Congratulations on a very good election result for you and your Substack. You have been consistent and courageous in sticking to your guns even - I suspect - at the cost of a withering blast of criticism from the very people you were most intent on warning of their immiment demise. Cassandras are never particularly well-liked, especially if they turn out to be correct. I hope your success turns into an even larger following for your excellent Substack and now YouTube channel and that you continue to dissect and reflect on the unfolding seismic political shifts in the UK and broader European context. Great work and a well deserved success.
Odd you should say he was 'correct' when he predicted (and I quote) "we are now on the cusp of something truly historic in British politics...an inflection point. A major turning point when Reform might start to replace the Conservative Party in the polls."
Well it never happened and just look at the hopeless inaccuracy of Matt's own polling putting Reform comfortably ahead. Far from 'replacing' the Conservatives in the polls they are 10% double digits behind them in votes! Of course there may or may not be alibis --stabbed in the back by the MSM etc.--but let's not pretend the predictions were accurate when they just weren't!
You didn't notice Reform starting to replace the Tories in second place in a number of seats, then ? They are indeed starting to replace the Tories as the go-to alternative to Labour. And Reform have a "Leader", whereas the Tories are trying to find a "leader". There's a big difference.
We need PR for people to feel it is worth voting. I commented on another Substack that I was a 'don't vote, it only encourages them' person before Nigel Farage entered the fray. At which point I KNEW that he would get millions of votes and few seats and I KNEW he would then champion the cause of PR. Nigel Farage spent 25 years of his life getting us out of the EU. I believe his character is such that he will spend the next 25 years (if necessary!) getting us a fairer voting system. He is a conviction politician, not a Davos puppet,
We had the chance a few years back in a referendum. New voting system was rejected. People were too dumb to see what an opportunity that was and so we reap what we sow.
I think that it was rejected because the method offered was just about the worst option amongst the various forms of PR... And fortunately plenty of people realised it.
Not sure they were dumb Mr Blah. The vested interests who favour the status quo just let the whole campaign wither on the vine. It was never promoted as a viable change, just some silly Lib Dem hobby horse.
Yes. But people have busy lives and a lot of this is just noise to them. I think that’s fair enough. We need to find a way to engage with these people, not dismiss them (not saying you’re doing this Mr Blah btw) as ‘Sheeple’. Wining over the disinterested majority is the biggest prize of all.
I know - I remember voting in favour then. I think the choice offered was one specific form of PR which was contentious, as opposed to the principle of PR.
There was nothing wrong with what was offered - it was an improvement on what we have now. And if it was passed we would now have reform with 100-200 seats. Rather than 4.
Perhaps. But you have to remember that it was portrayed as being something Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems wanted and that would predominantly benefit them. Hardly a surprise that it was rejected. Also, this was in 2011, if I recall correctly, and the potential rise of smaller parties wasn't really a thing at the time. If the same vote had been 3 or so years later, it might have been accepted by the general public.
I agree. I was just making the point that TPTB didn't want a 'yes' vote so they narrowed the choice and muddied the water about it on the lines of, 'well....you could have this if you really want, but it is fraught with all these (tinkering) problems' omitting to mention the glaring democratic deficit in having FPTP.
I guess this is the Single Transferable Vote system which would indeed favour smaller parties with highly clustered support over parties with widely spread support. I vaguely remember it and thinking that you'd still have no "local" MP if you voted for a widely-spread party so might as well go for PPR. Thanks.
There was a very half-hearted campaign, if you can even call it that. There was no effort to explain to the electorate what it was all about so they were rewarded with a derisory turn-out and rejection of the idea. Perhaps with a campaign run by someone who really believes in the idea they may get a better response. I believe there should be a country-wide discussion about all the various forms of PR and how they pan out in real countries where they operate. I'm in favour in principle but many countries seem to spend months after an election bickering and horse trading before they form a government. After all that compromise is everything and nobody ends up getting what they really voted for.
I think there are different versions of PR, the european style seems to me not to be good, yet I lived in Australia for 30 years and their version of PR was not chaotic at all, so there must be some good versions.
Yes, I've heard that about Australia too. It cannot be beyond us to have a look at different systems and decide which seems to work the best. Same with healthcare. Fetishising FPTP and the NHS is a special weirdness in this country - what is wrong with people?
I'm intrigued by your statement that European systems seem not to be good .By far the most common system in Europe is Party List PR. You get a list of candidates arranged by party affiliation. You vote for one candidate, The seats are divided by party in proportion to the total number of votes they get. Candidates who get enough votes for one seat are automatically elected. There is a system for cascading the votes down the list to decide which of the remaining candidates gets in for each party. There are a couple of variations on this but this simple system is the most common and works fine in many countries. It almost always leads to coalitions which means compromise is necessary to form a government. Compromise is, of course, a word almost unknown to UK politicians. Its main advantages are that 99% of voters are always represented in parliament and at least 50% are always represented in the government. Its main disadvantage is that their is no strong tie between MPs and constituencies. Life is a compromises and there are layers of local government to compensate. The UK media like to point to Italy as an example of the chaos that PR systems lead to. That country does not have PR, but a mixed system of PR & FPTP. It is also run by Italians as opposed to more phlegmatic types from Northern Europe, like the Dutch. UK media has recently reported that the Netherlands has now had 6 months without a government. That is either ignorance or a deliberate lie. After an election the new parliament is rapidly installed while the existing government stays on in a caretaker role. The government can continue to implement laws which are already on the books but cannot introduce new legislation or assume emergency powers without the agreement of parliament. As soon as a new coalition reaches agreement they take over as government. Simple.
By not to be good, I meant how long it takes to form a government, I don't know the ins and outs of PR, but I do know that in Australia we knew almost immediately within a day or so who was going to govern. That is not the case in Europe which seems to me almost chaotic not simple.
The long period required to form a government is seen as an essential part of the process of government. Most Brits I've known who've spent any time in the Netherlands tend to say. I wish it was more like that here in the UK.
I agree but we should not kid ourselves that PR is a panacea. Many of the other countries dominated by a similar woke pro-mass migration elite have PR such as Ireland and Germany.
