Burnham to fight next election on pledge to change voting system

BBC News ^ | September 29, 2026 | Paul Seddon

[MinorityRepublican]

Andy Burnham has promised that Labour will fight the next general election on a pledge to change the UK's voting system.

In his first party conference speech as prime minister, he announced plans for a national commission to explore options for electoral reform.

He invited other parties to work with the commission to ensure "everyone's vote counts, and everyone's voice is heard".

He has previously supported moves towards a proportional representation (PR) model, telling last year's conference that "PR's time has come".

Westminster's first-past-the-post system, under which candidates with the most votes in each seat are elected, has been called into question as the UK political landscape has fragmented in recent years.

Debate over the system has intensified since Labour amassed a huge parliamentary majority with a 34% vote share in 2024.

Around 100 Labour MPs recently supported a parliamentary amendment in favour of setting up a commission to examine alternative options, a move Burnham himself supported last year when mayor of Greater Manchester.

In his speech Burnham told delegates: "We will all have failed in our public duties if we carry on as we are and open the door of No 10 to a divisive government on less than 30% of the vote or less."

He added: "We can't succeed in the eyes of the world if we continue with the levels of political turbulence we have seen in recent times."

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TOPICS: United Kingdom
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[gibsonguy]

Here comes the rig. Labour is about to weld the door shut. The people are not voting their way out of this.

[BenLurkin]

Ordinarily it would be teh out of power people who would want electoral reform.

[Bosco127]

Right! Because England’s most pressing issue is their voting system. What a gaggle of fools they have running around over there!

[MalPearce]

Far from it. Reform would benefit from PR far more than Labour.

Currently, even if you combined Reform and Restore they would have nine sitting MPs - and the majority of those MPs were elected as members of different parties.

There are 11 unaffiliated independent MPs (truly independent, or who’ve “lost the whip” i.e. they were elected under a party banner and the party’s effectively kicked them out).

So if we keep First Past the Post, we just end up with Uniparty (LibLabCon).

Good if we want to ensure the loony left parties and fringe parties never get a taste of power.

Not so good if it ensures Reform, Restore, the Unionist parties AND any future centre-right nationalist parties have literally no chance of ever growing to replace LibLabCon.