Tag: Proportional Representation
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The pro-PR motion passed by Labour Party Conference 2022
Last week, Labour Party conference made history by overwhelmingly voting for a pro-PR motion, organised by Labour for a New Democracy. This is a huge moment for the reform campaign. I wanted to record the full text of the motion here, because I have not seen it published elsewhere.
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How might the 2021 Senedd election have looked under the proposed new system?
My blog for Make Votes Matter on the proposed Senedd electoral system. Yesterday, Mark Drakeford and Adam Price published a “joint position statement” on Senedd reform. The agreement proposed the use of a closed list D’Hondt PR system to elect 96 Members of the Senedd (MSs). The system would have 16 constituencies, each electing 6…
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Weaver Vale Constituency Labour Party becomes the 166th to back PR, one quarter of all CLPs
Weaver Vale CLP became the 166th local branch of the Labour Party to pass a motion calling for Proportional Representation this week. That means over a quarter of CLPs have passed a motion in recent years, making PR one of the most called for policies in Labour history. The renewed push for PR among Labour…
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Thesis: Moving the Goalposts: Orbán’s Fidesz, Strategies of Party Competition and Electoral Authoritarianism
My undergraduate thesis: Moving the Goalposts: Orbán’s Fidesz, Strategies of Party Competition and Electoral Authoritarianism
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Peterloo led eventually to electoral democracy – but there’s one big bit of unfinished business
New evidence shows that it’s the Right that tend to benefit from the UK’s unequal electoral system. The Left is gradually embracing Proportional Representation, but it needs to move faster. This was originally posted as an article for OpenDemocracy: Peterloo led eventually to electoral democracy – but there’s one big bit of unfinished business Today marks…
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Peterloo 200: the path to Proportional Representation
16 August 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre. To commemorate the massacre, I have been working on a report for Make Votes Matter, co-authored with the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform. From the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, through the Chartist and suffrage campaigns, to the rise of the Labour Party, working people have…
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New York Times – U.K. Voters’ Frustration High as 99% Are Sidelined in Prime Minister Election
My quote from this piece in the New York Times, about the Conservative leadership contest and dissatisfaction with politics. Most galling for many is that the decision lies with the Tories, whose party members are determined to have Brexit delivered by Oct. 31 at any cost. That view has been rejected by the majority of…
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What if UK European Elections were held under the 1994 FPTP system?
The European Elections are the only nationwide UK elections held under a form of Proportional Representation. Admittedly, due to the D’Hondt counting system and small regions, the system isn’t perfectly proportional, but it is a vast improvement on the previous FPTP system, used until 1999. The last European Election to be held under First Past…
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Tactical voting on the basis of the 2014 European Elections
Disclaimer: I am a Labour Party member and will be voting for Labour in May’s European Elections. This blog is not intended to encourage tactical voting but to explore from an academic perspective whether various parties’ claims to be “the main Remain party” in the upcoming European Elections stand up to scrutiny. One of the biggest…
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The Impact of Electoral Systems on Economic Democracy in Developed Democracies
This essay was written for the quantitative methods component of my comparative politics module. A PDF of the essay is available here, R code is available here, and replication data is available here. With the challenges of climate change, globalisation and a backlash against established political and economic institutions, many political commentators have pointed to…
Owen Winter 