There’s more than 2 parties...

I'm sure I typed pact not pack ...

WishIwasyounger

The Labour Party wont be able to implement any change until they gain power. It may be that they will need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems and Greens with the promise of PR if they help them to get elected.
Or is that thinking unrealistic?

I hope it isn't WishIwasyounger as I think it is imperative we have some such pack and change our voting system to PR so we can begin to behave like grown ups over the things that matter to us and to the future rather than football hooligans with the "we won" attitude.

Once we have it who knows what parties will appear. I would certainly vote for a party involved in such a pact.

A vote of no confidance for any party from me.
They promise this,that and the other and come up with nothing.

The Labour Party wont be able to implement any change until they gain power. It may be that they will need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems and Greens with the promise of PR if they help them to get elected.
Or is that thinking unrealistic?

Most LP MPs, members and voters might support PR, but then most LP MPs, members and voters supported remaining in the EU, but the LP could not reflect their views.

It is time that the Labour Party became less conservative (small "c").

Things must change or we will continue to be ruled by an undemocratic right wing minority.

I don't understand why so many won't accept that PR could be beneficial. In other countries the parties form alliances to deal with particular topics. Things such as HS2 which is being foisted upon us by a minority Tory govt. YouGov polled all the regions in 2019 and the only area where those for was higher than those against was London.

With a decent system of PR I'm sure that the will of the majority of the population would win each time.

Apparently 76% of the LP members back PR, according to Neil Lawson, a director of the pressure group Compass.

Thats great news Varian

It is unfortunately a fact not just a perception that this government was elected by a minority of votes. That is not democracy

It looks as if the Labour Party is at last waking up to the need for electoral reform

inews.co.uk/news/politics/electoral-reform-labour-agenda-local-parties-push-proportional-representation-874976/amp

Varian Because you didn't state facts, but perception. What we have fits the definition of a democracy.

Granted it's imperfect, but it's not a dictatorship. Elected or otherwise. I have family who experienced life under Stalin, I think they would be pretty offended by the comparison.

People can be deeply unhappy with a political system, feel that it's broken, inadequate, needs reform etc but I think it's wrong to re-define it as something it isn't just to feed rhetoric and hyperbole.

We live in a democracy that may benefit from voting reforms. That's my view.

'Democracy' is a very fluid term. We have a representative democracy; we vote for parties to represent our views in Parliament, so our actual views don't count. The problem with the current system is that aren't enough parties in Westminster to fully represent all the different views. Don't most 'democratic' countries use some form of PR?

NellG Why do you disagree with a factual explanation of the system as it works now?

It is a sham democracy. You may like it and not want it to change but it is still undemocratic.

Varian I totally disagree, but thank you for explaining.

Please could you enlarge on how this would work Katie59?
Local govt is normally seen as a useful first step for aspiring politicians to find out whether they have a taste for the life and likely to succeed at it.
It's one thing to be elected as an independent local cllr or an MP on the basis of a popular local issue but quite another to get anything done once elected.
On what basis would candidates put themselves forward for election?
The cap on election expenditure could well be lowered and more stringently checked since the larger the party the more money to spend gaining and keeping seats and that is unjust.
Sorry if I've misunderstood you.

The problem is the way that those with political ambition start their career, as a district or local councilor realistically your best chance of election is with Tory or Labour, because they have the best local infrastructure, as a independant or any other party it’s much harder.

Removing party politics from local elections would be a good start to change the system

NellG

Varian - I'm puzzled, why do you think the UK isn't already a democracy?

We are living in a sham democracy or what a distinguished Tory politician once called "an elective dictatorship" where a party elected by aminority of votes gains huge majority of seats and can in effect do anything it likes until the next election

growstuff But Germany started from the complete collapse of the country and its government system following a war they lost. Democracy had to be re-established from scratch.

That is a very different situation from the current situation in Britain.

I agree winterwhite. The coalition was not as bad as people made it out to be. Look at how the LDs tempered the excesses of the Tories. I thought their main mistake was naivety. They were totally outmanoeuvred by the tories who won lots more votes on the back of it and were then able to get rid of the LDs. There was lots of ‘oh you stand up front and do the bad stuff. We’re right here behind you”.
Agree with growstuff too in that the majority have their votes ignored in the current system. I’m in a seat where labour beat LDs by 400 votes in a constituency where nearly 50000 voted. That’s a LOT of people who are now ignored.

NellG

Varian - I'm puzzled, why do you think the UK isn't already a democracy?

The vast majority of people in the UK have no influence at all on which party becomes the government. That can't be democratic, especially as traditional checks and balances are being undermined.

winterwhite My MP most certainly isn't a delegate for her constituency.

I agree with you about the 2010-15 coalition.

The strongest country in Europe is an exception to the above MOnica. Every German government since the end of WW2 has been a coalition.

I think MOnica is right. Swathes of new MPs, from Blair's babes to the red wall intake mean swathes of MPs behaving as though they were delegates from their constituencies and never taking a national view.

And the 2010-2015 coalition was not as black as its painted. In 2010 neither of the main parties had a ruling majority. Labour wanted only support for a minority government, the Tories offered power sharing. If the Lib Dems had walked away then they'd have been dead in the water in 2010 rather than 2015.

And much good was achieved. Think of the pupil premium and the triple pensions lock. Time will show, imo, that the Lib Dems were fundamentally right about Europe - stay with it, have strong hard-working MEPS, and well thought-out policies to influence change.

KS is right that electoral change is needed.

MaizieD I can do it with no dificulty at all. I abhor both main parties, but there is a big difference between a having a clear party/coalition in power able to act for this country on the international stage, with coherent and clear policies, whether you like them or not and having a series of unstable coalitions, where the largest party has to juggle with coalitions containing lots of parties with only a handful of members and little or no political or government experience. Such coalitions are prone to frequent failure and policies are the result of horse trading between parties with few members of parliament to provide policies that have no coherence and are nearly always unsupported and defeated in parliament.

The Con/Lib coalition was in the broad area of successful coalition government. One major party in coalition with one smaller but adequately sized opposition party, who have extensive Parliamentary experience, if no ministerial experience.

Currently we have 2 large but failing parties and a couple of other parties, with a handful of members. they cannot be transformed to larger more substantial parties overnight and until that happens, we will have weak and unstable government, which is never good for any country.

But that will only follow about a decade of unstable quarrelling coalitions, and long periods with a non functioning governments (Belgian style) which will be seriously damaging to the economy and our place in the world.

I think it's a bit late to be worrying about our economy and our place in the world. Both now kn*ckered.

And I really can't see how you can reconcile your critque of coalitions with the appalling reality of the last decade of tory government...

Varian - I'm puzzled, why do you think the UK isn't already a democracy?