Last Sunday, Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, set a hare running on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg show when he said that this election could make the case for proportional representation (PR). Mr Burnham was on to something. If the polls are right, the result of the 2024 election could be so skewed as to be the least proportional on record. Sir Keir Starmer could enter Downing Street with a record number of seats and an immense majority on a lower turnout – and fewer votes – than Jeremy Corbyn achieved in 2017.
By the end of the week, pundits were lining up to agree with Mr Burnham. Such lopsided results would confirm just how undemocratic Britain has become and show that, significantly, PR could become an issue around which Labour dissent coalesces. Many Labour MPs and most trade unions support reform of the electoral system. In 2022, the party’s conference backed moving to a fairer proportional voting system. A year later, the party’s national policy forum produced a fudge saying that the current voting system is contributing “to the distrust and alienation in politics, but there is no consensus for a new system”.
