Holyrood needs electoral reform

The SNP should be returning to this session of parliament with a sense of humility. The party may have won an historic fifth term in government, but it did so on its lowest vote share in almost 20 years. Rather than a vote of confidence, it speaks to an electorate let down by both governing and opposition parties.

John Swinney started the new term by writing to the other party leaders – all but one, anyway – but I don’t expect that collegiality to hold much beyond the first session of FMQs, where he’ll no doubt boast of his victory whenever the questions get a bit too hard. And the number of MSPs slapping the benches behind him does not properly reflect the humbling his party should have received.

Support for the SNP plummeted in both constituency and regional ballots, and yet the party only lost six seats. Meanwhile, Labour lost five seats despite its vote falling by a much more modest amount. This is the result of an electoral system which only attempts to counterbalance the nonsense that is first-past-the-post (FPTP), rather than replacing it completely.

I was pro-electoral reform before it was cool

Somewhere in the bowels of the BBC archives, there is footage of me in the audience of a Scottish leaders’ debate calling for electoral reform. I can’t remember which election this was ahead of, but the issue of proportional representation came up. One of the responses was something along the lines of, ‘we had a referendum and the settled will of the people was to stick with first-past-the-post’.

I was incensed. Incensed enough to raise my hand and press the matter. Firstly, I said, the 2011 referendum asked whether an ‘alternative vote’ system should be introduced – a form of voting that is not proportional representation. And secondly, the vote was poorly publicised and turnout was low. For both reasons, I argued, that vote should not be seen as an endorsement of FPTP or a rejection of changing the electoral system.

I guess what I’m saying is, I was pro-electoral reform before it was cool.

In recent months, there have been growing calls to overthrow Westminster’s FPTP system. This appears to be in response to the rising popularity of Reform, with the idea that a party could win a majority in parliament without a majority of the vote now apparently beyond the pale. The fact that this was a fine state of affairs when it put Labour or the Conservatives in power seems not to have bothered some folk until now.

Parties would be forced to work far more collaboratively

Backing electoral reform purely because there is the threat of a party you don’t like coming into power is a poor reason to support it. It is important to disconnect the matter from the current state of play. We should replace it because it is a bad system, not because Nigel Farage could be prime minister. Still, I suppose I should welcome the newly converted – if they truly have seen the light as to why reform is fundamental to improving our democracy.

But away from Westminster, there is a need to consider electoral reform for the Scottish Parliament too. While the additional member system is an improvement on what is in place for the Commons, ultimately 73 MSPs are still elected under FPTP and the list system is merely an attempt to compensate.

While this has worked relatively well for a number of years (yes, even in 2011 when the SNP achieved an unexpected majority – the result was not far from being proportionate), this most recent election has proven how easily it can be broken.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not calling for electoral reform because I don’t like the 2026 result, but because this result demonstrates a bigger problem. The SNP would still have won the election. Calculations by Ballot Box Scotland show a proportional result would have seen the SNP return 40 MSPs – well ahead of Reform’s 23 and Labour’s 21. But that’s a whopping 18-seat difference and would have forced the Nationalists to work even harder to collaborate with others in this next session of parliament.

As it stands, for every vote it will now only need the support (or abstention) of one opposition party. Staff have already gone through the manifesto and claim to have found at least one willing participant to back every policy contained within it. This does not inspire confidence that there will be sufficient scrutiny of proposals, and it will do little to change the atmosphere in a parliament that did not cover itself in glory last session due to tribal disputes.

Electoral reform at Westminster is long overdue. It is also time to consider options for Holyrood. Not only would pure proportional representation ensure the parliament reflects the will of the people of Scotland, but it would also change the very nature of how politics is done – because parties would be forced to work far more collaboratively than is required now.