Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
The proposal would have made minor changes to how each constituency chooses its MP. It would not have created a parliament that was proportional to nation-wide popularity as RaohNS wants though
Poll: The EU Referendum: How Will You Vote? (May Poll)
- Thread starter Burnsy2023
- Start date
- Status
The proposal would have made minor changes to how each constituency chooses its MP. It would not have created a parliament that was proportional to nation-wide popularity as RaohNS wants though
Nice cop out.
The whole leave argument appears to be based on fear. A fear of the EU having "stolen" our sovereignty and planning on stealing more, this being a referendum on a federal Europe, a migration crisis and the settling of refugees in Europe, Turkey potentially joining the EU at some point in the future causing us to be over run with more immigrants etc. Heck, just look a few posts up, now apparently the EU is planning on stealing the NHS...
Wow, where do we begin on the remain fear train then?
War, pensions, holiday costs, food costs, unemployment, less household money, terrorism, house prices, recession, increased austerity, lower growth, marriage breakdown (?).
That's to name just a few off the top of my head from the past few weeks.
AV favours middle-of-the-road parties like the Lib Dems. It's a system that asks voters who they dislike the least. I doubt UKIP would have won many more seats under the AV system proposed.
We are not talking about reinventing the wheel. An AV system would be my preference as you decide who you like. PR can take a lot of that away based on voting preference.
Ok, to draw a comparison. The SNP for argument sake won the seats based on 50% of all votes. That means 50% of people were ignored. There can be mechanisms put in place for that to counter an ostensibly democratic system to make it more democratic. As an example high non-SNP areas can have their votes transferred to ensure their views can get put forward.
Having said this me personally, I would get rid of 150 MPs and redraw boundaries. That would save some cheddar.
Why is changing a method of voting really so terribly difficult? Well you may struggle to comprehend it but I don't. It just involves you putting numbers in boxes.
people asked for PR and were given the choice of AV.
i think the result would have been very different if it was PR that was up for the referendum as its simple to explain and appears fair.
AV is complicated and unfair to most.
That's a strange argument against PR, which has been implemented successfully around the world, including in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Brussels. AIUI the parties submit a list of their candidates, it they win 10% of the vote which equates to 65 MPs, then the top 65 people on their list become MPs.
I don't particularly like PR - the Jenkins Commission looked into voting systems and came up with a hybrid system called AV+, which was deemed to be the most suitable system for our democracy. Unfortunately neither Blair nor Cameron wanted anything to do with, the latter cleverly taking advantage of his naive LibDem coalition partners to offer a vote on AV, not AV+, which was subsequently lost.
How many of the electorate do you really believe understood what they were voting for? I voted AV.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 11,698
- Location
- Surrey
You dont understand how difficult it would be to implement a pr system and the inconveniences it will bring if it came in and we were always stuck with a coalition of people that would block every idea out of spite for not publicly suggesting it first or out of disagreement.
I would agree to this
I would agree to this
Against the Lords here personally. Think that AV should be used for MPs personally as AV is much more democratic that FPTP
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 11,698
- Location
- Surrey
If more democratic = better results, then we would use PR for everything and there would be no one unhappy about it 
fair =/= practical
fair =/= practical
If more democratic = better results, then we would use PR for everything and there would be no one unhappy about it
fair =/= practical
We use mixed-member proportional representation in London, Scotland and Wales assembly elections without any complaints. The same goes for the flavour of PR used in European elections.
what about the cons of having an unelected second house where membership seems to be awarded based upon your religion or the favours you granted the ruling party at the time.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 11,698
- Location
- Surrey
I am not saying PR does not work, i am saying that it is not so easy to implement everywhere and the government we would have wont be as functional.
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
I'm not arguing against PR, just the idea that all we need to do is teak the voting system to get proportionality when you've had to completely change the whole system.
So to get PR, we'd have to forfeit the local representation of the constituency MP system. We'd also be using a system where no one was actually personally elected, the party [they currently align with] won the vote and they just got picked because they are popular with the party chairman.
Those are two huge changes to make to our system
Drawback of the system I guess.
However, usurping is the wrong word to use, given that its to take a position illegally. Bad our system may be, but it's the very definition of legal.
That's the tories for ya.
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
AV combined with constituency MPs doesn't stop the problem of a party getting far more of the popular vote than they do in seats. AV would have not have granted UKIP the 65 seats they are supposedly owed.
You're missing the point, the voting method is one part of how our government is created. Parliament being made up of MPs who are each voting in by their peers (constituents) is another and it is this second part that means whatever the form people tick looks like or how you count the vote on it, you can't align that with how popular a party in nationally.
- Status