Labour has officially clinched victory in the General Election, marking a crushing defeat for the Conservatives. Rishi Sunak has made his final appearance at Downing Street before handing over the keys to Keir Starmer.
With 641 constituency results declared, Labour has secured 410 seats, the Tories 119, Lib Dems 71, Reform four and the Greens four. However, this is under our first past the post system – if proportional representation had been used, the results would be very different indeed.
Under proportional representation, Reform would win 93 seats across the country, and the Green Party would win 44. Check out the vote share (proportional representation) and seat share (first past the post) in our interactive tool below:
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Dating back to the Middle Ages, the first past the post system focuses the power of a person’s vote on a specific local candidate rather than a national party. This means that a single ballot holds no significance beyond the constituency where it is cast and it often happens that a party can achieve a high proportion of the national vote but win no seats, reports the Express.
The alternative is a system that uses proportional representation where the number of MPs a party has is based on their share of the national vote. Critics of first past the post argue that it renders many people’s votes meaningless if they live in constituencies with huge majorities for one party.
This year’s election provides a clear example of how a massive electoral win can be achieved without a party increasing support on a national level.
Keir Starmer is projected to surpass Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 campaign by a mere 1.5 percentage points, yet he’s on track for one of the most significant electoral victories in Labour’s history. A key factor in Labour’s success is the surge of voters gravitating towards Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in many constituencies.
However, under the first-past-the-post system, challengers are likely to win just a smattering of seats. The infographic above offers a comparison between the two systems, illustrating how a more proportional system would yield a vastly different result.
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