PR would make Labour majorities all but impossible, yet give the Lib Dems a permanent foothold on power
- Richard Johnson is a lecturer in politics at Queen Mary University of London
At Labour’s annual conference this week, a motion is to be put forward calling for the party to back proportional representation (PR) for the election of MPs to the House of Commons.
There are many philosophical arguments that can be made against PR. PR makes coalition governments the norm rather than the exception. It reduces the ability of a party to deliver on its manifesto promises. It gives disproportionate weight to small parties. It encourages a more transactional form of politics, based on post-election horse-trading. It produces a more fragmented, inward-looking form of politics, whereby parties no longer need to seek broad-based electoral support in order to achieve power.