There are also different types of PR. Party list systems allow Party HQ to impose their preferred type of candidate and we all know what that means. Single transferable vote allows voters to choose between candidates of the same party which is more democratic and harder to stitch up.
Yup. The Single Transferable Vote appears to be the best option. I recommend people read info on the website of The Electoral Reform Society, a very calm, rational voice in this debate. 👍
Reform will need to recruit a lot of sensible people before the year is out.
Clearly they should focus on constituencies and demographics that are most supportive and those who might be so maybe in the first year only half of the constituencies need an organiser.
Also urgent is the need to recruit candidates for local elections next year. This is vital in places where a Reform MP was elected or almost elected. In my county of Essex the elections are in May 2025 so under a year to find the people, vet them, train them and promote a coherent policy plan.
As to the Tories, we can hope they carry on with the in-fighting for quite a long time. Let's hope they follow the advice they are getting and try to attract support from left of centre elites which are their natural friends and neighbours. That way they can be destroyed.
Absolutely, if Reform are to turn from a protest to a truly serious force in politics, I think they need to take a leaf out of the Liberal Democrats strategy and ruthlessly target their core areas and to do that they have to build local. They also have to have a much better control on who is in the party, they cannot afford to give free hits to the msm.
They were really caught out by Sunak's choice of date, which I don't remember anyone forecasting. They now need to concentrate on vetting all prospective candidates and focusing on seats where they came second instead of spreading their efforts over every constituency.
Quite right. One of my daughters nearly didn't vote for them because she thought the local candidate was a bit sketchy. She did in the end, only because of the manifesto and wanting to add to the totality of votes for Reform and the point I made, that the actual candidate in her constituency was never going to be elected.
You're absolutely correct. I was a senior manager until 2023 for Reform, I had to give up as it was a shambles , Tice and Oakden couldn't run a bath. I am minded to rejoin now that Farage is the leader and that he has found the same shortcomings that I experienced. He already has brought in some good people and I wish him well.
Hello Geoff - we used to be in contact as Reform colleagues before we both left for the same reason. It was a frustrating experience. They do need to convert the cliquey boys' club they have got into a proper democratic (ironically) political party and properly, seriously vet anyone who offers to stand as a candidate.
it goes back much further , even just post Brexit we saw Conservative MPs trying to stymie the vote . Oliver Letwin in bed with Yvette Cooper , Crispin Burt in bed with Hillary Benn ,we saw this shower going against the vote they promised to honour. Grieve, Soubry, Heidi Allen, Kenneth Clarke, Jonathan Djanogly, Stephen Hammond, Oliver Heald, Nicky Morgan, Bob Neill, Antoinette Sandbach, John Stevenson and Sarah Wollaston. My blood has been boiling since 2016.
Agreed Barbera. The betrayal of Brexit voters and the desperate efforts to reverse the result was a defining moment for me. Yes. Still angry. I’m reading No Way Out by Tim Shipman all about the ‘negotiations’. I recommend it if you want to turn that boiling up to 11.
Ive read Fall Out and All out War. Eye opening both of them. Ive not read No way out (yet). It seems to me that people in general only accept what they are told on the BBC news etc. They dont look deep enough , its a miasma of deceit. I see that (SIR )Ollie Robbins ,once Theresa May's bag carrier and EU sell out organiser has now joined Labour . Just who is trustworthy. ?
I know Barbera. Gob smacking! And at the time they assured us he was working to get Brexit done. In No Way Out he comes across as committed and conscientious, but only to a sort of soft leave, fudging, pro EU ‘sensible’ agenda. The other example of course is Sue Grey. I’ve been banging on about the nepotism of her son being handed a candidate place for Labour. Regardless of the details, it stinks. I must check if he won or not.
Yes, it stinks , she seems to be one devious woman with a devious past. I'd like to know the truth of that and just who was she working for in her 'landlady' days.
Not just a Labour issue. But they’re always the ones to go one about ‘the old boys network’ when nepotism seems to be rife on the left. Millibands. Kinnocks. Benns. Loads of them.
Yet far more people voted for Labour and Lib Dems and Greens (53%) than voted Conservative and Reform (38%). Far from Matt's imagining, the 'Brexit' vote is on the retreat here.
I think there needs to be a degree of caution in assuming Labour and Lib Dems = Remain and Reform and Conservative = Leave. Brexit was most definitely kept in the background this election, especially by Labour. The second note of caution I’d make is that the proportion of those voting was significantly down, both relative to 2019 and 2016. The analysis I’ve seen suggests the Labour vote in England was pretty much static and the most of the increase came from the collapse of the SNP in Scotland. Labour do have a large majority, but keeping the coalition of voters together to deliver a majority for a second term is going to be challenging. As the Chinese would say, we live in interesting times.
Don't disagree at all . It is hard to actually quantify Brexit as a vote indicator. My point was that, while Matt seems to think it is and that the Tories deny it at their peril, he was being much too simplistic. There seems no doubt the motivation at this election was anti-Tory. But that applied on all sides. Matt's Messianic conviction it was all to do with anti-woke and anti-immigration is far too simplistic.
In my simple world I would like to see the right wing element of the Conservative Party joining forces with Farage and leaving the wets to wallow in their own mess. Not that it will happen but I can dream.
Possibly heading up Reform UK as Nigel's "younger, better looking" successor, and hopefully claiming the keys to No. 10.and striving to find an antidote to the massive destruction that the accidentally newly installed band of barmpot racists/globalists/headless chickens will have inflicted on us all by then!
Matt, actually only a minority of people delivered this verdict , the vast majority did not
Do you have a sense of whether Tory voters stayed at home or some Labour voters did because they knew the result ?
