83% of members believe Labour should back PR
83% of Labour members want the party to commit to Proportional Representation. That's the finding of a YouGov poll published today, commissioned specially for Labour for a New Democracy.
This is amazing news - and a huge credit to the work of activists to make the case and to raise understanding of this issue across the Labour movement.
But we must not take for granted that this unprecedented support counts for anything until it becomes party policy. For that to happen, we need as many CLPs as possible to send our motion to conference
See below for the exclusive coverage of the polling in Labour List, plus a round-up of recent articles about the Labour case for Proportional Representation.
83% of members say Labour should back PR
By Elliot Chappell & Sienna Rodgers
New polling shows 83% of Labour members believe the party should support changing the UK’s electoral system to proportional representation, up from 76% less than two years ago, LabourList can exclusively reveal…
Supporting change to the electoral system should be a core Labour issue
By Billy Bragg
I live in West Dorset where the Conservative Party have been in power since 1886 and I come from Barking where the Labour Party have been in power since the 1920s. There is no doubt the people of Barking are getting a better deal in terms of their local MP – but the truth is, we are all being short-changed when it comes to who governs the UK. Parliament, and the cabinet, simply do not represent most of us…
Westminster isn’t working. Labour must back electoral reform
By Justina Cruickshank
There are 21 candidates, and just 43 votes. Every single on is a hereditary aristocrat. And they can pick three Lords to vote on our laws for life. The hereditary peer by-elections are happening as I write and are one of the most visible absurdities in Britain’s warped political system. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. Voters are systematically ignored in the UK - and not just through the elitist House of Lords…
Justina Cruickshank: Westminster isn’t working. Labour must back electoral reform
A young person’s priority
By Ewan Wadd
Growing up in the Tees Valley, and volunteering at my local soup kitchen, shone a spotlight on the damage austerity was doing to towns like mine. Yet the party causing such damage could govern with near impunity when they had nowhere near majority support. From then on, I was convinced that if we wanted to be a democracy that works for everyone, where parliament accurately represents how the country voted, we had to change how we elect our representatives…
