Make Seats Match Votes

I promised a political post and here it is...

Don't worry, I'm not about to tell you which party you should support, or claim that my political opinion is the only one that matters! This is important to any UK citizen who believes in freedom and fairness, regardless of which party you prefer...

On the day of the recent election I was compelled to post this status on facebook:

"I will be voting today, but I do believe our voting system needs a serious update to make it fair and representative!"

By the time the results were announced, there was so much more I needed to say:

"Can we all just take a moment to think about how ridiculous our voting system is? Conservatives got the majority of seats but just 36.9% of the votes. That means 63.1% DIDN'T vote for them. UKIP came in third in terms of votes with 12.6%, the same as SNP and Lib Dems COMBINED. But UKIP's 12.6% translated to just 1 seat, whilst SNP and Lib Dems' 12.6% translated to 64 seats! (What's more, SNP make up 56 of those 64, despite having almost a million less votes than the Lib Dems). The Green Party received over 1 million votes, not far behind SNP, yet only 1 seat! And to put that more in to perspective, Plaid Cymru didn't even hit 0.2 million votes, yet they have 3 seats."

That status was a little 'ranty' so let's just make this as clear as possible:

1. Conservatives - 11,334,576 votes - 331 seats
2. Labour - 9,347,304 votes - 232 seats
3. UKIP - 3,881,099 votes - 1 seat
4. Lib Dems - 2,415,862 votes - 8 seats
5. SNP - 1,454,436 votes - 56 seats
6. Green Party - 1,157,613 votes - 1 seat
7. Plaid Cymru - 181,704 votes - 3 seats

As you can clearly see, votes do not match seats, and there are millions of voters with next to no representation in parliament.

About 50% of the UK population live in areas that are considered 'safe seats' anyway - where one party continuously wins. If you happen to live in one of these areas, it doesn't really matter which party you vote for, as you won't affect the outcome. 

I have long taken issue with the way our voting system works, but as votes are being stretched across more and more parties, it becomes more and more apparent how unfair our current system is. As just one example - under proportional representation, the Green Party would have had 25 seats instead of only one!

Thankfully I wasn't the only person that was outraged at the results, and several petitions sprang up online calling for change. The most popular ones were: 

Make Seats Match Votes
Reform Our Voting System

On Monday of this week, the combined petitions (with almost 500,000 signatures) were delivered to Downing Street, accompanied by key members of five political parties (Greens, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, UKIP and SNP), including Natalie Bennett and Nigel Farage. It was amazing to see people put aside their political differences for the greater good, and the support from the SNP was especially encouraging as they have obviously benefited greatly from the system that is already in place.

Sadly it's very unlikely that the Conservative party are going to do anything about this. They won their majority because of the 'first past the post' system that currently exists, a system that has benefited them many times and keeps the other, smaller parties down. 

So the only way we are going to see any real change is if we keep on talking about this. Delivering the petition was just the first step.

What Can I Do To Help?

• If you haven't already, sign both petitions (links above). It doesn't matter that the petitions were already delivered, the more signatures gained the stronger our case becomes.
• Share the petitions on social media, discuss it at work, explain it to family, spread the word!
• Use the hashtag #MakeSeatsMatchVotes - lets get it trending!
• Join the facebook groups: Voting Reform Team, Unlock Democracy, and Electoral Reform Society
• Donate!
• Write to your local MP asking if they would support a more proportional voting system. 
• Spread the word! I can't stress this part enough!