The Voting Revolution: So Proportional Representation in the UK is a new Idea.. Wrong

Electoral Reform: A History of Challenge and Change in the UK

The debate over electoral systems in the United Kingdom, particularly the persistent call for Proportional Representation (PR), is often presented as a modern phenomenon. However, a historical deep dive reveals that the debate is far from new, stretching back centuries alongside the gradual, hard-won expansion of the electoral franchise itself.

The David Klemperer report, Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform in the UK in Historical Perspective, challenges the idea that the current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system is an “age-old inheritance”. Instead, it shows that the UK’s electoral system has been subject to “constant challenge and change”.

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Proportional Representation: Not a New Idea

The desire to move beyond the winner-takes-all system of FPTP and ensure “minority representation” began in earnest in the mid-nineteenth century, driven by fears of the “tyranny of the majority” following the expansion of the franchise.

Calls for proportionality were not mere theoretical curiosities; they led to actual implementation of PR-like systems:

• The Limited Vote (1832 onwards): First advocated by a Conservative MP during the Great Reform Act debates, the Limited Vote suggested that in multi-member constituencies, an elector could vote for fewer candidates than there were seats. This was intended to ensure that a minority party could still secure representation. Strikingly, the Second Reform Act of 1867 instituted a limited application of this system in 13 three-member city constituencies, marking “arguably Britain’s first experiment with a form of Proportional Representation (PR)” at the parliamentary level.
• The Cumulative Vote (1870): This system, devised by Liberal MP James Garth Marshall , allowed voters in multi-member districts to distribute their votes as they wished, including concentrating (“cumulating”) all their votes onto a single candidate. It was successfully introduced for local elections to School Boards in 1870 to ensure that all major religious groups were represented.
• Single Transferable Vote (STV): The most sophisticated early scheme was Thomas Hare’s concept of ‘personal representation’, which is now known as STV. This system, which involves voters ranking candidates in preference order, was famously championed by the philosopher and Liberal MP John Stuart Mill in the late 1850s. The Proportional Representation Society, focused on advocating for STV, was active from 1884 and re-founded in 1905.
• STV was actually used at Westminster: While proposals for STV in the main borough seats were defeated in 1918, the Representation of the People Act 1918 stipulated that STV would be used for the election of MPs in the University constituencies. STV was used to elect 14 MPs across eight general elections until the constituencies were abolished in 1948.

• The AV Bill (1929-1931): The Liberal Party successfully pressured the Labour government into introducing the Alternative Vote (AV), an electoral reform bill that passed the House of Commons before being shelved due to the national economic crisis.

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The PR Breakout: Devolution and the Late 20th Century

While the main Westminster system reverted entirely to the single-member FPTP model post-1948, the final years of the 20th century saw the widespread adoption of Proportional Representation systems across the newly established institutions of the United Kingdom:

• European Elections (1979/1999): The UK introduced a form of List PR for its elections to the European Parliament, ending the use of FPTP for this level of governance.
• Devolved Nations (1998/1999): The establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd, and the Northern Ireland Assembly brought PR systems to the heart of UK governance. The rationale was to ensure consensus and reflect the distinct multi-party politics of the nations.
  • The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd both use the Additional Member System (AMS), a hybrid system that combines local FPTP seats with regional ‘top-up’ seats allocated proportionally.
  • The Northern Ireland Assembly uses the Single Transferable Vote (STV)—the highly proportional system first championed by Mill—for its elections.
• Local Governance: Non-FPTP systems like the Supplementary Vote (SV) were also introduced for the direct election of Mayors (e.g., the Mayor of London) and for the Greater London Assembly.

This mass adoption demonstrated that the UK was perfectly capable of operating multiple, successful electoral systems designed to achieve greater proportionality and representation than FPTP.

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The Modern Referendum Challenge

The debate over moving Westminster itself to a PR system culminated in a national vote, though the system put forward was the non-proportional Alternative Vote (AV), rather than STV, which many PR advocates preferred.

• The 2011 AV Referendum: Held on 5 May 2011, the referendum asked the electorate: “At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ‘alternative vote’ system be used instead?”
• The Outcome: The proposal was decisively rejected. With a turnout of 42.0%, the results were 67.9% ‘No’ and 32.1% ‘Yes’.
• Significance: Although the ‘No’ result maintained the FPTP system for UK General Elections, the referendum itself proved that electoral reform remains a persistent and live issue in British politics, spanning from the mid-19th century debates right up to the present day.

In short, the current calls for PR are simply the continuation of a vigorous constitutional debate that has been active for over 150 years.

So what are the various different voting types that have been used in the UK and when.

Proportional Representation isn’t a new idea in the UK — it’s a 150-year-old reform backed by political thinkers, parliamentary committees, and decades of successful use in Scotland, Wales and London. While the UK stuck with First-Past-the-Post, PR became the global democratic standard. The question isn’t whether Britain is ready for PR — it’s why we’re the last to adopt what most democracies already rely on.

If you’d like to know more then I recommend you check out: —

BBC Bitesized Historys – https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9hnn39/revision/1

Uk Paliament – https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/

Wikipedia – Please also donate if you use this resource https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918