Leader – The winner takes it all under our unfair electoral system

Swedish pop group Abba famously sung The Winner Takes It All, but in Swedish elections there is more than one winner as parliamentary seats are allocated proportionally.

In contrast, at local and national level in this country we still have a first-past-the-post electoral system – which has richly rewarded Labour in Hackney.

At last month’s election the Conservatives won four seats and the Liberal Democrats three – paltry compared with Labour’s 50. The Greens won no seats, but a glance at the stats reveals a very different story.

In the majority of wards the Greens came second. The party won 20.5 per cent of the vote – more than the Tories and Lib Dems combined. How, then, can the Greens have no representation on the council? The answer is simple: our electoral system rewards only those who come first within a ward.

The winners are those candidates who clinch more votes individually than any of their rivals.

The system is a relatively sensible approach towards electing a mayor, but in terms of councils – particularly ones with powerful executives that take a dim view of internal dissent – political pluralism can be a breath of fresh air.

Cast an eye at the neighbouring borough of Newham, effectively a one party state where Labour has 100 per cent of council seats, or Islington, dubbed the “North Korea of north London” (Labour holds every seat there except one).

At last month’s election count Hackney’s Mayor Jules Pipe told the Citizen: “It is essential to democracy that there is proper scrutiny of legislation and the obvious way that is achieved is through having healthy political opposition parties – but it can’t be down to a political party to deliberately lose to another party.

 “One can’t lay the blame for the other party’s failure at the door of the successful party.”

Precisely. Rather, it is the system that is to blame. Proportional representation (PR) would be a fairer electoral system, and while the Alternative Vote referendum of 2011 did not indicate widespread support for changing our electoral system in general elections, who’s to say there is not appetite for PR locally?

First-past-the-post does not even work on its own terms all of the time. It is meant to produce strong ‘governments that can govern’ and scotch the need for ‘messy’ coalitions – like the one we currently have nationally.