BORIS Johnson would not have formed a majority government and the SNP would have their 48 seats almost cut in half if a "fairer" proportional representation system had been used to elect MPs to Parliament, a new study has revealed.
New research by the Electoral Reform Society reveals that if the UK had used the type of voting system used for the European Parliament elections, there would have been a hung parliament – with a possibility Labour could have formed a government with the support of others.
Campaigners are continuing to push for voting changes saying that proportional representation is a far more democratic method of electing a government, and helps avoid concerns which surfaced during the long-running Brexit debates that Parliament does not represent the people.
Boris Johnson when he moved back to No. 10 announced he was fronting a "People's Parliament".
But the new research reveals that under the d'Hondt list PR system, the Tories, rather than sweeping to power with a landslide 365 seats, would be the biggest party with 288, but that would have been 38 short of the numbers need to form a majority government.
And the SNP would lose out with 4 per cent of the UK vote, with their seats cut from 48 to 28.
Critics of the current First Past The Post (FPTP) method of electing MPs, say that the latest election continues to underline how it produces "unrepresentative" government.
In a hung parliament, the incumbent PM stays in office – and lives in Downing Street – until it is decided who will attempt to form a new government.
The Cabinet Manual says that an incumbent government “is expected to resign if it becomes clear that it is unlikely to be able to command that confidence [of the House of Commons] and there is a clear alternative”.
That could have allowed Labour to argue that Mr Johnson should quit before a certain date if there is clearly an “anti-Tory” majority in the Commons that would inevitably reject his Queen’s Speech.
Jeremy Corbyn would then have been first in line to have the chance to form a government which would put its Queen’s Speech to the Commons to see if he could win the support of a majority of MPs.
Under proportional representation, the Labour Party would have won 216 seats, 14 more than our current First Past The Post system
And the Liberal Democrats would gain. Their 11.5 per cent of the vote which gave them 11 seats under FPTP would hand them 70 under PR.
The Green Party who managed just one seat with 2.7 per cent of the vote, would get 12 and the Brexit Party which drew a blank with 2 per cent backing would get 10.
It would give the Brexit-sceptic parties outside Northern Ireland, including Labour, 330 and those in favour of leaving the EU around 298.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said: “No government should be able to win a big majority on a minority of the vote. Westminster’s voting system is warping our politics beyond recognition and we’re all paying the price.
"Under proportional voting systems, seats would more closely match votes, and we could end the scourge of millions feeling unrepresented and ignored.
“Parties like the Greens and Brexit Party won huge numbers of votes and almost no representation. The LibDems saw a surge in votes and their number of seats fall. Something is very clearly wrong.
“Voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are used to using more democratic voting systems – and having a more co-operative politics as a result.
"Westminster’s system is built on confrontation and warped results, but we can do better than this. We can move to a fairer system, restoring trust in politics and building a better democracy at the same time.”
The Electoral Reform Society support the multi-member, ranked-choice PR style Single Transferable Vote system, used for local elections in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Advocates for STV say that this form of voting enables votes to be cast for individual candidates rather than for parties and party machine-controlled party lists.
Changing to PR is also expected to change the way voters behave. Unlike FPTP it cuts out "wasted" votes, meaning people were more likely to feel they could support any party at the ballot box and not just those parties who have a chance of winning in a particular seat.
The ERS have launched an online petition in support of bringing in a proportional representation system of voting.
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