How the Electoral System Failed to Deliver–Again

Abstract

There has long been one principal defence of the use of the single member plurality electoral system in elections to the UK House of Commons. Because it usually gives the largest party a safe overall majority, it is said to facilitate a system of alternating single party majority government under which who governs is determined directly by voters and where responsibility for what government does and does not achieve rests unambiguously with the governing party (Bingham Powell, 2000; Norton 1997; Renwick, 2011). These attributes are claimed to be more important than having a parliament whose composition represents a microcosm of political opinion amongst the electorate at large, such as might be delivered by a system of proportional representation. Until recently, the system has largely lived up to this billing. In the 17 elections held between 1945 and 2005, only once did it fail to deliver an overall majority at all, and only on three occasions was the government’s majority fewer than ten seats. Yet the 2017 election was the third in a row at which the system has failed to deliver a safe overall majority to the winning party. In 2010, no single party enjoyed an overall majority and the outcome led to the formation between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats of the first coalition government since 1945. Although in 2015 the Conservatives did secure an overall majority, at just 12 seats it was relatively small and declared insufficient by the Prime Minister, Theresa May, when she decided to precipitate the 2017 election. Meanwhile, instead of providing the Conservatives with a larger and safer overall majority, the 2017 contest saw the party lose its majority entirely, forcing it to form a minority government that is sustained by a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement with the largest of the Northern Ireland parties, the Democratic Unionists (DUP).