Democracy in the United Kingdom is at its weakest point in 100 years. How do we fix it?
The United Kingdom is currently a parliamentary monarchy with two branches in parliament; the House of Commons, made up of 650 MPs each elected by a single member constituency in a first past the post system, and the House of Lords, currently made up of 785 Lords who are appointed (although this number isn’t fixed) including 26 bishops who make up the Lords Spiritual and sit on the government benches.
On a sub-national level, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have their own devolved assemblies with varying level of powers. In Northern Ireland members of the Assembly are elected via 18 single transferable vote constituencies which elect 5 representatives each, and in Scotland and Wales an additional member system is used, with a certain number of their representatives being elected via FPTP constituencies, and a smaller number being elected through regional list votes which aim to award seats to parties the most underrepresented in that region in the constituency vote.
In England, there is no devolution, England is governed directly from Westminster and as such is in the situation where MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales can vote on laws only concerning England, but English MPs are unable to vote on laws only concerning the other 3 nations. This drew the ‘West Lothian Question’, which asked why this should be allowed. Instead in England, the next level of government below Westminster is sometimes a Combined Authority, and sometimes the local council.
This system is one which gives differing levels of power to different voters based off where they live, and is one which does not make sense for a country with such regional identities. It is because of this there is a serious need for electoral reform, but how should we go about it?
Reform to Westminster
The first change to make to the UK parliament would be to either make the House of Lords entirely elected or to make the House of Lords a purely advisory body consisting of experts from every walk of life which serves the purpose of amending HoC bills. In my opinion, the latter is the more preferable option as it keeps the tradition and history of the UK whilst removing the undemocratic aspects of the body and preventing a rivalry between the two houses from developing.
After this, the next place to look is the House of Commons. The easiest reform to implement would be to reduce the number of MPs to 500. This is a round number and is similar to the cube root of the population of the United Kingdom (which is 408), making it easier to divide up seats and improving the overall quality of the house.
After this, 200 seats should be automatic runoff constituency seats, enabling a form of a local connection with Westminster and also making it easier for regionalist parties to get national representation. A further 250 seats should then be allocated proportionally to each of the 9 English regions and 3 other nations, which would be a closed list vote, which would serve then to make the number of seats won proportional to the votes in that region. Finally the last 50 seats would be national list seats, which would serve to top up any lack of proportionality in the composition of the house.
The rationale
Most list systems operate under a threshold, which helps to prevent extremist parties from gaining representation. Under this electoral system, any regional list would have a threshold of simply 1 divided by the number of seats in that region times 100, unless that is less than 2% in which case a 2% threshold is used, and the national list system would also have a 2% threshold.
This would essentially eliminate safe seats, and ensure parties are focusing their campaigns on wider areas, rather than targeting a small handful of communities. These are obviously huge benefits, as every vote would now matter, and the spoiler effect would be eliminated – almost completely removing tactical voting, and ensuring voters vote for their favourite candidate/party at every level.
Reform to devolution
After reform at Westminster, we would see further reform to the structure of the 3 nations + 9 English regions. At the second-order level, we would see a federal system developed, with each having a unicameral legislature elected via a regional d’hont list system. Each of the federal governments would be headed by a directly elected premier, who must belong to the federal parliament. This premier would sign off bills and act as an intermediary between the federal region and the Westminster parliament.
Local councils
At the bottom of the structure, we would have the local councils. These would be the same boundaries are they currently are, and would be elected through the STV system as used in Northern Irish and Scottish local elections currently in order to bring some portion of proportionality to the councils whilst still keeping the local representation needed at the council level.
The constitution
The United Kingdom would then draft a constitution, inside of which outlines the structure and powers of each level of government. Inside of this also would be the requirements for an amendment, which is that 3/5ths of the Westminster parliament votes in favour of an amendment to the constitution, and it then is added to the UK constitution after the ratification by the 8th federal region.
In this draft of the constitution, the powers of the Supreme Court would be vastly expanded to a body which interprets the constitutionality of laws, and is able to set new precedent if the interpretation of a part of the constitution is outdated. The court would also have the power to enforce their decisions, through the suspension and removal from office those who do not abide by the decisions of the court.
The court would have a fixed number of justices, and their tenure and appointment criteria would remain as currently is. This would also include a requirement of equal protection under the law preventing discrimination in all settings.
This initial draft would then be followed by a series of amendments, all included together as the British bill of rights, which would guarantee constitutional rights to voting, marriage, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a separation of church and state (including banning practising religion in sessions of government), rights to education, rights of workers, freedom of association, the LGBT+ and Trans community (explicitly) to marry, exist and adopt, rights to abortion, and the minimum wage being directly tied to increasing with inflation at the beginning of every fiscal year on April 1st.
The benefits
This system may seem complicated, however it is one which would reduce desires of independence, and ensure every person has an equal vote. This is incredibly important for improving the happiness and conditions of every brit, as every person is able to influence change whenever they want change.
It also means every person will know what the powers of the government are, and what the rights they themselves possess are, eliminating any concern of rights being stripped.
These are all key values of liberalism, and would turn the United Kingdom into a beacon of rights and representative democracy – becoming a country many will be modelled after in the future.