Why we need PR voting

Why we need PR voting

George Galloway MP

Extracts from a speech made by Respect MP George Galloway at the end of the Commons debate on the Single Transferable Vote system.

I am a long-time member of the Labour campaign for proportional representation. Indeed, I am still a member, although not a member of the Labour Party.

I came here this evening to support amendment (b), standing in the name of the Liberal Democrats. However, in extremis, I will support the Government, because what is proposed is a step forward and a slight improvement.

The Government are making a big mistake if they think that this little broom is going to sweep clean the Augean stables in this place. It will take far more radical proposals than this Government are likely to introduce to restore public trust in this place, and far more than have been canvassed in this debate, which, I am sorry to say, has been characterised by a complacent, joking, student debating society approach. 

I have sat here for six and a half hours, shaking my head at the complacency on view on both sides. Members have no idea of the contempt out there in the country for the kind of debate and debating styles that have been on display this evening.

The reforms that we need in this place are beyond the reach of the existing Members of the House of Commons. That is why we urgently need a general election as soon as possible. 

We need to change the way in which we approach all our politics, and in my view, that includes retiring this very building. We need to acknowledge that it has become a museum-

I am in favour of the kind of reforms that are beyond this House, but I shall confine my remarks to those that are not. That there is cynicism is obvious. 

The Government are in favour of a referendum on this - a voting system that no one in the country is talking about - but on nothing else. A referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which everyone in the country was talking about, was promised in the manifesto, but it was denied. 

The single transferable vote system is certainly not beyond the voters of the Republic of Ireland who have developed that system into a fine art. It is as fine an art of political sophistication as is available anywhere in the western world. 

It is not beyond our people to grasp its complexities. Neither is it the case that one of the three Members for Dublin South is not regarded by the voters of Dublin South as their MP, nor that the MP for Dublin South does not regard himself as the MP for Dublin South because there are two other Members. That is absurd. 

The idea that this ossified system of ours - of "one Member, one constituency" of a given size - is a better system is foolish in the extreme.

If we moved to the system in the Republic of Ireland, as we can do if we support amendment (b) this evening, things would change. But then, if things do not change, there is no hope for politics in this country. 

Roy Jenkins suggested to this Government more than 10 years ago that they could have grasped this nettle, yet they refused to do so for the same cynical reason that they are now grasping for it. If they had listened to Roy Jenkins and implemented the Jenkins Commission report, the centre-left majority that exists in this country would be entrenched in power and the right-wing rump represented by these people here, who opposed votes for women, who opposed votes for working men-[Interruption.] 

They can laugh, but people know that the words democracy and the Conservative party do not easily fit together. 

This right-wing rump-for a variety of reasons that I have no time to develop-now stands on the brink of power, but they would never have been in power again if Jenkins had been listened to and electoral reform had been implemented. 

Do the maths; look at any opinion poll; add up the Labour and the Liberal and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists and Respect and other parties, and it is easy to see that there is a very clear centre-left majority in this country. 

What would be wrong with an electoral system that gave the House of Commons the actual levels of representation that the people had voted for?

My last words are that proportional representation is about giving people what they vote for. Proportional representation is about giving people a House of Commons that reflects how they voted. 

What is wrong with a system that provides 10 per cent or 30 per cent or 50 per cent of the seats in a Parliament if the party received 10 per cent or 30 per cent or 50 per cent of the votes? What is wrong with that? 

I will tell you what is wrong with it. It would put the iron-clad consensus that normally exists across this Chamber out of business-and that would be a good thing, too.