{"id":17319,"date":"2017-05-19T11:38:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T11:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/?p=17319"},"modified":"2017-05-19T18:38:21","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T18:38:21","slug":"tories-going-backwards-on-voting-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/tories-going-backwards-on-voting-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories going &#8220;backwards&#8221; on voting reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Supporters of voting reform have had a disappointing week reading party manifestos,&nbsp;with neither Labour nor the Conservatives committing to proportional representation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Conservative manifesto is a \u201cgiant leap backwards\u201d on voting reform, according to the Electoral Reform Society (ERC). They propose&nbsp;to change the voting system for Police &amp; Crime Commissioners and mayoral elections to first past the post (the same used in the General Election). ERC&nbsp;went on to say: \u201cLow turnouts in PCC elections combined with First Past the Post will result in winners the majority simply don\u2019t want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite being the most popular policy on Labour\u2019s member-led policy forum, the party has not committed to proportional representation in their manifesto either. This is also despite shadow cabinet minister for voter engagement and youth affairs Cat Smith <a href=\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/563e2841e4b09a6ae020bd67\/t\/5910ab2437c5811c7b50d78e\/1494264678262\/Report+-+The+Many+Not+The+Few+-+online.pdf\">supporting the policy<\/a>&nbsp;last weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Labour rather are supporting a constitutional convention, which could look into things like voting reform. Jeremy Corbyn said in an interview last year that a constitutional convention would explore having a proportionally elected upper chamber:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In 2016 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeremycorbyn\">@jeremycorbyn<\/a> told <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OwenJones84\">@OwenJones84<\/a> he&#39;s open to systems of PR, and that Labour&#39;s constitutional convention *will* cover voting systems. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mQewmEQUIU\">pic.twitter.com\/mQewmEQUIU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Make Votes Matter (@MakeVotesMatter) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MakeVotesMatter\/status\/864854296399106048\">May 17, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Labour supported reviewing the electoral system in 1997, 2001 and 2005, but no action was taken in response to a commission on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Make Votes Matter, a campaign group set up after &#8220;the 2015 General Election was the most disproportionate in British history&#8221; were disappointed but optimistic.<\/p>\n<p>Campaigner Joe Sousek&nbsp;said: &#8220;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although the Labour Party tanker hasn&#8217;t fully turned around, it does promise a Constitutional Convention looking at reforming the way Britain works on a fundamental level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;This is progress. It is unthinkable a convention or cross-party process like this wouldn&#8217;t end up recommending PR. They usually do: the Jenkins Commission, New Zealand Royal Commission, Scottish and Welsh devolution processes, several conventions and a cross-party committee in Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;As far as Labour is concerned (and there is a lot more to the campaign than just Labour) we now have to get as many candidates to commit to PR as possible, and hopefully get a stronger statement of support from the leadership.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Liberal Democrats, Green Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru and UKIP are all committed to a proportional voting system to elect MPs to Westminster.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Students can check to see where their vote will matter more at <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/ge2017.com\/students\">http:\/\/ge2017.com\/students<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Supporters of voting reform have had a disappointing week reading party manifestos,&nbsp;with neither Labour nor the Conservatives committing to proportional representation. The Conservative manifesto is a \u201cgiant leap backwards\u201d on voting reform, according to the Electoral Reform Society (ERC). They propose&nbsp;to change the voting system for Police &amp; Crime Commissioners and mayoral elections to first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[744,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17319"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17341,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319\/revisions\/17341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/cjsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}