Reform is on the rise, feeding off voters’ growing frustration with rising prices, mass immigration and politics as usual

Talk about a democracy deficit. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has won massive power, but little support.

Britain’s bizarre election result gives Australians one more thing to boast about. We’re a lot more democratic than our former masters.

Britain’s new Labour government has a massive majority – two thirds of seats in the House of Commons – yet only 20 per cent of British adults voted for it.

What’s more, thanks to a first-past-the-post electoral system, Britain’s parliament now looks nothing like its people.

Talk about a democracy deficit. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has won massive power, but little support. It’s a recipe for political disillusion, even revolution.

Keir Starmer has won massive power, but little support. Picture: Getty

Starmer’s first problem is that 40 per cent of voters couldn’t get excited enough about any party to bother voting.

Of those who did, just 34 per cent chose Labour, yet it won 64 per cent of the seats.

That’s because the conservative vote – small “c” – was split. The Conservative Party – smashed for being incompetent and gormless in government – still got 24 per cent of votes, but only 18 per cent of seats.

But the biggest scandal is that the other, and new, conservative party – Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform – won 14 per cent of the vote, but five seats. In contrast, the Left-wing Liberal Democrats won fewer votes – 12 per cent – yet got 71 seats.

Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform won 14 per cent of the vote. Picture: AFP

So the combined conservative vote was bigger than Labour’s, yet Labour rules triumphant.

Blame Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system, which worked when voters had two main choices – Labour or Conservative – but is a con now that nearly half the voters vote for someone else,

Under first past the post, your vote for Reform is wasted if it comes third. Without our kind of preference system, that vote won’t be added to the Conservative total, letting Labour win seat after seat with just over a third of the vote.

Farage is now demanding electoral reform to break up a system that’s suited the Labour and Conservative duopoly which has ruled Britain for a century. He also wants the unelected House of Lords sacked – another institution stacked by the ruling class.

If Labour doesn’t see the case for change, let it be warned: Reform is on the rise, feeding off voters’ growing frustration with rising prices, mass immigration and politics as usual.

It’s not impossible that Reform, too, could next time win 34 per cent of the vote and most seats. A revolution could come if this undemocratic system isn’t fixed.

Originally published as Reform is on the rise, feeding off voters’ growing frustration with rising prices, mass immigration and politics as usual