Where do we go from here?
As of the 8th of May we find ourselves with yet another Conservative Government. If you’re totally fine with that, then this article isn’t for you. If you think it’s fine that parties like the Green Party and UKIP received 4 per cent and 12.6 per cent of the vote respectively but each only gained less than 1 per cent of the seats in Westminster, this article isn’t for you. If you think the system is fine the way it is and twelve equating to almost zero makes perfect sense to you then this article is most certainly not for you (and apparently nor was basic primary education). Whatever you think of the Greens or UKIP it is abundantly clear that the current system does not even come close to truly representing what the people are asking for. Is it time for electoral reform?
I’m not the first to suggest that our voting system doesn’t make much sense. Back in 2011 we were given the opportunity to change it. The chance to escape from the First-Past-the-Post system to the AV system. For many in my generation this was our first taste of politics. To be frank most of us had no idea what was going on. No one I knew was of voting age yet, so this meant next to nothing to us.
Here in 2015 it is painfully clear that something’s got to give. The little I knew of the AV system it sounded like a good idea but the media bashing at the time easily swayed a more impressionable version of me. The strange thing though was that the 16-17 year-olds that made up my peer group were opposed to any kind of electoral reform. That is to say that our ignorance resulted in us wanting to keep things the way they were. That is the real crux of the matter.
Without going into the many, many ways in which the Conservative Party have damaged society (let’s be honest, they’re abolishing the Human Rights Act, they’re not even pretending anymore), the way they have treated education over the last five years only plays things further into their favour.
If a long history of book burning maniacs is any indication, the best way for a corrupt regime to stay in power is to keep the people ignorant. Can we really argue that sacrificing education is going to be beneficial to the future of our country? Regardless of national debt or budget deficit if we aren’t lagging behind the rest of the world within a generation or two it will be a miracle. Yet without some kind of electoral reform we may never be rid of these disastrous ideas.
You know you’re in trouble when these guys write articles on why you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.
I’ve said it before but the simple truth is that we need a more representative electoral system. What would this electoral reform look like? If we could strip the whole of Westminster away and recreate politics from the ground up it would have to have the individual at its heart.
The current system is a remnant of clans and feudalism. People within individual constituencies choose by whom they will be governed, but perhaps this needn’t be the same group that occupies Westminster. Perhaps MPs aren’t even necessary. What if there was a way for individuals to vote on issues that matter to them as and when they arise?
What if, in some futuristic fantasy world, every home had some kind of box that could connect them to other boxes so they could share their opinion … ?
Too bad that’s just an Asimov daydream …
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