There have been a lot of political firsts this year: Labour’s supermajority, Reform UK’s Westminster seats and the incorporation of an, er, bungee jump into the Liberal Democrat election campaign. Now all eyes are on a curious development in Westminster today that has the potential to alter the UK’s entire voting system…
In a rather interesting move, the Commons voted this afternoon to introduce a bill to legislate on proportional representation. The ten minute rule motion was introduced by Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney and calls for:
Leave [to] be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections and for local government elections in England; and for connected purposes.
Olney’s motion narrowly passed by 138 Ayes to 136 Noes – receiving cross-party support from most Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, a chunk of Starmer’s army and a handful of Green and Independent politicians. Those opposing the issue included the majority of Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue, while Sir Keir’s party demonstrated its uncertainty over the idea with a rather large bloc voting against the PR proposal.
In a rather amusing development, while the majority of Farage’s crowd voted in favour of the motion, Reform’s Rupert Lowe appeared to have missed the memo about PR featuring in, um, his party’s own manifesto. The Reform lot are particularly keen on the idea because, as pointed out by Richard Tice just days after the July election, they believe they would have got almost 20 times as many seats under a PR voting system – with Tice making no bones about his thoughts on the ‘absurdity‘ of the current first-past-the-post method. Yet despite the outspokenness of his colleagues on the matter, it would appear that Lowe is less sold on the strategy…
Whether the motion will lead to substantial change is quite another matter, given ten minute rule bills don’t tend to turn into law. Regardless, Olney has declared it an ‘historic day in the fight for fairer votes’. Will Britain’s voting system face complete upheaval in the years to come? Watch this space…
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