Will first-past-the-post save us from a Reform hell?

Don’t say it too loudly – at least in Liberal Democrat circles – but we might all be breathing a sigh of relief at the vagaries and distortions of our first-past-the-post electoral system come 5 July. Decades of campaigning for a switch to proportional representation have come to nothing. That failure might save us from seeing dozens of far-right Reform MPs elected.

It is ironic that those of us who believe we need a fairer electoral system are faced with the prospect of watching Reform claw its way up the opinion polls, possibly even overtaking the Tories to claim a marginal second place, and yet come out of the election with a handful of MPs at best. Just for once, it could be that the Liberal Democrats, aided by a ruthless strategy of targeting their best prospects, benefit from the distortions of the first past the post system.

With ten days to go plenty could happen, especially as we are in unchartered territory with the rise of Reform. We have seen dramatic collapses in the Tory vote in opinion polls in the run-up to General Elections before but on polling day many Tories find they cannot let go of mother’s apron strings. When the real votes are counted the collapse is rarely as bad as forecast. They may do well enough to fend off the threat of Reform overtaking them.

Whatever happens, we will be looking at the starkest proof yet that the first-past-the-post system is not fit for purpose. It simply doesn’t cope with an increasingly fragmented multi-party system.

The rise of Reform should not be an excuse for those of us who believe in a fairer electoral to diminish our commitment to see one put in place. We need to separate the two issues, although that is not easy right now.

A nightmare scenario
The nightmare for many of us will be if Nigel Farage gets elected with three or four others from his far right fan club and has a platform to constantly bleat about being the “real” leader of the opposition, regardless of how many more MPs the Tories, Liberal Democrats or SNP have.

The polls in Clacton apparently show that Labour is second to Reform. We certainly need other left of centre voters – Liberal Democrats and Greens – to swing behind Labour and hope that reasonable centrist Tories, who are almost politically homeless at the moment, realise they have to hold their noses and vote Labour to stop Farage.

This need for a broad progressive and centrist alliance to stop the rise of the far right has dawned on the French almost too late. When the dust settles on our General Election – and the French election – we are going to have to take stock of what has gone so wrong that millions of people are being seduced by the siren voices of evil.

We need a powerful narrative to combat this. Right now it is hard to see where it might come from.