Latest News

Latest

Voting poll will leave us no choice

Monday, 5th July 2010

A referendum on a new voting system could break apart Britain’s coalition government by the end of next May and still leave us with an unrepresentative parliament, according to UKIP’s David Campbell Bannerman.

The poll, pencilled in for May 5, is likely to ask voters to choose between the current First Past the Post (FPTP) system favoured by the Tory party and the Alternative Vote (AV) system preferred by the Lib Dems, even though neither system will bring about the government the British people want.

Under FPTP, electors receive one vote and the candidate with the most votes becomes the MP for that constituency. This means anyone who casts a ballot in favour of an underdog risks wasting their vote, while winning candidates usually do not have the support of the majority of their electorate.

Under AV, electors are allowed to rank their candidates in order of preference and the most popular candidate, when all first, second and third preferences are counted up, wins. Under AV, no votes are wasted and the winning candidate has more cross-party support.

However, neither method allows smaller parties to gain the foothold they deserve based on their share of the national vote. For this to happen a number of MPs must be elected based on their party’s total voteshare, with others still elected based on their constituency results.

UKIP’s joint deputy leader, David Campbell Bannerman, explains that a system of AV-plus is the best solution and would put right the absurd situation where a party as popular as UKIP finds it difficult to win a parliamentary seat.

Under AV-plus, 450 MPs would be elected according to their constituency results, with the remaining 200 allocated according to each party’s share of the national vote.

“AV-plus is an excellent balance of keeping the constituency link for MPs while introducing the element of proportional representation that makes voting fair,” said the Eastern Region MEP.

“It is the system used successfully in Scotland, Wales and the London Assembly elections and we fully endorse it as a fair but representative method of voting.”

If the 2010 general election had been run using AV, David Cameron would have 21 fewer seats and Nick Clegg 24 more. Labour would also have gained three extra MPs.

Losing FPTP would be a disaster for the Tories, who would once again suffer by putting power before principals and getting into bed with their Lib Dem opponents – who wanted the voting referendum as their reward for cooperating with David Cameron.

But if the public vote to keep the current system, Clegg’s band of power-hungry liberals will be left wondering why they bothered forming a government with the Tories in the first place.

“The referendum has the power to destroy this strange coalition,” says Mr Campbell Bannerman. “But the sad thing is that unless we can choose a system with an element of proportional representation, it won’t even have been worth the bother.”

Watch David Campbell Bannerman denounce plans to give prisoners the vote

Back to Latest News

You can add your comment here