British
Election Analysis
The 2001
British General Election and New Labour�s Record on Electoral
Reform: Prospects for House of Commons change go from bleak to
virtually non-existent� for now
The June 2001 general election in
Britain resulted in another huge Labour landslide victory on the
scale of its 1997 performance. While the campaign focused on reform
of Britain�s ailing public services, with constitutional issues
almost entirely absent, the question of whether Labour will continue
to move Britain along the path of constitutional reform remains.
Perhaps the most significant action of the previous Labour
government, at least as far as constitutional change goes, was the
devolution of power from Westminster to new regional assemblies in
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Greater London, with
radically new proportional electoral systems used to elect these
bodies. However, while the 1997 Labour party manifesto promised a
referendum on changing the electoral system for the House of
Commons, no referendum was ever held, and the 2001 manifesto simply
stated that the electoral systems used for the regional assemblies
will be �reviewed� after elections scheduled for 2003. Despite, or
perhaps because of its large parliamentary seat majority,
most commentators here in Britain doubt that Labour will pursue
anything comparable to its prior agenda of constitutional reforms.
Many in the cabinet are hostile to electoral reform, so it is highly
unlikely that any change will occur in the new parliament. The
�forces of conservatism,� to use Tony Blair�s words, are alive and
well (and calling the shots) in the Labour party, and this
conservatism at Westminster is all the more disappointing when one
considers the apparent success of the experiments with regional
assemblies and proportional electoral systems.
After four years in power, Labour
obtained another mandate to govern, overcoming the �curse� that has
prevented past Labour governments from governing alone in a second
successive full term. This so-called mandate, however, was tainted
due to a voter turnout of just over 59%, the lowest in the rather
brief history of British democracy (a lower poll took place in 1918,
but on a restricted franchise). Yet a seat majority almost as large
as that of 1997 was won by Labour�62.7% of House of Commons seats on
only 40.7% of the vote (for full election results, see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/vote2001). The main opposition Conservatives
had a net gain of only one seat since the last election, obtaining
only 25.2% of the seats on 31.7% of the vote. The big winners this
time were the Liberal Democrats, whose net gain of six
constituencies, mainly at the expense of the Conservatives, brought
them only 7.9% of the total seats on 18.3% of the vote. Such
lopsided results are, of course, due to Britain�s
first-past-the-post (plurality) electoral system, which once again
manufactured a landslide majority of seats for Labour when the
majority of voters actually voted against them. Furthermore, when
taking account of the low turnout, Blair�s government only has the
electoral support of about 25% of eligible voters, the smallest
popular vote �mandate� in British democratic
history.
In the context of a landslide
re-election, there is little reason for the Labour party to support
a change in the electoral system in the direction of proportional
representation (PR). Many in the party believe they have nothing to
gain when the current first-past-the-post system appears to be
delivering parliamentary seats for them, despite their 18 long years
in the political wilderness. Why should they share power with the
centrist Liberal Democrats, as would probably be required after a PR
election, when they can govern alone under the current system? Any
form of PR would have cost Labour seats in the last two elections,
and a future reform would necessitate major constituency boundary
revisions that could threaten safe Labour seats now taken for
granted. This loss of Labour seats, inevitable under PR, is arguably
the real reason for Labour opposition to change, despite the
often-raised fears of coalition government and the frequently-cited
notion that the multi-member constituencies required by PR will
somehow break the �sacred� link between members of Parliament (MPs)
and the voters.
Back in 1998, the so-called
Independent Commission on the Voting System (whose title was �a joke
to be enjoyed by those who knew the truth,� according to Andrew
Rawnsley, in his book Servants of the People: The Inside Story of
New Labour) recommended a new electoral system for Westminster
elections. Chaired by Lord Jenkins, the commission deliberately
designed his �Alternative Vote Plus� (AV+) system to facilitate the
one-party government desired by Labour after not-so-secret meetings
with Tony Blair. AV+ would accomplish Blair�s goal by being one of
the least proportional electoral systems that scholars could (very
technically) label a form of PR. The vast majority of members would
remain elected in single-member constituencies (using the Australian
form of preferential voting the British call the �alternative vote,�
in which voters rank candidates in order of preference), with only
10-15% of the total MPs elected from party lists. The compensatory
regions would consist of very small multi-member clusters formed
from a group of constituencies and one or two additional list
seats. The latter trait of the proposed system was meant to overcome
concerns that party list members might be seen as �second class� due
to their election through a party list system. Critics would argue,
however (as did the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in New
Zealand), that having so few list members simply exacerbates the
problem. The tiny number of list members, allocated in such small
compensatory clusters, also reduces the proportionality of AV+ to
such an extent that it should more appropriately be called a
�diluted majoritarian� system than genuinely proportional.
