything regarding such preferences and parties communicate at least their negative preferences clearly in advance.
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1.) Except they are compatible on the issue the far-right/populist/whatever word you want to call them has made the #1 issue - immigration/multiculturalism in general. So, if the main issue in politics is that, other disagreements can be put to the side. This is not new in coalitional politics, where people who disagree on issues that used to be important ally when a new issue pops up. Don't want people to ally over immigration, pro and anti? Don't make it the main issue.
2.) Sure, voters want all kinds of impossible things. The thing is, as I pointed out in another thread is the problem isn't nobody wants an anti-immigration party, they don't want an anti-immigration party with all the weird other right-wing issues connected as well. But, the issue is, many of the voters and most prominent supporters care deeply about the other right-wing policies, which is why many of these right-wing parties lose support once actually in a coalition government, because of a combination of having to compromise (which their supporters hate) and they prove themselves to be incompetent (which low-info voters dislike).
Again, I'm a left-wing SJW social democrat whatever, but I'll be happy to admit their is strong majority support for harsh immigration law in Europe...as long as the rest of the wackiness isn't pulled along behind it. A pro-Ukraine, pro-LGBT, pro-EU but anti-immigration party could do well, but the issue is many of the people behind these populist/right-wing/etc. parties also care about the other three things and being opposed to them. In both the UK & France, once it became obvious Reform & Le Pen's party was fairly anti-Ukraine, they lost support of a lot of soft right-leaning voters.
That's why Meloni has been largely successful in Italy - she's pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine, not all that socially conservative, and also hasn't gone full police state when it comes to immigration, because even many anti-immigrant voters don't want an open sort of what would end up being somewhat violent crackdown on immigrants. But, the base of these right-wing parties do so.
And in Poland PO went "actually, fuck migrants ferried by Łukaszenka to Poland-Belarus border, border walls are nice". What irritated some on left and right, but for me it is politics and democracy working as intended.
(PO also has not vetoed migrant redistribution plan and AFAIK did nothing when German police started to illegally ferry migrants to Poland, so well... On the other hand there is no visa scandal yet? But they have not went open border and they pretend they were not against border wall when it was being built)
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