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Ed Davey: ‘Tactical voting can lock Tories out of power for a generation’

Lib Dem leader says people lending their votes to rival parties could shut the door on Conservatives at Westminster for years to come

42 comments

  • It is extremely sad that we have to resort to using up our one chance in every five years to say what we don't want from the country's political parties. I would much rather use it on saying what would be good for the British people and not who would be bad. We have polls to verify what we do want, and yet we never get that opinion across to the people who are running for office. The idea that Starmer is holding the Labour to ransom over the fear of not removing the Tories is an abuse.

    We need a PR voting system to stop the crazy that has been allowed into government. This idea that PR voting would allow the far right in is redundant. We are currently enduring a government that is being compared to the Nazi's. A comparison with a lot of credibility. Our rights have been stripped away. They have a loud voice within the party that really wants to remove us from the ECHR. Good luck striking when that happens. Tolpuddle martyrs mark two inbound.

    There is the idea that it would stop us choosing our local MP; this is ludicrous. Parachuting MPs into safe seats is a fairly familiar occurrence. A lot of the time you don't get to choose your own candidate. There is an abundance of MPs who are neither local nor chosen by their own area. FPTP gives rise to a brand of placeholder MPs, who are in office purely to vote the partyline. Sometimes it is the thicker the better as it allows government legislation to be passed without hinderance. Having thick MPs who have no other priority than to keep themselves in a job is what kept Johnson in for so long.

    The only good point for FPTP, imo, is that it is simple, but that simplicity just leaves it wide open to abuse.

    • Germany's version of PR keeps local MPs

      • The UK's versions of PR do too. We literally have in the UK right now:

        • STV elections for the Northern Irish assembly and Scottish local government; and
        • AV+ elections for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments.

        Both are ways of delivering proportionality and geographic representation at the same time (though STV is vastly superior - AV+ delivers proportionality by having two categories of representatives, whereas STV has both features incorporated into a single system).

  • I hope there is some sort of synchronized effort to force Labour to abolish FPTP once they are in power. Most people I've been speaking to agree that it needs to go and even their own party base voted to change it. Surely that must be enough support to pressure Starmer.

    • It's Labour that really needs to get the ball rolling on this. I fear it needs to be forced through Parliament and the Tories definitely won't. That leaves only Labour capable of doing it with support from SNP and Lib Dems and Greens.

      My big fear is that Starmer will talk cute about PR to get into office but then he'll quietly ditch it for a generation "now is not the time". Yes it fucking is! It's about better representing the country democratically you double breasted oaf! Now is precisely the right time.

      FPTP benefits large incumbent already established parties AKA the Tories and Labour. Neither will vote to decrease any perceived majority they might have. And round and round we go! You can understand it from the Tories..... it's just disappointing from Labour.

    • The only way that happens is if Labour are short of a majority and the Lib Dems force it on them as the price of letting Starmer form a government. To be honest, Starmer's intransigence on this is a reason to forgo tactical voting altogether and just vote Lib Dem regardless until he gets the fucking message.

  • I just wish Labour were more willing to talk up the benefits of tactical voting to their voters - instead of expelling long-standing Labour members like Neal Lawson who have the temerity to talk about tactical voting during the Starmer era (in exactly the same terms he talked about it in the Blair and Brown era, who didn't seem to mind...)

    • Starmer wants to use FPTP to his advantage and to win a stonking majority. He's not going to do that with tactical voting. And he has calculated that anyone that strays from that message is to be eliminated. It's politics time, lads!

42 comments