A General Election Crying Out for Reform of Our Electoral System.

The General Election that took place in the United Kingdom on Thursday, 4th July 2024 led to the most disproportional result in British political history. The Labour Party, as expected, won it - but their success was more due to the voters' disgust with the Conservative Party after fourteen years of Tory Government than anything positive they had to offer.

Labour won 411 seats in the House of Commons (63.23%), on the basis of 9,708,716 votes (33.7%). The turnout was 59.9% - down 7.4% on the previous General Election in 2019 (turnout 67.3%). This explains the fact that the Labour Party in 2019 - led by the supposedly 'extremist' and 'looney leftie' Jeremy Corbyn, demonised and vilified in the media, and deemed unelectable, won 10,269,051 votes that year (32.1% of the vote), but only 202 seats in the Commons (31.08%).

The 'moderate' Keir Starmer thus ends up as Prime Minister, with a landslide majority, on the basis of 560,335 fewer votes than the 'extremist' Jeremy Corbyn - subsequently expelled from the Labour Party, and now sitting as an Independent MP. Starmer only managed to get a 1.6% higher vote share because of the lower turnout.

Our electoral system is crying out for reform. The Scottish Parliament, the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies are all elected using proportional representation, as is the Irish Parliament, the Dáil Éireann. It is well-past time the Westminster Parliament was, too.

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