Labour won 63% of the seats in 2024 with 34% of the vote. Reform won 5 seats with 14% of the vote. On 7 May, three different voting systems operated simultaneously, and the contrast between their outcomes was the most vivid demonstration of the electoral reform debate in British political history.
Britain elects its MPs using First Past the Post, Single Member Plurality. It is one of the simplest voting systems in the world and one of the most contested.
How it works
The UK is divided into 650 constituencies, each electing one MP. You put a single X next to the candidate you want. The candidate with the most votes wins — no majority needed, just a plurality. A candidate winning 30 per cent of the vote beats four opponents with 17 per cent each.
Why this produces disproportionate results
Votes for losing candidates count for nothing in the final arithmetic. In a country with multiple significant parties, this creates systematic distortions. Smaller parties whose votes are distributed across many constituencies where they cannot win are systematically under-represented. Larger parties whose votes concentrate efficiently in winnable seats are over-represented.
The 2024 general election results illustrate this precisely. Labour won 33.7 per cent of the vote and 412 seats, 63.2 per cent of all seats. Reform UK won 14.3 per cent of the vote and 5 seats. The Liberal Democrats won 12.2 per cent of the vote and 72 seats, more than twice Reform’s representation on a lower vote share, because Lib Dem votes were concentrated in targetable constituencies.
The case for First Past the Post
Defenders make three arguments. It produces strong majority governments. It maintains a direct constituency link between an MP and their voters. It is simple, you put an X in a box.
The case against
Critics make three counter-arguments. Strong governments on low vote shares are not mandates, Labour’s 2024 landslide was a mathematical artefact of vote distribution, not an expression of dominant public support. It wastes millions of votes, the Electoral Reform Society calculated approximately 22 million votes in 2024 had no effect on the outcome. And in a five-party country where five parties each command between 12 and 34 per cent of the vote, a system that systematically excludes smaller parties from fair representation distorts rather than reflects public opinion.
7 May 2026: three systems, one night, three different outcomes
The 7 May elections ran three voting systems simultaneously. The contrast between their outcomes is the most direct live demonstration of the electoral reform debate that British politics has ever produced.
England’s council elections used First Past the Post. Reform UK’s 27 per cent national support across England translated into 1,453 councillors and control of 14 councils, concentrated in areas where its vote was strong enough to win individual wards. In wards where Reform polled 20 per cent but consistently finished second, it won nothing. The Greens, with a geographically concentrated vote in urban areas, gained 411 seats. Labour’s 1,496 losses reflected its collapse from a position of over-representation it had built up over successive FPTP elections.
Scotland’s Holyrood election used the Additional Member System, FPTP for 73 constituency seats, proportional regional list seats for the remaining 56. Reform UK won 17 seats entirely from the regional list, where their approximately 15 per cent Scottish support was fairly reflected. In the constituencies, where the SNP’s vote was efficiently concentrated, the SNP won 45 of the 73 seats. The system produced a result where the SNP is the dominant party without a majority, a more accurate reflection of Scotland’s political landscape than FPTP would have delivered.
Wales used a fully proportional D’Hondt system for the first time. Every seat was allocated from party lists in 16 six-member constituencies. Plaid Cymru won 43 seats on 35 per cent of the vote. Reform UK won 34 seats on 29 per cent. Welsh Labour won 9 seats on approximately 14 per cent of the vote. The system translated vote shares into seats with a precision that the Westminster FPTP system cannot approach. First Minister Eluned Morgan lost her seat, a result that would almost certainly not have occurred under FPTP, where the incumbent advantage is powerful.
What 7 May proves about voting systems
The 7 May results provide three data points from the same political moment.
Under First Past the Post in England: Reform’s 27 per cent produced disproportionate gains where concentrated, and nothing where not. Labour’s collapse was amplified by the system’s over-representation of its previous dominance.
Under the Additional Member System in Scotland: a broadly proportional result, with Reform fairly represented on the list and the SNP’s constituency efficiency rewarded but not to the point of a manufactured majority.
Under D’Hondt in Wales: the most accurate translation of votes into seats, producing a hung Senedd that precisely reflects the fact that no party commands majority support, and delivering consequences (Morgan losing her seat) that a protected-incumbency FPTP system would likely have prevented.
The political obstacle to change
The party that benefits most from First Past the Post is the one in power, and the one in power is best placed to prevent change. The Jenkins Commission recommended reform in 1997. The report was shelved. The 2011 AV referendum was defeated 68 to 32 per cent.
In a five-party Britain, where the 7 May results confirmed that no single party commands the landscape, the pressure for electoral reform at Westminster is growing. Reform UK, having won 27 per cent of the English vote and 1,453 council seats, is acutely aware that 27 per cent under FPTP at a general election would produce a dramatically different result from what proportional representation would deliver. The party’s interest in reform at Westminster level is a new and potentially significant force in the debate.
Whether that pressure ever translates into the cross-party coalition necessary to change the Westminster voting system remains, as it has been for more than a century, the defining unanswered question of British democratic life.
7 May sharpened it considerably.
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