What’s clear is that the Reform voters definitely did turn out
If Reform get to 20-25% in the next couple of years there will always be hard core tribal Tories on 20% , the ones that voted this time regardless of how badly Rishi Sunak did
My point is 2 parties on 20-25% will never win power again split like this
I’m convinced Labour will make damn sure they will try anything to stay in power regardless how they do by changing things in the govt machine to enable this to happen
With Boris and lots of Tory MPs not being friendly to Reform this stand off will cost the next election or even 2 more
It just needs to be pointed out clearly that the Tories are a vestigial appendage. The remaining Tory voters are either defacto lib dems and should vote lib dem or defacto reformers and should vote reform. The Tories have been pretending to be something they are not for far too long and the truth now needs to be laid out.
Absolutely, I keep wondering who the hell these people are who keep voting Tory! What do they think they are voting for exactly? Almost the definition of zombie apocalypse.
I have always lived in True Blue constituencies but currently Chichester and my last residency Tunbridge Wells both now fallen to the Limp Dumbs. If the Tories are going to lose these sorts of seats I see no future for them at all unless they go back to their roots and ignore the "elites" and "grandees" who have done the party so much harm. BTW I voted Reform.
I suggest they are fed up with being lied to, despised, derided and/or ignored. Boris' 180 degree betrayal of his promises in 2019 was the final straw.
I agree with this to an extent but it will take a very long time to erase the memories of your average tribal Tory voter of Thatcher or Boris for example
They want to preserve a great political party , that’s what your are up against and you can see from this election , they are not prepared to switch
It’s a died hard bunch of 15-20 % of the electorate who won’t budge
Waiting for another Thatcher or Boris to come along
And they just won’t switch to Reform unless they can see an imprint of the Tory party within it
I find it impossible to see anything other then 1-2 more victories for the left
I'm not convinced by that. It's one of the quirks of our present electoral system that once a party starts to collapse, it swiftly loses all access to success, which in turn discourages support and leads to voters supporting a successful party.
I think the Tory vote will drop to 5-10% at some point at which the party will cease to exist. Those who were sympathetic to Reform will have joined, while the elite liberals will have joined the Lib Dems.
If I am correct, the paradox of PR is that it would make Reform appear stronger but encourage Labour and the Liberals to form a coalition to lock out those they see as "dangerous". A Lab, Lib, Green coalition would then dominate English politics.
Look at Germany, where voices dissatisfied with the post-war consensus struggle to heard, leading to greater apathy and radicalisation of the electorate. PR (and its like) sounds good but in practice smothers parties like Reform.
You are correct Wien PR looks appealing but more closely examined is fraught with many unconsidered banana skins.
It is more likely to favour Labour because there are so many other parties of the left including the worrying increase of Islamist groupings who will win seats under this system and all will combine to prevent the formation of a centre right government.
PR will also,of course destroy the traditional and historic right to select and vote for a named candidate as your representative in Parliament and all candidates will be selected and controlled on a party list by unknown apparatchiks.
I agree completely that first pass the post has it's many faults but it has served our nation well historically by allowing an elected party to govern unhindered by perpetual threats from erratic coalition partners.
Perhaps we should consider PR in the light of Winston Churchill's famous dictum on Democracy "It is the worst system devised by wit of man,except for all the others"
MPs are all party apparatchiks now. They are controlled by the Whip and their own ambition which keeps them tame via the PM's ability to appoint ministers. Parliament itself has been hollowed out - most laws are made by civil servants via the statutory instrument procedure and the idea that MPs represent anybody but themselves is laughable. They owe loyalty to the party, not you.
I agree but PR would only serve to make this worse and I would hope that a Reform Government would perhaps address these issues but at the end of the day,a political party will always be subject to the wishes of a majority of it's members if the will is there through The 22 Committee.
That would have to wait until the "grandees" who dominate CCHQ have moved/passed on... Until then you're more likely to see Lord Lucan ride Shergar up Downing Street!
PR also means the death of local representation. Lee Anderson represents Ashfield. Under PR for a Lee Anderson to be returned as a Member of Parliament, this would depend on his position on the party list. Furthermore, he would not be representing Ashfield, but just be another client of the party patrons. This is alien to English political traditions which are about being represented by one of your community. PR centralises power in the hands of the party elite, just as Cameron and his lot undermined and overrode the Conservative constituency associations in choosing candidates for election.
Furthermore, MPs returned by PR would be entirely party-aligned in their outlook. No more would there be either dissident voices and a broad church nature to the parliamentary party. It would reinforce the evolution of a professional political class (something which has already done great damage to this country).
I can imagine an MP (of whatever persuasion) chosen from a party list being accosted by a member of the public with an opinion and replying "Which party did you vote for? Not mine? Then go and find an MP from that party."
FPTP acts as a glue, holding together people, not dividing them into political blocks (substitute tribes or churches as you see fit). Because an MP has tp represent the interests of all their constituents (for reasons of self-interest and survival), after election day an MP is the servant of the electors. PR severs that relationship and we would lose something beyojd reckoning.
We shouldn’t underestimate the soft power held by universities, NGOs, the civil service, the police and Blair’s quangos he intentionally set up for this purpose. The left’s power base is simply massive.
I would like university students to have to vote in their home constituency rather than their university area. That would get rid of a good few Labour dominated towns and cities where the people who vote Labour in are off as soon as they graduate.
It is not only voters who have decamped and gone to reform UK. So has conservatism. Reform is the future for conservatism in the UK.
Boris Johnson is warning the Conservative Party not to merge with Reform. It is more appropriate to warn Reform not to merge with the Conservative party lest it become smothered and poisoned with Tory Party baggage and its debilitating broad church. True conservatives in Parliament should now align with Reform against not only Labour and the Lib Dems but also against the Wet Conservatives. In Opposition party loyalty is less important so there is hope.
Congratulations to Matt Goodwin for his academic rigour, keeping up our spirits but not leading us into false optimism.
I still fail to understand a Tory party which, in the aftermath of the most comprehensive ass-kicking in U.K. political history, is going to maintain a belief that its future can only rest upon doubling down on its disastrous ‘Centrist Dad’ orientation, and away from what what the very people it needs to speak to, want. I am doubtful about whether Braverman or Badenoch will be able to re-orient the Tory brand, as the remaining (pun intended) wets aren’t about to give in.
