How many seats did Reform UK win - and why they don't match its vote share?

Yahoo! UK ^ | 7/4/24 | James Cheng Morris

[libertylover]

Thank you for that explanation of the British system and I think it's a good system.

In some ways it's like our Electoral College where the Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that the President had widespread appeal and that a super concentration of people in one area wouldn't necessarily win.

[ChessExpert]

I remember Hillary’s surprise that the Electoral College mattered. It had only been around since the founding of the nation.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Farage us more like British Ron di Santis.

[Gay State Conservative]

Many seats have a half dozen candidates.The typical winner of a seat gets something like 35% of the votes cast. Ross Perot got something like 20% of the votes cast and won approximately zero EVs.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Sunak couldn’t have accommodated Farage even if he wanted to. The Tories are riddled with wets who would never let someone like Farage lead them.

The Conservative Party simply cannot be redeemed.

Reform UK has the potential support base and with 5 years to prepare, fund and organise they will be in a much better place next time.

Personally, I’m hoping they appoint a wet as their next leader to drive more based Tories into the Reform camp instead of someone decent like Kemi Badenoch who will allow the Tories to limp along and suck up Reform votes.

[xxqqzz]

They should have a runoff like in France. Labour got 33% of the vote and a big majority of seats. With runoff, they wouldn’t get near a majority. The vote was divided between Conservative, Liberal, and Reform.

[Zhang Fei]

[Sunak couldn’t have accommodated Farage even if he wanted to. The Tories are riddled with wets who would never let someone like Farage lead them.]

---

I have to wonder how much of this was “not Oxbridge, not interested” on the part of the Tory rank and file. Major became head boy thanks to Thatcher’s sponsorship, but it was a glaring exception to the party’s very hide-bound traditions.

[Alas Babylon!]

Here in Alabama, if you get less than 50%, there’s a runoff of the tow top vote getters. Except for the President.

The best way, imho.

[FenwickBabbitt]

Worldwide right now, the right is becoming more and more populist. It’s hard to see how the class-bound Tories survive in their current state under this sweeping trend. Reform appeals to the working class and to the young. The Tories do not. They either have to be replaced or they have to radically change.

[jerod]

It is what it is, and it has worked for hundreds and hundreds of years...

That being said, they could introduce runoff elections in constituencies where the top vote getter hasn’t achieved a 50% vote total. The two top vote getters could then have a runoff election, insuring that the constituency is represented by a member who has more than 50% of the vote.

There are several parties to vote for in most of the UK’s constituencies, and several members of parliament are currently elected with far less than 50% of the voters electing them within that constituency. In the end though, why screw with a system that has worked for a very very long time.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Not about the Tory rank and file, they wanted Liz Truss, the grandees in the Parliamentary Conservative Party in the 1922 committee didn’t. The grandees are the problem because they are fundamentally undemocratic and oligarchic in their mindset and believe ordinary grassroots party members are knuckle dragging plebian imbeciles who need their betters to make all the decisions that really matter.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

This is not a system that is still working. It’s an absolute farce that Sinn Fein can win 7 seats on barely more than 600,000 votes but Reform get only 5 despite over 4 million votes.

[jerod]

4 million votes spread out over England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland... If those votes were concentrated, they would win more seats... 5 votes here, 50 votes there and 35 votes someplace else doesn’t add up to a seat in parliament.

[jerod]

Nobody voted for Sinn Fein outside of Ireland.... They didn’t win a seat in Wales, Scotland or England... Concentrated votes on one specific area is why they won 7 seats.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

I know how and why the FPTP system works but it just shows how dysfunctional it is. Your view only gets represented if there are enough like minded people concentrated into a few constituencies.