The British are conservative by nature – even if we cling to outmoded models – but once we change for the better, we like to stick with it! The people of New Zealand have recently demonstrated this principle as set out in a recent article by Darren Hughes (himself a former New Zealand MP) now Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society.
Those who follow these matters will know well the arguments in favour of proportional representation, or “fairer votes” in which every vote counts, whatever the political predominance in any constituency, and that governments are not elected on a minority of votes cast. A situation so manifestly unfair that, when the Conservatives won more votes than Labour and a higher percentage of the electorate but failed to form the Government in February 1974, that Conservative Action for Electoral Reform was born with large numbers of Conservative MPs as adherents.
Moreover, every new legislative institution created in this generation – whether the Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly (now Senedd) and a change to Scottish local government – all have proportional representation as their means of election. It makes Westminster, still with first-past-the-post, seem increasingly anomalous. The mood for change is there – the Labour Party in its local constituency associations and at its national conference has called for change, and even Reform has now jumped on the bandwagon alongside other mainstream parties calling for change.
But back to New Zealand, which, as Darren points out in his article, Questioning New Zealand’s proportional system led to questions about the prime minister’s position, New Zealand went through a lot to change the voting system to a much fairer, more representative and consultative parliament and government. It held a series of referenda in 1992, 1993 and 2011 with each one indicating support for a new system and ended up with the popular choice of what they call Mixed Member Proportional (not greatly dissimilar from the Scottish Parliament elections). So when, recently, their Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, out of the blue, said that he wanted yet another referendum, it went down badly and provoked a vote of no confidence in him (which he survived).
The fact is that, having changed their system some decades ago, the Kiwis have grown used to it and like it because it achieves fairer results – there are more women and Maoris as Parliamentarians, for example. It will take considerable upheaval to change the Westminster first-past-the-post system, but when it comes, and it will, the British will warm to it and want to keep it as much as the New Zealanders – we are, after all, deeply conservative in our views!
Image: Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0, wikimedia