Badenoch appears to be a person who is simply ambitious for herself, rather than visionary or principled or having a guiding philosophy. I didn't like her playing the "I'm black and I'm a woman" card in that spat with Tennant. Braverman has the right principles but couldn't outmaneouvre the Blob, so....
Now that Farage and Reform have arrived, the difficult thing to achieve will be to build on it, especially as they will face so many enemies, including the blob of elected and unelected government, broadcasters, judges and 'independent' quangos.
You are correct Colin,once the excitement of an election campaign fades it will be very difficult to maintain interest by the more casual supporters though if Rishi resigns there will be an interesting by-election and I think that Reform should use every means to keep,publicly and on social media, the major issues of immigration, NHS reform,the madness of Net Zero,crime control and more prison places and education improvement constantly boiling.
“This is an edited and expanded version of an article in the Sun” = Translation - The Sun version was dumbed down for folk with a reading age of less than 5 years.
The future depends on many variables: to what extent will Starmer adhere to his WEF/UN orders? How far will he be prepared to make himself unpopular by pushing planning reform, traffic restrictions and Net Zero? How will his popularity endure when faced with the inevitable power cuts, tax rises, shortages and anti-British policies? What will the Conservatives do? Will they tack to the Right or the Left? Can they agree on a core set of policies and stick to them? Will they HONESTLY unite around a new leader, and who will that leader be? How effective will Nigel be? When he rises to speak, surely all the other MPs will simply walk out ala-Andrew Bridgen, leaving Nigel to speak to an empty chamber, which will render him impotent.
I cannot see how the Conservatives can unite because they are still split over Brexit, and the only way to resolve this is to dismiss the final few Brexiteers that are left and become a Rejoin party, which will ensure unity, but will that simply drive Brexiteer voters to Reform? If the Labour Party become unpopular very quickly, and given the present state of the Conservative Party, then Reform could surge even more, especially if Trump is in the White House and Nigel capitalizes on this. Buckle up, the ride has just begun.
I'm asking myself if the vision (on TV) of Nigel rising to speak to an empty house cannot be used to generate a powerful message. It could become a cult event on social media ......
The Brexit divide is history. Boris led the campaign for Brexit then governed as a woke open borders liberal. Others didn't support Brexit, including Matt I believe, but have a better appreciation of what needs doing. The great majority of Tory MPs, with a few honourable exceptions, are treacherous and deceitful.
Even if Trump is elected, Starmer should be able to see him out for Trump has only four years and can't be re-elected. And of course Trump is even more unpopular here than our most unpopular politician of all, namely that other Trump supporter Liz Truss. She is disliked by 65% of people, Trump by 67%! I doubt therefore Trump can help Farage much with popularity!
The Tories need to be wiped out and anyone associated with them banned from joining reform. They have been captured by an underground Lib Dem cabal and are 'Conservative' in name only.
If reform let any of these jokers join we just get a repeat of the takeover and end up with a watered down lib dem compromised reform party. And round and round we go again.
It's a difficult question. The trouble with letting ex Tories join is they taint reform with their previous association. E.g. if people hate the Tories then the more you let in the more you endanger the ability to build a coalition spanning left/right in reform.
So I think it's better to have a hard position of 'no Tories' then maybe let in a few exceptional individuals. However I would have my doubts about even those because they have shown poor judgement getting involved with the Tories when it's been clear a long time what a useless bunch they were.
Excellent content. Happy Canadian subscriber here Matt. We are seeing a similar, yet different, outcome and future for the governing Liberal Party of Canada. They have gone so far left, they are a lefty progressive blob undistinguished from the far-left New Democratic Party (NDP). The Conservatives, under their relatively new leader, Pierre Poilievre, seems closer to Nigel Farage than Rishi or BoJo. This is a good thing! Pollsters are now projecting a Cons supermajority in our next Federal election (Fall 2025?) which can’t come soon enough. Think your Labour Party but with flashier socks 🧦 and at one time, better hair. 🇨🇦🆘 #JustinJustGo
All the commenters and BTLs I read throw around terms like left, right, centre quite happily and yet I no longer believe that these terms are very meaningful. How for example can the Green party espouse all the prog-lib causes, net zero, LGB+++, and yet have councillors who shout Allahu Akbar on being elected and so presumably are firm believers in Islam which would have no truck with eg women's rights and homosexuality. What is the magical centre ground now? Does it occupy much too broad a range of views that it's just not possible to coalesce around? I would love to read an essay from you, Matt, on what you think is the best way to define the belief systems of our various parties and in fact the whole spectrum of political views.
The short version is Left = the state will do everything for you and tell you what's good for you: Right = you will stand on your own 2 feet and the state will catch you if you fall on hard times.
Congratulations on a very good election result for you and your Substack. You have been consistent and courageous in sticking to your guns even - I suspect - at the cost of a withering blast of criticism from the very people you were most intent on warning of their immiment demise. Cassandras are never particularly well-liked, especially if they turn out to be correct. I hope your success turns into an even larger following for your excellent Substack and now YouTube channel and that you continue to dissect and reflect on the unfolding seismic political shifts in the UK and broader European context. Great work and a well deserved success.
Odd you should say he was 'correct' when he predicted (and I quote) "we are now on the cusp of something truly historic in British politics...an inflection point. A major turning point when Reform might start to replace the Conservative Party in the polls."
Well it never happened and just look at the hopeless inaccuracy of Matt's own polling putting Reform comfortably ahead. Far from 'replacing' the Conservatives in the polls they are 10% double digits behind them in votes! Of course there may or may not be alibis --stabbed in the back by the MSM etc.--but let's not pretend the predictions were accurate when they just weren't!
You didn't notice Reform starting to replace the Tories in second place in a number of seats, then ? They are indeed starting to replace the Tories as the go-to alternative to Labour. And Reform have a "Leader", whereas the Tories are trying to find a "leader". There's a big difference.
I certainly noticed that, and it is quite impressive in its way, but it bears no resemblance to what was actively predicted.
Doomed we be, all doomed....
Who are you - Senna the Soothsayer?
