Dissident Congress

We might in the future courtesy of the EU. The Green MEPs are working on getting the EU to implement legislation governing national elections. This could mean that the EU will outlaw FPTP and force Britain to accept an approved system of PR even if Westminster MPs overwhelmingly oppose it.

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Britannist

Interesting and useful figures TomPhil: thank you. Just thought I would mention that the Liberals in Germany (Free Democrats) are not in Government now. It must have come as quite a surprise to them when the two largest parties (CDU Conservatives and SDP Social Democrats) formed a Grand Coalition without them.

A warning to any Liberal 'Democrats' over here that proportional voting might not put them in power permanently as they hope. After eight years of PR in the Scottish Parliament, Labour and the Liberal 'Democrats' are out of power - both those parties thought that they could govern together in Edinburgh semi-permanently.

I would also add that a new leftist party (led by former SDP member Oscar Lafontaine) may push the Free Democrats into fourth place in the ranking in Germany.

Britannist

France uses a voting system fairly similar to ours for national elections - I cannot see the Government of France tolerating the EU telling them to change their electoral system.

As I have mentioned before - French President Mitterrant ditched alternative vote (AV) for elections to the national Parliament of France the moment small parties started winning seats.

Attempts to change the proportional voting (PR) system used to elect Governments in Italy (to a voting system more like ours) could be revived at any time - PR has resulted in over 60 Governments in Italy since 1945.

Britannist

The reason why proportional voting (PR) is allegedly not on the Liberal 'Democrat' lists of conditions for their support in a Parliament with no overall majority is that they were shaken by the stunning success of UKIP in winning 12 seats in a PR vote in the last EU Election.

UKIP pushed the Liberal Dims into fourth place in terms of votes in that election and it suddenly occurred to the Dim Liberals what any political analyst could have told them years ago: that they are not 'the only show in town' and under PR other small parties could beat them.

The Liberal Dims know full well that if a UK General Election were held under the voting system used in the last EU Election they would be beaten by UKIP and could even be beaten by the Greens - meaning that they ended up in fifth place in the ranking.

Britannist

It is unlikely they would want STV (single transferable vote) now that they have been beaten in a national election held under proportional voting (the last EU Election) by UKIP. More likely the Liberal Dims would try to stick with AV (Alternative Vote) with the leadership of that party trying to fooling their members (most of whom have been campaigning for proportional representation voting for many years) into thinking that AV was a proper proportional voting system (which, of course, it is not).

As I wrote earlier in this thread, Alternative Vote would only work for the Labour and Liberal 'Democrat' parties as long as both those parties were popular with voters. The moment they both became unpopular the AV voting system would punish them harshly and other parties would start to make gains under AV instead.

Britannist

AV (Alternative Vote) would only work for them while they were popular. Once they (and/or their coalition partner) became unpopular with voters the AV electoral system would punish them harshly as other parties started to make gains under AV instead.

AV is used in Australia and small falls in levels of support for Governments has resulted in big electoral losses.

Dissident Congress

The French are known to pick and choose which pieces of EU legislation they obey, whereas the British swallow EU legislation hook line and sinker.

There almost certainly will be resentment from national governments when the EU interferes with internal elections. Britain, of course, will be the number one target the EU legislation will be directed towards in a ganging up approach by the EU officials.

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Dissident Congress

Promoting Populist Patriotism

Our Nation - Our People - Our Heritage - Our Future

Britannist

True (unfortunately). I agree with your view that if the EU decides it wants to force the nations of the EU to use the same electoral system for national elections the very first country it will seek to force its will on will be (as usual) the UK.

Britannist

A few weeks ago it was announced that La Poste (French postal service) is to begin operating in the UK - but, apparently, it is still not possible for the UK and other EU nations to operate postal services in France.

TomPhil

They are still calling for STV - see http://www.libdems.org.uk/media/docu...onal_Sep07.pdf

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In Labour we trusted and now we are busted... again. It's the economy, stupid.