Jenkins�s proposal disappointed
many supporters of electoral reform, some of whom wrote highly
critical responses. Opponents of change, on the other hand, were not
placated by Jenkins�s compromise effort and vowed to kick the report
into the proverbial long grass. Among the few people not alienated
by Jenkins appeared to be the Electoral Reform Society, long-time
British PR advocates who, while disappointed with AV+, have publicly
called it �the next step forward.� They apparently hope that
Jenkins�s hybrid might be a transitional phase in the journey
towards their cherished goal of the single transferable vote (STV),
the Irish PR system that uses preferential voting. The Liberal
Democrats, also supporters of STV, offered a cool welcome for AV+ as
well, perhaps because alternate electoral system models showed that
this system (or even undiluted AV) would offer them far more seats
than first-past-the-post.
While the AV+ proposal, despite
its complexity, promises results that would differ little in
proportionality from those of the current electoral system, genuine
PR along German and New Zealand lines was the model for regional
assemblies in Scotland, Wales, and Greater London. Called the
additional member system in Britain (or �Mixed Member Proportional�
in New Zealand), legislators are elected by plurality in
single-member constituencies, with additional members elected from
closed party lists in electoral regions in Scotland and Wales, and
city-wide in Greater London, in such a way that the final outcome
(adding constituency and list seats together) is roughly
proportional on a partisan basis. With deviations from
proportionality (using the Gallagher index) of 7.51% in the Scottish
Parliament, 8.58% in the Welsh Assembly, and 7.48% in the Greater
London Assembly, election results for Britain�s devolved assemblies
have much more in common with the PR elections seen for the
parliaments of Britain�s European neighbours than at Westminster,
where the deviation from proportionality was a staggering 16.57% in
1997 and even worse in the June 2001 election at 17.86% (the author
can e-mail a summary of these election results on
request).
Results from
the 1999 Scottish Parliament election gave Labour most of the 73
constituency seats, with the Liberal Democrats taking the bulk of
its seats in constituency form, but party list seats comprised most
of those won by the Scottish National Party (SNP) and all of those
for the Scottish Conservatives. The leaders of the Greens and the
Scottish Socialist Party also won list seats. Soon after the
Scottish election, a coalition cabinet was formed with the
participation of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. While
there were fears that the Liberal Democrat junior coalition partner
would lose its identity, followed by electoral support, results from
Scotland�s Westminster seats in June 2001 actually showed a gain in
the LibDem popular vote share in Scotland, enough to put the party
(which held all its Scottish seats) in third place and ahead of the
Conservatives. Clearly coalition government has not hurt the
LibDems, particularly since they could claim credit for abolishing
up-front university fees introduced by Labour UK-wide and promising
a future programme of free home care for the elderly, two policies
popular south of the border but opposed by Labour at Westminster. In
Wales, Labour has most of the 40 constituency seats, while the
nationalist Plaid Cymru delegation is composed of roughly equal
proportions of list and constituency members, as is the case for the
Liberal Democrats, while the Conservatives have only one
constituency seat. Labour was surprised by the strength of Plaid
Cymru (which won over 30% of the party vote) and its own failure to
win a majority of seats, despite the electoral system designed to be
less proportional than its Scottish counterpart. Initially a
minority Labour government was formed in Wales, but it was replaced
by a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in autumn 2000.
While much attention has been
paid to how well (or poorly) coalition and minority government have
worked in Scotland and Wales, and whether these examples are models
for future co-operation between Labour and the Liberal Democrats at
Westminster, attention has also focused upon the two types of
representative created by the mixed-member systems used to elect the
Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. Articles in
the press, particularly in Scotland, revealed early on the battle
over funding levels for members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
and how they differ between list and constituency members. Only the
first list MSP from a party�s regional allocation receives an
allowance comparable to that of constituency MSPs; any other list
MSPs from that party in the region receive only 30% of the full
office allowance, which is meant to discourage the establishment of
separate offices. Because the vast majority of Labour and Liberal
Democrat MSPs are constituency members, while most opposition MSPs
are list members, critics charged that partisan motivations were at
work. The allowances situation in Wales is different, however. All
Welsh Assembly members (AMs) receive the same allowances; it has
been noted that Alun Michael, the First Minister until Rhodri Morgan
took over, was himself a Labour list member. The row over MSP
allowances in Scotland was an early indication not only of political
expediency, however, but also of how little thought had been given
to the constituency role that might be assumed by regional list
MSPs. In order to live up to the expectations most party list MSPs
seemed to have of playing some kind of constituency service role,
they needed government funding�a lot of funding�to cover the large
regions from which they were elected. Labour constituency MSP Andy
Kerr revealed in his contribution to the parliamentary debate what
many believed�that �List MSPs were elected to achieve
proportionality. They are equal in the job, but in a different
job�List MSPs and constituency MSPs play different roles in the
community.�
There can be
little argument that much confusion surrounds the roles that list
members in Scotland and Wales are expected to play. Legally both
constituency and list members are equal in status, and the list
members may claim that they too are �constituency� members
representing the vastly larger electoral regions as constituencies
in their own right. Over time, voters who failed to elect candidates
from the party of their choice may come to regard regional list
members from their preferred party as constituency advocates,
approaching them for advice and help instead of the member for their
smaller local constituency. Indeed, it could be argued that voters
benefit from having a number of potential advocates, and from the
competition among them to help constituents. As this process
evolves, however, there is little specific guidance from the
government on how members should behave in their constituency
dealings, and existing guidelines can be confusing (like the code of
conduct for both types of members introduced by the Scottish
Parliament), or simply ignored.