We need PR for people to feel it is worth voting. I commented on another Substack that I was a 'don't vote, it only encourages them' person before Nigel Farage entered the fray. At which point I KNEW that he would get millions of votes and few seats and I KNEW he would then champion the cause of PR. Nigel Farage spent 25 years of his life getting us out of the EU. I believe his character is such that he will spend the next 25 years (if necessary!) getting us a fairer voting system. He is a conviction politician, not a Davos puppet,
We had the chance a few years back in a referendum. New voting system was rejected. People were too dumb to see what an opportunity that was and so we reap what we sow.
I think that it was rejected because the method offered was just about the worst option amongst the various forms of PR... And fortunately plenty of people realised it.
Not sure they were dumb Mr Blah. The vested interests who favour the status quo just let the whole campaign wither on the vine. It was never promoted as a viable change, just some silly Lib Dem hobby horse.
Welp, that comes down to thinking before voting and not just accepting what is being promoted by the media, doesn't it?
Yes. But people have busy lives and a lot of this is just noise to them. I think that’s fair enough. We need to find a way to engage with these people, not dismiss them (not saying you’re doing this Mr Blah btw) as ‘Sheeple’. Wining over the disinterested majority is the biggest prize of all.
You are making a good case against the universal franchise ;)
Whoops!!😬
I know - I remember voting in favour then. I think the choice offered was one specific form of PR which was contentious, as opposed to the principle of PR.
There was nothing wrong with what was offered - it was an improvement on what we have now. And if it was passed we would now have reform with 100-200 seats. Rather than 4.
Perhaps. But you have to remember that it was portrayed as being something Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems wanted and that would predominantly benefit them. Hardly a surprise that it was rejected. Also, this was in 2011, if I recall correctly, and the potential rise of smaller parties wasn't really a thing at the time. If the same vote had been 3 or so years later, it might have been accepted by the general public.
I agree. I was just making the point that TPTB didn't want a 'yes' vote so they narrowed the choice and muddied the water about it on the lines of, 'well....you could have this if you really want, but it is fraught with all these (tinkering) problems' omitting to mention the glaring democratic deficit in having FPTP.
Exactly what was offered? I seem to remember it was not pure PR which is simple and easy to understand (see my comment to Bettina below).
The Alternative Vote was offered. It isn’t a proportional system but it would have greatly benefitted the Lib Dems. I’m sure that’s a coincidence 😂
I guess this is the Single Transferable Vote system which would indeed favour smaller parties with highly clustered support over parties with widely spread support. I vaguely remember it and thinking that you'd still have no "local" MP if you voted for a widely-spread party so might as well go for PPR. Thanks.
AV is different to STV. STV is the system used in Australia and in much of the devolved UK parliaments, I think.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/single-transferable-vote/
There was a very half-hearted campaign, if you can even call it that. There was no effort to explain to the electorate what it was all about so they were rewarded with a derisory turn-out and rejection of the idea. Perhaps with a campaign run by someone who really believes in the idea they may get a better response. I believe there should be a country-wide discussion about all the various forms of PR and how they pan out in real countries where they operate. I'm in favour in principle but many countries seem to spend months after an election bickering and horse trading before they form a government. After all that compromise is everything and nobody ends up getting what they really voted for.
PR wouldn’t suit the Scots for example as they get their own parliament and a good few seats in Westminster, soft Johnny English again?🤡
Cut the Scots loose and leave them to get on with it! I'm sick of listening to them whining and blaming England for everything.
I think there are different versions of PR, the european style seems to me not to be good, yet I lived in Australia for 30 years and their version of PR was not chaotic at all, so there must be some good versions.
Yes, I've heard that about Australia too. It cannot be beyond us to have a look at different systems and decide which seems to work the best. Same with healthcare. Fetishising FPTP and the NHS is a special weirdness in this country - what is wrong with people?
I'm intrigued by your statement that European systems seem not to be good .By far the most common system in Europe is Party List PR. You get a list of candidates arranged by party affiliation. You vote for one candidate, The seats are divided by party in proportion to the total number of votes they get. Candidates who get enough votes for one seat are automatically elected. There is a system for cascading the votes down the list to decide which of the remaining candidates gets in for each party. There are a couple of variations on this but this simple system is the most common and works fine in many countries. It almost always leads to coalitions which means compromise is necessary to form a government. Compromise is, of course, a word almost unknown to UK politicians. Its main advantages are that 99% of voters are always represented in parliament and at least 50% are always represented in the government. Its main disadvantage is that their is no strong tie between MPs and constituencies. Life is a compromises and there are layers of local government to compensate. The UK media like to point to Italy as an example of the chaos that PR systems lead to. That country does not have PR, but a mixed system of PR & FPTP. It is also run by Italians as opposed to more phlegmatic types from Northern Europe, like the Dutch. UK media has recently reported that the Netherlands has now had 6 months without a government. That is either ignorance or a deliberate lie. After an election the new parliament is rapidly installed while the existing government stays on in a caretaker role. The government can continue to implement laws which are already on the books but cannot introduce new legislation or assume emergency powers without the agreement of parliament. As soon as a new coalition reaches agreement they take over as government. Simple.
By not to be good, I meant how long it takes to form a government, I don't know the ins and outs of PR, but I do know that in Australia we knew almost immediately within a day or so who was going to govern. That is not the case in Europe which seems to me almost chaotic not simple.
The long period required to form a government is seen as an essential part of the process of government. Most Brits I've known who've spent any time in the Netherlands tend to say. I wish it was more like that here in the UK.
Each to their own I guess!
I guess so.
Well it is true they don't need coalitions to govern but I never understood who i was voting for😂 we would need educating, or at least i would.
I agree but we should not kid ourselves that PR is a panacea. Many of the other countries dominated by a similar woke pro-mass migration elite have PR such as Ireland and Germany.
There are also different types of PR. Party list systems allow Party HQ to impose their preferred type of candidate and we all know what that means. Single transferable vote allows voters to choose between candidates of the same party which is more democratic and harder to stitch up.
Yup. The Single Transferable Vote appears to be the best option. I recommend people read info on the website of The Electoral Reform Society, a very calm, rational voice in this debate. 👍
Reply to GT
Reform will need to recruit a lot of sensible people before the year is out.
