Britannist

I think the answer for UKIP is to contest lots of seats up and down the land as they did in the local elections this month - but have an 'inner core' of key target seats where a special campaigning effort is made.

As you mention, RJT, the Greens are clearly out to win Brighton Pavilion constituency (having come within a few thousand votes of winning it from Labour at the last General Election) and will be targeting that seat with a serious intention of trying to pull off a victory there at the next General Election or the one after that.

UKIP should have three or four parliamentary constituencies in its sites where it is making a real effort to build up its support in local and national elections. We know where most of those four seats are - they are the ones where UKIP got its highest votes at the last General Election and the ones where it has one or more directly elected councillor (s) (i.e. people elected under the UKIP banner).

The local UKIP MEPs in each of those target constituencies could help by campaigning and canvassing and introducing themselves to local people in those seats as their MEP.

rjt

And this process for any small party should be ongoing, it should not start the day Brown calls the next election.

ROBERT FLAVELL

I think the French have the best system for their domestic elections - the alternative vote and the second ballot.
Neither are true PR but it is better than FPTP because at least you can do more with your vote.

UKIP would have won three council seats in Dudley this May with the alternative vote simply on the basis of adding the BNP vote to UKIP....
In ''safe'' Labour seats Tories would have nothing to lose by voting UKIP first, in ''safe'' Tory seats the same applies to Labour and LibDem voters.

But the main advantage of the alternative vote is that it can encourage more people to vote.

Another proposal has been suggested, the ''none of the above'' option on the ballot paper. If under FPTP it was a requirement that where ''none of the above'' won the seat remains vacant is interesting - just how many empty seats would there be in Parliament? And if it is 330 or more we can have a ''none of the above'' Government, ie. no Government at all - at least there would be no more Maasthricht treaties, and as income tax has to be renewed annually, it would lapse so we would be kicked out of the EU by default for not paying the membership fee....

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\'\'Give me a Ping and one Ping only\'\' - Sean Connery, Red October

David Agnew

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I would like UKIP to support PR in the House of Lords (based on the general election vote). That way the local link with an MP would remain (in the Commons), but the system would be fairer to parties that have breadth of support, but not depth.

ROBERT FLAVELL

How would you cater for electing independents and non-party people? These are the people you need in the second chamber, not a load of party apperachicks and political favourites.

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\'\'Give me a Ping and one Ping only\'\' - Sean Connery, Red October

TonyG

Aren't they an essential ingredient to any party? You know, serving the drinks wearing short skirts and low cut tops?

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If you don't think you can change the world, who do you expect to do it for you?

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http://www.mercola.com/townofallopat...ofallopath.htm

xhenry

I struggle to understand the mindset of those who take a negative view of PR - I acknowledge all the negatives of the system from a purist point of view - but what we need to focus on is how ukip can maximise its message and its presence. Advocating a system of PR is by far the best way of maximising our influence in the near term - just look at all the excitement about the Welsh Assembly. We need to realise that this is serious stuff - its not about a jolly club of like minded people - we owe the people of this country more than that - and that means using whatever means we can to maximise our impact on the national scene.

Britannist

The europhile political establishment :evil: in our country are not going to allow any electoral system which helps UKIP win seats in the Commons.

If a system of proportional voting were used for UK General Elections and UKIP started to win seats and rapidly become a more powerful electoral force in the land - the europhiles :x in the Commons would simply unite to vote through changes to the voting system in order to hold UKIP back.

What UKIP needs to do is to win under the voting system used now for General Elections.

And that means - among the constituencies UKIP contests at a General Election - having three or four key target seats in which it makes a serious effort to get the highest possible vote (in an attempt to win those seats).

g hall

Surely part of the solution is encouraging people to vote as their vote is worth something and will make a difference.
With the current system and the LibLabCon trick this isn't possible, what is the difference between the 3 hm not a lot
So were do we go

Preferential list with multi member constituencies - sort of like the MEP vote
STV
Alternative with second ballot
None of the above

They all have their proponents and appeal

A very long debate

Britannist

I can't see what appeal the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system has.

For a start it's the voting system the extreme europhile Liberal Dims claim to support - which means that it cannot possibly be a good thing.

Just for those not familiar with STV - if it were used for UK General Elections it means the existing parliamentary constituencies would be abolished and replaced by mega-sized seats with up to a million voters in each constituency.

Each of these mega-sized constituencies would have between 4 and 8 members of Parliament.

The link between MP and moderately-sized single member constituencies which we have now would be gone.

Voters would be submerged into huge constituencies (i.e. Sussex, for instance, could form just one Parliamentary seat) and would be left with a confusingly large number of MPs claiming to represent their constituency.
The chances of one (or even two) parties forming a Government would be small. There would have to be multi-party coalitions which would not last long. General Elections might be held every couple of years or so.

STV must never be allowed to come into use in our country.

It is just about the worst proportional voting system going.

And that's really saying something.