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[Politics] UKIP Last out turn off the light.
- Thread starter Official Old Man
- Start date
Blue Valkyrie
Not seen such Bravery!
5th May 2011 ?
I'm not angry. I'm OUTRAGED!
Or roady. Yes, roady.
5th May 2011 ?
Yep. We don't have many nationwide referendums in this country - three in our history - it takes some doing to miss one of them
5th May 2011 ?
Small point of order - that was a referendum on PR lite not first past the post.
Half Time Pies
Well-known member
Its not even PR lite, Alternative Vote is not a form of proportional representation at all. By only putting AV on the ballot sheet the conservatives knew that they couldn't lose, the choice was between keeping a shit system thats not proportional or moving to a shit system thats also not proportional and in that situation people will always choose the status quo.
But it was a referendum on FPTP. People were offered the choice of FPTP or AV and chose FPTP.
So, therefore the voting system we use is the one the people selected.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,374
There is no requirement in democracy to suggest that the will of the majority must force the minority to change its mind. You may have noticed that those who were anti-EU membership continued to go on about it for forty years after losing the first vote over whether the UK should stay in. Let's not have double standards eh?
alfredmizen
Banned
- Mar 11, 2015
- 6,342
Never fails to make me smile when clowns like you describe somebody with moderate views as "hard right" simply because you dont agree with them.
happypig
Staring at the rude boys
They realised that there's a great big gravy train in getting elected for anything from the local council upwards and wanted a slice of the pie.
Dick Swiveller
Well-known member
- Sep 9, 2011
- 9,531
Didn't read the whole thread then?
They selected the 'best' of two bad options. I might as well offer you the choice of a punch in the face or a kick in the nether regions .... and you've got to pick one !
I'd agree with you that people selected FPTP if they'd been offered every possibility. It was a con vote and the Lib Dems should be ashamed for accepting it.
alfredmizen
Banned
- Mar 11, 2015
- 6,342
Didnt need to , I have now , makes no difference , youre still a clown
Two things: if I'd been offered a punch in the face or a kick in the nether regions, I'd choose neither. An option that was available in the referendum - it wasn't compulsory to vote.
13.1m chose to stick with FPTP - that's not an insignificant number (nearly as many as voted for the Tories in the last GE).
The other thing is that FPTP has its flaws but it's scarcely compatible with a punch in the face. It's been used for a couple of hundred years during which there have been several changes to electoral law, it would have been easy to change it but there's been no demand to do so. If it were as bad as you said it was, there'd be thousands (millions?) looking to change it but there's been little support to do so.
A simple majority in a referendum for a parliamentary democracy are nearly always a terrible device to change anything - not least because of ambiguity created by the way the question is framed. This is a good example (where the choice was a terrible one), and obviously Brexit where people voted on changing the fundamental direction of the country based on outright lies from both sides and no real understanding of what Brexit actually meant.
If we must have a referendum on things like Brexit, voting methods or independence, whether to maintain a royal family or whatever, the lesson we should learn is that it should be done with a majority of 2 thirds. At least this suggests a firm preference to a clear majority of people.
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But in the electoral system question, there wasn't even a simple majority let alone two-thirds, so there was no need to change the system. We'd have stuck with FPTP.
With Brexit, there wouldn't have been two-thirds so we'd have remained in - I'm not sure whether that would have ended the debate.
BTW, I'm strongly opposed to referendums, I think they're a terrible idea, reducing complex issues to binary answers. But, if we're to have them, stick with the results they throw up - even if they're not palatable to some people.
I agree with everything you say there, except for your first point where all I'd ask is what the point was of voting for electoral change if you're only offering the current method or some dogs breakfast of an alternative? Why reduce it to a binary answer at all? Why not give 3 or 4 credible alternatives?
Because you're even less likely to get two-thirds majority that way.
Let's say that only about 25% of voters want to stick with FPTP (I think it would be higher than that but let's assume otherwise). The referendum offers the choice of Party List, AV and Mixed Member Proportional, say. 30% like PL, 10% like AV and 35% like MMP.
So, under your two-thirds idea, we'd stick with FPTP (the third most popular) as there's no majority for change.
Sorry, I should have said that my 2 thirds rule would only apply to a binary choice. And actually, a voting method referendum is an obvious special case anyway.