Clearly they should focus on constituencies and demographics that are most supportive and those who might be so maybe in the first year only half of the constituencies need an organiser.
Also urgent is the need to recruit candidates for local elections next year. This is vital in places where a Reform MP was elected or almost elected. In my county of Essex the elections are in May 2025 so under a year to find the people, vet them, train them and promote a coherent policy plan.
As to the Tories, we can hope they carry on with the in-fighting for quite a long time. Let's hope they follow the advice they are getting and try to attract support from left of centre elites which are their natural friends and neighbours. That way they can be destroyed.
Absolutely, if Reform are to turn from a protest to a truly serious force in politics, I think they need to take a leaf out of the Liberal Democrats strategy and ruthlessly target their core areas and to do that they have to build local. They also have to have a much better control on who is in the party, they cannot afford to give free hits to the msm.
They were really caught out by Sunak's choice of date, which I don't remember anyone forecasting. They now need to concentrate on vetting all prospective candidates and focusing on seats where they came second instead of spreading their efforts over every constituency.
Quite right. One of my daughters nearly didn't vote for them because she thought the local candidate was a bit sketchy. She did in the end, only because of the manifesto and wanting to add to the totality of votes for Reform and the point I made, that the actual candidate in her constituency was never going to be elected.
Absolutely
You're absolutely correct. I was a senior manager until 2023 for Reform, I had to give up as it was a shambles , Tice and Oakden couldn't run a bath. I am minded to rejoin now that Farage is the leader and that he has found the same shortcomings that I experienced. He already has brought in some good people and I wish him well.
Hello Geoff - we used to be in contact as Reform colleagues before we both left for the same reason. It was a frustrating experience. They do need to convert the cliquey boys' club they have got into a proper democratic (ironically) political party and properly, seriously vet anyone who offers to stand as a candidate.
it goes back much further , even just post Brexit we saw Conservative MPs trying to stymie the vote . Oliver Letwin in bed with Yvette Cooper , Crispin Burt in bed with Hillary Benn ,we saw this shower going against the vote they promised to honour. Grieve, Soubry, Heidi Allen, Kenneth Clarke, Jonathan Djanogly, Stephen Hammond, Oliver Heald, Nicky Morgan, Bob Neill, Antoinette Sandbach, John Stevenson and Sarah Wollaston. My blood has been boiling since 2016.
Agreed Barbera. The betrayal of Brexit voters and the desperate efforts to reverse the result was a defining moment for me. Yes. Still angry. I’m reading No Way Out by Tim Shipman all about the ‘negotiations’. I recommend it if you want to turn that boiling up to 11.
Ive read Fall Out and All out War. Eye opening both of them. Ive not read No way out (yet). It seems to me that people in general only accept what they are told on the BBC news etc. They dont look deep enough , its a miasma of deceit. I see that (SIR )Ollie Robbins ,once Theresa May's bag carrier and EU sell out organiser has now joined Labour . Just who is trustworthy. ?
I know Barbera. Gob smacking! And at the time they assured us he was working to get Brexit done. In No Way Out he comes across as committed and conscientious, but only to a sort of soft leave, fudging, pro EU ‘sensible’ agenda. The other example of course is Sue Grey. I’ve been banging on about the nepotism of her son being handed a candidate place for Labour. Regardless of the details, it stinks. I must check if he won or not.
yes, he did win. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/06/sue-grays-son-among-labour-mps-push-eu-ties/
Yes, it stinks , she seems to be one devious woman with a devious past. I'd like to know the truth of that and just who was she working for in her 'landlady' days.
Not just a Labour issue. But they’re always the ones to go one about ‘the old boys network’ when nepotism seems to be rife on the left. Millibands. Kinnocks. Benns. Loads of them.
We’ve gone from being abused as racist fruitcakes from the Conservatives to being abused as Scum by Labour. They wonder why we don’t vote for them?
Yet far more people voted for Labour and Lib Dems and Greens (53%) than voted Conservative and Reform (38%). Far from Matt's imagining, the 'Brexit' vote is on the retreat here.
I think there needs to be a degree of caution in assuming Labour and Lib Dems = Remain and Reform and Conservative = Leave. Brexit was most definitely kept in the background this election, especially by Labour. The second note of caution I’d make is that the proportion of those voting was significantly down, both relative to 2019 and 2016. The analysis I’ve seen suggests the Labour vote in England was pretty much static and the most of the increase came from the collapse of the SNP in Scotland. Labour do have a large majority, but keeping the coalition of voters together to deliver a majority for a second term is going to be challenging. As the Chinese would say, we live in interesting times.
Don't disagree at all . It is hard to actually quantify Brexit as a vote indicator. My point was that, while Matt seems to think it is and that the Tories deny it at their peril, he was being much too simplistic. There seems no doubt the motivation at this election was anti-Tory. But that applied on all sides. Matt's Messianic conviction it was all to do with anti-woke and anti-immigration is far too simplistic.
In my simple world I would like to see the right wing element of the Conservative Party joining forces with Farage and leaving the wets to wallow in their own mess. Not that it will happen but I can dream.
‘Betrayal’ the one word the Tories may never recover from.
What will Matt Goodwin be doing in 2029?
Possibly heading up Reform UK as Nigel's "younger, better looking" successor, and hopefully claiming the keys to No. 10.and striving to find an antidote to the massive destruction that the accidentally newly installed band of barmpot racists/globalists/headless chickens will have inflicted on us all by then!
Matt, actually only a minority of people delivered this verdict , the vast majority did not
Do you have a sense of whether Tory voters stayed at home or some Labour voters did because they knew the result ?
What’s clear is that the Reform voters definitely did turn out
If Reform get to 20-25% in the next couple of years there will always be hard core tribal Tories on 20% , the ones that voted this time regardless of how badly Rishi Sunak did
My point is 2 parties on 20-25% will never win power again split like this
I’m convinced Labour will make damn sure they will try anything to stay in power regardless how they do by changing things in the govt machine to enable this to happen
With Boris and lots of Tory MPs not being friendly to Reform this stand off will cost the next election or even 2 more
It just needs to be pointed out clearly that the Tories are a vestigial appendage. The remaining Tory voters are either defacto lib dems and should vote lib dem or defacto reformers and should vote reform. The Tories have been pretending to be something they are not for far too long and the truth now needs to be laid out.
