Comment by dijksterhuis

12 days ago

we have a constituency based first past the post system.

we vote for a local MP to represent our constituency in the house of commons. first one past the threshold wins and represents our area in the house of commons.

each MP gets one vote. one vote in the house of commons for each constituency.

so yes. this is possible. because it’s not about total votes — it’s about representing the individual local areas and the people within those areas.

labour won a landslide of “areas”. that’s how our system works.

just because it doesn’t match what you think democracy should look like doesn’t mean it isn’t democratic. it’s just different.

plenty of criticisms exist about our system (esp house of lords). we even tried to have a referendum on first past the post about two decades ago. i voted for AV. but oh well.

8 comments

dijksterhuis

AndrewDucker 12 days ago

I know how the system works.

I don't consider FPTP to be democratic, because it disenfranches large swathes of the population and means that you can rule the country with a massive majority despite only getting 34% of the vote.

milesrout 12 days ago
FPP does not disfranchise anyone. If you vote for someone that loses their seat or wins in a landslide your vote still counts.
- defrost 12 days ago
  
  Modern democracies moved on past creaky old FPTP and its strong tendency to produce two party non representive majorities.
  The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as Duverger's Law. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections.
  ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
  
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- HPsquared 12 days ago
  
  One's vote physically being counted is not the same as having any representation in Parliament, let alone government. It's a system of artificial consensus. Managed democracy, in other words. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's very arbitrary.
  
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