Despite winning a huge majority in parliament a few months prior, Prime Minister Keir Starmer went into last month’s Labour Party conference facing slumping party morale and growing unpopularity. With the impending cuts to winter fuel payments and the revelation that Starmer accepted numerous gifts totalling over £100,000 since becoming party leader in 2020, many people are feeling that this government may not represent as significant a departure from the Conservative Party’s record of austerity and corruption issues as they had hoped.
Yet, as pressing as these issues are, they only scratch the surface of why the British public continues to lack faith in democratic institutions, which puts the UK’s parliamentary democracy under increasing pressure. To its credit, the Labour Party did recognise this trend by including constitutional reform in its election platform, with particular recognition for reforms needed for the Lords and devolved authorities. Similarly, the Starmer ministry is making good progress in addressing the undemocratic nature of the upper chamber, such as its oversight of a bill to abolish hereditary peerages.
Granted, these initiatives are welcome, but more decisive pushes towards constitutional reform in the current parliamentary term are still required. To that end, the Starmer ministry should establish a royal commission to examine avenues of upper chamber, devolutionary, and electoral reform. The government should likewise re-establish the Department for Constitutional Affairs to support the commission’s work, under the management of the Constitution Minister in the Cabinet Office. These actions would demonstrate that the government is continuing to take concrete and decisive steps in reforming the UK constitution.
While the Labour Party committed to replace the House of Lords with “an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations… [by] seeking the input of the British public,” it will not pursue this goal in the current parliamentary term. This is a mistake, as the Brown commission noted that an Assembly of Nations and Regions could be established during a single term. Moreover, if the Starmer ministry kicks the can on upper chamber reform, it risks falling into the same “Bermuda Triangle of Lords reform” that has dogged so many previous governments for over a century. It must therefore differentiate itself from its predecessors by taking more definitive measures towards constitutional reform.
Another democratic deficit that the government must recognise is the one that arises from the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. With a mere 33.7 percent of the national vote, Labour’s own election victory is more attributable to the collapse of the Conservative party base than on winning the public’s trust, a fact reinforced by the historically low 59.8 percent turnout. On top of that, a staggering 75 percent of votes in this election were wasted. Starmer’s refusal to accordingly endorse an electoral system of proportional representation (PR) is another misstep.
However, there is still time for the government to reconsider its stance on PR. With the growing risk of a more radical Conservative party allying with Reform UK, as well as the Labour Party’s own members consistently advocating in favour of PR, the Labour government should seriously consider electoral reform as a means of both winning back the public’s trust and reducing political polarisation in British politics. Ironically, even amid this polarisation, progressive parties like the Lib Dems and Greens agree with rank-and-file Labour Party members and Reform UK that PR reform should be under serious consideration. This is further reinforced by how MPs from all major parties (including from the Conservative Party) have established a new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections to push for PR reform as well. These are all signs of the broadening consensus that Britain needs PR reform.
Because of these ongoing debates over which reforms to implement to the upper chamber, devolved authorities, and electoral system, a royal commission and re-established department already have much material to consider and draw public attention to. In the latter case, a Ministerial Department in the Cabinet Office would additionally be adjacent in rank and structure to the offices of the leaders of both houses of parliament, ensuring that the constitutional reform agenda is tied to parliamentary processes. Labour could then engage with other parties in parliament to develop a cross-party consensus on how to approach constitutional reform, especially with the Lib Dems and Greens.
One constitutional change that could theoretically address the need for upper chamber and PR reform simultaneously would be to replace the Lords with a PR-based upper chamber. This “secondary mandate” chamber proposed by Billy Bragg in 2005 gained significant interest across the political spectrum, notably winning The Economist’s endorsement. On the other hand, this would conflict with Labour’s plan to establish the Assembly, and the public continues to be inclined towards devolution. This may mean that PR reforms are more appropriate for the Commons instead.
On that point, the Lib Dems have again endorsed the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system for general elections. When used in conjunction with multi-members districts, STV approximates PR by permitting voters to rank candidates by preference on their ballots. The probability of wasted votes decreases significantly because STV has set vote quotas that candidates must reach to get elected. Thus, any ballots that ranked an elected candidate as their first choice will instead have their vote counted towards their second-preferred candidate, until each seat in the multi-member district is filled. The STV system does have its flaws though, as its use for general elections in Ireland has arguably encouraged intra-party conflict and provincialism, which could have severe consequences for political parties and national-level policymaking in the UK if those issues are not addressed.
Given these many potential options for constitutional reform though, the public should have a chance to consider all of them. Calling for a royal commission on constitutional reform and re-establishing the Department for Constitutional Affairs would correspondingly draw more attention to all possible constitutional reform outcomes. After that, exact plans for constitutional reform could be determined between the government and the public, which will go far in restoring the public’s faith in Britain’s democratic institutions.
Opinions in the above article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of Compass as an organisation. Compass seeks to platform a wide range of progressive viewpoints that reflect the diversity and plurality of the democratic left.