Yes Mr Blah. It’s intriguing who did actually vote for them this time round.
The blue rinse brigade who clutch their pearls whenever someone says Nigel Farage?
That’s the one Dr Ken!
Absolutely, I keep wondering who the hell these people are who keep voting Tory! What do they think they are voting for exactly? Almost the definition of zombie apocalypse.
Ha ha. I’d like to visit some of the Tory redoubts. I expect you can still get a very nice cup of tea and a scone in most of them….
I have always lived in True Blue constituencies but currently Chichester and my last residency Tunbridge Wells both now fallen to the Limp Dumbs. If the Tories are going to lose these sorts of seats I see no future for them at all unless they go back to their roots and ignore the "elites" and "grandees" who have done the party so much harm. BTW I voted Reform.
I'd suggest that it showed that the tory tribal voters are more open to new ideas than Labour tribal voters.
I suggest they are fed up with being lied to, despised, derided and/or ignored. Boris' 180 degree betrayal of his promises in 2019 was the final straw.
I agree with this to an extent but it will take a very long time to erase the memories of your average tribal Tory voter of Thatcher or Boris for example
They want to preserve a great political party , that’s what your are up against and you can see from this election , they are not prepared to switch
It’s a died hard bunch of 15-20 % of the electorate who won’t budge
Waiting for another Thatcher or Boris to come along
And they just won’t switch to Reform unless they can see an imprint of the Tory party within it
I find it impossible to see anything other then 1-2 more victories for the left
I'm not convinced by that. It's one of the quirks of our present electoral system that once a party starts to collapse, it swiftly loses all access to success, which in turn discourages support and leads to voters supporting a successful party.
I think the Tory vote will drop to 5-10% at some point at which the party will cease to exist. Those who were sympathetic to Reform will have joined, while the elite liberals will have joined the Lib Dems.
If I am correct, the paradox of PR is that it would make Reform appear stronger but encourage Labour and the Liberals to form a coalition to lock out those they see as "dangerous". A Lab, Lib, Green coalition would then dominate English politics.
Look at Germany, where voices dissatisfied with the post-war consensus struggle to heard, leading to greater apathy and radicalisation of the electorate. PR (and its like) sounds good but in practice smothers parties like Reform.
You are correct Wien PR looks appealing but more closely examined is fraught with many unconsidered banana skins.
It is more likely to favour Labour because there are so many other parties of the left including the worrying increase of Islamist groupings who will win seats under this system and all will combine to prevent the formation of a centre right government.
PR will also,of course destroy the traditional and historic right to select and vote for a named candidate as your representative in Parliament and all candidates will be selected and controlled on a party list by unknown apparatchiks.
I agree completely that first pass the post has it's many faults but it has served our nation well historically by allowing an elected party to govern unhindered by perpetual threats from erratic coalition partners.
Perhaps we should consider PR in the light of Winston Churchill's famous dictum on Democracy "It is the worst system devised by wit of man,except for all the others"
MPs are all party apparatchiks now. They are controlled by the Whip and their own ambition which keeps them tame via the PM's ability to appoint ministers. Parliament itself has been hollowed out - most laws are made by civil servants via the statutory instrument procedure and the idea that MPs represent anybody but themselves is laughable. They owe loyalty to the party, not you.
I agree but PR would only serve to make this worse and I would hope that a Reform Government would perhaps address these issues but at the end of the day,a political party will always be subject to the wishes of a majority of it's members if the will is there through The 22 Committee.
Well the Libdems and SNP and indeed Labour have all come close to collapse
But they don’t and came back successfully at one point or another
I’m not arguing for PR but just pointing out that unless or until Reform and the Tories unite then the left will be in power for a very long time
I see this likely tbh
That would have to wait until the "grandees" who dominate CCHQ have moved/passed on... Until then you're more likely to see Lord Lucan ride Shergar up Downing Street!
I would suggest that what one needs to take account of is that people vote differently in PR systems than in FPTP.
PR also means the death of local representation. Lee Anderson represents Ashfield. Under PR for a Lee Anderson to be returned as a Member of Parliament, this would depend on his position on the party list. Furthermore, he would not be representing Ashfield, but just be another client of the party patrons. This is alien to English political traditions which are about being represented by one of your community. PR centralises power in the hands of the party elite, just as Cameron and his lot undermined and overrode the Conservative constituency associations in choosing candidates for election.
Furthermore, MPs returned by PR would be entirely party-aligned in their outlook. No more would there be either dissident voices and a broad church nature to the parliamentary party. It would reinforce the evolution of a professional political class (something which has already done great damage to this country).
I can imagine an MP (of whatever persuasion) chosen from a party list being accosted by a member of the public with an opinion and replying "Which party did you vote for? Not mine? Then go and find an MP from that party."
FPTP acts as a glue, holding together people, not dividing them into political blocks (substitute tribes or churches as you see fit). Because an MP has tp represent the interests of all their constituents (for reasons of self-interest and survival), after election day an MP is the servant of the electors. PR severs that relationship and we would lose something beyojd reckoning.
We shouldn’t underestimate the soft power held by universities, NGOs, the civil service, the police and Blair’s quangos he intentionally set up for this purpose. The left’s power base is simply massive.
I would like university students to have to vote in their home constituency rather than their university area. That would get rid of a good few Labour dominated towns and cities where the people who vote Labour in are off as soon as they graduate.
I agree they have a huge reach already but now they will be firmly entrenched everywhere so as never to lose power again
Great scattergram.
It is not only voters who have decamped and gone to reform UK. So has conservatism. Reform is the future for conservatism in the UK.
