Nigel Evans: It might be time to think the ‘unthinkable’ about our electoral system

Nigel Evans was the Conservative MP for Ribble Valley from 1992 to 2024 and is a former Deputy Speaker.

I’ve been involved in politics since I was 17 when I joined the young Conservatives in Swansea.

As a Tory throughout that time I may have found it difficult to embrace change, or even countenance it at times. The clue is in the name of the Party I have been a member of since I was a kid!

I’ve won and lost council seats in Swansea and West Glamorgan, and I’ve won and lost Parliamentary seats in Swansea, Pontypridd, and my beloved Ribble Valley. The common denominator in all of these elections was that they were all fought on the First past the post (FPTP) system of voting.

I have argued against changing the voting system all my life, and I campaigned vigorously against the change during Cameron’s sop to Nick Clegg in the Alternative Vote referendum of 5th May 2011.

Not many were happier than me when the crushing result of the referendum came in with 67.9 per cent rejecting it, to 32.1 per cent voting yes.(Turnout 42.2 per cent)

There have been discrepancies or quirks of the electoral system during my 50 years pounding the streets. I remember scratching my head when Ted Heath scored 39.9 per cent of the vote in February 1974 but lost to Harold Wilson who got 37.2 per cent of the vote. Wilson was announced the winner. Wilson got 301 seats to Heath’s 297.

The reality was that we did not have a Presidential system of voting and FPTP throws up the odd anomaly. I appeared to be the only one phased by this result. As I started to fight parliamentary elections in the Ribble Valley I got the sense that the FPTP system in a 2 to 3 party system would smooth itself out throughout the country. In Ribble Lib Dems were second to me in 4 elections and Labour the other 4.

There has been a clear sea change in the world of politics, both nationally and locally recently. The old 2 party system with the LibDems mopping up the protest vote has dramatically altered with grotesque electoral distortions as a consequence.

The July 2024 General Election was a prime example with Labour gaining 412 seats on 33.7 per cent of the vote, the Tories on 23.7 per cent got only 121 and the lib Dems on 12.2 per cent of the vote got 67 more seats than the Reform Party who got 14.3 per cent of the vote.  Reform got 598,467 more votes than the Lib Dems. Funny how the Lib Dems, the biggest proponents of PR said sweet little following the result.

Local elections and by elections are throwing up similar distortions with the starkest being in Cornwall on May 1st with Truro Moreskand Trehaverne result being-

1. Lib dem 18.9%
2. Ref 17.4%
3. Con 17.0%
4. Green 14.1%
5. Ind 13.3%
6. Lab 11.4%
7. Ind 7.9%

Turnouts being low at these elections only further exposing the stark lack of a popular mandate for the winning candidate.The recent Hamilton, Larkhill and Stonehouse MSP by election just reinforces the picture-

1. Lab 8,599 31.6%
2. SNP 7,957 29.4%
3. Ref 7,088 26.1%
4. Con 1,621 6.0%

6 other candidates mopping up the rest of the votes on a 44.2 per cent turnout.

Lots of other local by election results are regularly electing councillors on 32-33 per cent of the vote on relatively low turnouts.

The position in England with 4 main parties is bad, made worse in Wales and Scotland with 5 party politics.

It is worth having a good sit down to reflect on the 2024 General Election result in specific constituencies. Let’s choose one at

random – The Ribble Valley!

1. Lab 18,177 34.9%
2. Con 17,321 33.3%
3. Ref 8,524 16.4%
4. L/D 5,001 9.6%
5. Green 1,727 3.3%
6. Ind 1,273 2.4%

Results like this are not rare, and all the indicators are that the next General Election could throw up a huge amount of glaring distortions under the current, well tested FPTP system.

The system is clearly not working under the changed circumstances. The UK is facing the prospect of having another election in 4 years time where the winning party will have scored a large victory with a low 30 per cent of the votes with other parties failing to win many seats despite high votes compared to others.

Britain is a mature democracy, but even I am finding it difficult to accept that this is now a democratic system of which we should be proud.

I know all the arguments against PR because I have utilised them all on many occasions over the past 50 years. The political situation has dramatically changed and we need to recognise it rather than sleepwalking into another inevitable distorted parliament delivering top heavy majorities to a party via a broken voting system.

There are many forms of PR and 2 of them we will see in operation next year in Wales and Scotland. I don’t have the answer as to which system would be the best to use, but I sure know which one we should not use.

It’s time to have a Royal Commission into the UK voting system which can review all the options and come forward with recommendations which the Government should put before the people in a referendum.

All of this could be done with calmness but efficient alacrity. If we don’t grab this opportunity now then don’t complain at the out come of the next election if the result is a huge majority for one party but no real mandate as far as the votes they achieve.

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