Early
indications from my own research are that both constituency and
regional list members are assuming constituency service roles in
Scotland and Wales, but with list members somewhat more oriented
towards organised interests than individual voters. There is also
evidence that list members have a stronger partisan role than
constituency members, as might be expected when taking into account
how they were elected. Both types of members appear to accept that
the new electoral system is providing groups of equally
representative legislators, but Labour members in particular resent
what they consider intrusions by list members (mainly from the SNP,
the largest opposition party in Scotland) into the casework of
previously safe Labour single-member constituencies. Indeed, one SNP
list member was taken to the Standards Committee recently over his
use of the phrase �local MSP� in posters which the committee found
to be in breach of the code of conduct because the term �local MSP�
might mislead people into thinking that the list member was the
local constituency MSP. The list member in question, Andrew Wilson,
agreed to change his advertising, and was not punished.
It appears
that the Labour party at Westminster has had enough of the turf
battles between constituency and list members north of the border,
and plans to alter the electoral system for future Scottish
Parliament elections were leaked to the media in mid-June. The MSPs
I spoke to about this story, however, think the leak was a �kite�
flown to assess reactions and that the plan is unlikely to be
implemented. Nevertheless, the proposal is provocative. With the
reduction in Scottish Westminster constituencies from 72 to about 58
in the next boundary revision, agreed to by Labour as part of the
price of devolution (both Scotland and Wales are now
over-represented at Westminster), the Scottish Parliament�s
single-member constituencies would be reduced from 73 to about 58 if
it follows the Scotland Act�s guidelines (although this could be
changed to allow retention of all 73 constituencies). The eight
electoral regions in which party list members are elected would be
abolished, but the present number of party list members, 56, would
be retained and allocated to Scotland as a whole on the basis of the
second (party list) ballot, compensating for the results in
constituency races. This �national list� approach would increase the
proportionality of the system, benefiting small parties like the
Greens and the Scottish Socialist Party, and could potentially hurt
Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Perhaps the
Labour party feels that it will continue to dominate the
single-member constituencies, which its members seem to feel are
more �legitimate,� and that it will be more difficult for list
members to shadow them. It should be noted, however, that in New
Zealand, which uses national lists for its Mixed Member Proportional
system, parties actually assign list members to clusters of
geographical constituencies (essentially �shadowing� constituency
members), and there is no reason why Scottish parties would not do
the same thing. Alternatively, Labour might believe that a more
proportional electoral system could make a future surge in
popularity by the SNP less threatening. In any case, there is a
strong sense that the regional list system is important for rural
areas, which might otherwise be ignored, as well as for regional
accountability, as national lists would increase central party
control. Some MSPs, however, might prefer national lists if they
wish to focus more on party policy than on constituency
service.
Back at Westminster, however,
Tony Blair appears more opposed to PR than ever for the House of
Commons. In one of the few comments on PR during the election
campaign, he complained about PR giving �too much power to small
parties� in coalition arrangements. It is clear that a referendum on
electoral reform is unlikely unless the next election, in 2005 or
2006, results in a hung parliament or a small Labour majority. In
such circumstances the Liberal Democrats would be in a position to
extract some kind of concession on electoral reform, probably the
promise of a referendum and public support for a change; it is hard
to see how a coalition could manage if it were divided over such an
important issue, although individual Labour MPs could (and would!)
speak out on their own positions. How the government could justify a
referendum when AV+ is so similar in proportionality to the current
electoral system, and real, working models of PR exist in Britain�s
own regional assemblies would certainly become an issue. Both Labour
and the Liberal Democrats would be accused of ganging up on the
Conservatives, a charge that might gain sympathy from a public wary
of seeing politicians tampering with fundamental institutional rules
for partisan gain. Furthermore, it is unlikely that AV+ would be
merely an interim system, as hoped by the Electoral Reform Society;
it would probably become entrenched and difficult to change later.
Indeed, it is more likely that
the highly majoritarian, undiluted AV, rather than AV+, will emerge
as the likely �reform� option put before British voters in a future
referendum, according to many observers of British politics. Before
his demotion from the cabinet, Peter Mandelson renounced his
previous support for PR and called for AV to be introduced, again
invoking the �horrors� of coalition government. Many in the Labour
party (including rising star Peter Hain, author of anti-PR tract
Proportional Mis-representation) support AV or are warming up
to the system. Journalist John Morrison concludes in his recent book
Reforming Britain: New Labour, New Constitution? that with
Liberal Democrat compliance, �the choice will be between
first-past-the-post and AV, while the prospect of a more substantial
change in the voting system for Westminster floats back to the
bottom of the seabed�the reform that got away.� With reasonably well
functioning executives and PR systems in its regional assemblies,
and the strong possibility of the introduction of STV for local
council elections in Scotland and Wales (as in Northern Ireland
now), unreconstructed majoritarianism at Westminster will look
increasingly out of place in Britain, as well as disappointing to
the reform-minded community. |