Tag Archives: Green Party

An Absurdly British Electoral System

A million people voted Green and got one MP.

11 million people voted Conservative and got 331 MPs.

Notice anything wrong with that system? Yes, it’s grossly, absurdly, disgustingly unfair.

Perhaps you don’t care much about the Greens, favour the right of British politics? OK, try this:

Nearly 4 million people voted UKIP and got one MP. You know how many voted Conservative already. It takes 100 UKIP voters (or 30 Green voters) to balance one Tory.

The British first-past-the-post electoral system is delivering a parliament which doesn’t even pretend to be properly representative. It just does its best to dump a majority of seats in the lap of the largest party. That has given the Tories, Labour and as it happens the completely-concentrated-in-Scotland Scottish Nationalists far more seats than they deserve (the SNP got over 50, their share of the vote would give them 25), at the expense of democracy and all other parties.

During the campaign, no party other than the Greens so much as mentioned the environment in any of the voluminous “literature” that fell through my letterbox. So now, the 24 Green candidates who should have been elected are unable to transmit the British people’s declared voice to Parliament. And, yes, 82 UKIP candidates were similarly cheated of their voice.

Don’t be surprised when Nature and “the environment” barely get a mention for the next five years. You million Greens, be happy you’ve given Cameron’s Tories a new “mandate”. You’ve even got an MP, what more could you want?