Boris Johnson is warning the Conservative Party not to merge with Reform. It is more appropriate to warn Reform not to merge with the Conservative party lest it become smothered and poisoned with Tory Party baggage and its debilitating broad church. True conservatives in Parliament should now align with Reform against not only Labour and the Lib Dems but also against the Wet Conservatives. In Opposition party loyalty is less important so there is hope.
Congratulations to Matt Goodwin for his academic rigour, keeping up our spirits but not leading us into false optimism.
Agreed. There are a few Conservatives worthy of joining Reform and they should do so immediately to give it more of a presence in the Commons.
I still fail to understand a Tory party which, in the aftermath of the most comprehensive ass-kicking in U.K. political history, is going to maintain a belief that its future can only rest upon doubling down on its disastrous ‘Centrist Dad’ orientation, and away from what what the very people it needs to speak to, want. I am doubtful about whether Braverman or Badenoch will be able to re-orient the Tory brand, as the remaining (pun intended) wets aren’t about to give in.
Badenoch appears to be a person who is simply ambitious for herself, rather than visionary or principled or having a guiding philosophy. I didn't like her playing the "I'm black and I'm a woman" card in that spat with Tennant. Braverman has the right principles but couldn't outmaneouvre the Blob, so....
So Braverman moves to Reform?
Now that Farage and Reform have arrived, the difficult thing to achieve will be to build on it, especially as they will face so many enemies, including the blob of elected and unelected government, broadcasters, judges and 'independent' quangos.
You are correct Colin,once the excitement of an election campaign fades it will be very difficult to maintain interest by the more casual supporters though if Rishi resigns there will be an interesting by-election and I think that Reform should use every means to keep,publicly and on social media, the major issues of immigration, NHS reform,the madness of Net Zero,crime control and more prison places and education improvement constantly boiling.
He got us Brexit in spite of all that. He is a tour de force extraordinaire. Can't underestimate this man.
And of course the large majority who did not vote for either Conservative or Reform!
............. or Labour.
“This is an edited and expanded version of an article in the Sun” = Translation - The Sun version was dumbed down for folk with a reading age of less than 5 years.
The future depends on many variables: to what extent will Starmer adhere to his WEF/UN orders? How far will he be prepared to make himself unpopular by pushing planning reform, traffic restrictions and Net Zero? How will his popularity endure when faced with the inevitable power cuts, tax rises, shortages and anti-British policies? What will the Conservatives do? Will they tack to the Right or the Left? Can they agree on a core set of policies and stick to them? Will they HONESTLY unite around a new leader, and who will that leader be? How effective will Nigel be? When he rises to speak, surely all the other MPs will simply walk out ala-Andrew Bridgen, leaving Nigel to speak to an empty chamber, which will render him impotent.
I cannot see how the Conservatives can unite because they are still split over Brexit, and the only way to resolve this is to dismiss the final few Brexiteers that are left and become a Rejoin party, which will ensure unity, but will that simply drive Brexiteer voters to Reform? If the Labour Party become unpopular very quickly, and given the present state of the Conservative Party, then Reform could surge even more, especially if Trump is in the White House and Nigel capitalizes on this. Buckle up, the ride has just begun.
I'm asking myself if the vision (on TV) of Nigel rising to speak to an empty house cannot be used to generate a powerful message. It could become a cult event on social media ......
Brilliant idea!
The Brexit divide is history. Boris led the campaign for Brexit then governed as a woke open borders liberal. Others didn't support Brexit, including Matt I believe, but have a better appreciation of what needs doing. The great majority of Tory MPs, with a few honourable exceptions, are treacherous and deceitful.
Even if Trump is elected, Starmer should be able to see him out for Trump has only four years and can't be re-elected. And of course Trump is even more unpopular here than our most unpopular politician of all, namely that other Trump supporter Liz Truss. She is disliked by 65% of people, Trump by 67%! I doubt therefore Trump can help Farage much with popularity!
The Tories need to be wiped out and anyone associated with them banned from joining reform. They have been captured by an underground Lib Dem cabal and are 'Conservative' in name only.
If reform let any of these jokers join we just get a repeat of the takeover and end up with a watered down lib dem compromised reform party. And round and round we go again.
Would you not allow someone like Miriam Coates, now homeless, to join Mr Blah? I think she would be an asset.
It's a difficult question. The trouble with letting ex Tories join is they taint reform with their previous association. E.g. if people hate the Tories then the more you let in the more you endanger the ability to build a coalition spanning left/right in reform.
So I think it's better to have a hard position of 'no Tories' then maybe let in a few exceptional individuals. However I would have my doubts about even those because they have shown poor judgement getting involved with the Tories when it's been clear a long time what a useless bunch they were.
Yes it’s a tricky one. But I think a hard rule is maybe a bit self defeating in the medium term.
Better to start hard, then perhaps moderate. Start moderate and you go soft. Exactly the mistake the Tories made.
Excellent content. Happy Canadian subscriber here Matt. We are seeing a similar, yet different, outcome and future for the governing Liberal Party of Canada. They have gone so far left, they are a lefty progressive blob undistinguished from the far-left New Democratic Party (NDP). The Conservatives, under their relatively new leader, Pierre Poilievre, seems closer to Nigel Farage than Rishi or BoJo. This is a good thing! Pollsters are now projecting a Cons supermajority in our next Federal election (Fall 2025?) which can’t come soon enough. Think your Labour Party but with flashier socks 🧦 and at one time, better hair. 🇨🇦🆘 #JustinJustGo
All the commenters and BTLs I read throw around terms like left, right, centre quite happily and yet I no longer believe that these terms are very meaningful. How for example can the Green party espouse all the prog-lib causes, net zero, LGB+++, and yet have councillors who shout Allahu Akbar on being elected and so presumably are firm believers in Islam which would have no truck with eg women's rights and homosexuality. What is the magical centre ground now? Does it occupy much too broad a range of views that it's just not possible to coalesce around? I would love to read an essay from you, Matt, on what you think is the best way to define the belief systems of our various parties and in fact the whole spectrum of political views.
The short version is Left = the state will do everything for you and tell you what's good for you: Right = you will stand on your own 2 feet and the state will catch you if you fall on hard times.