With more than 650 councillors and a new MP to boot, Nigel Farage’s teal army is clearly on the up. But while Reform UK is always happy to call out others’ volte faces – including Starmer’s Brexit ‘betrayal’ – Farage’s party now appears to be U-turning on one of its own manifesto promises: voting reform. Reform’s ‘Contract with You’, published last July, promised:
Proportional Representation Voting for the House of Commons. Large numbers of voters have no representation in parliament and new parties are shut out of the political system. Voter turnout could be some 10 per cent higher with PR. A referendum is needed.
But during the Spectator’s latest Coffee House Shots Live podcast event at the Emmanuel Centre in London, party chairman Zia Yusuf was quizzed by an audience member about whether Reform still supports changing the electoral system to proportional representation. ‘To turn [Britain] around, it will take us winning under a first past the post system,’ he responded matter-of-factly. Going on, he added:
I firmly believe – and I’m speaking personally here – I think if PR was ever instituted in this country, we will end up in a state of gridlock. We will not be able to do the frankly quite ambitious, and in some cases radical, things by the time we get to 2029 that we’re going to need to do to unshackle the British economy from the crazy overregulation to unleash the potential of British ingenuity. So no, look, we are firmly in favour of first past the post. I don’t think [PR has] served Germany particularly well. I don’t think it’s serving France particularly well. So no is the answer. I personally think that we need first past the post and that’s what reforming tends to win under.
It’s certainly a change from Yusuf’s position just after the general election, when he slammed first past the post and blasted the result as ‘the second most disproportionate result of any advanced democracy in history’. He began to soften his stance earlier this year, however, when polling showed Reform drawing closer to Labour just three months after the July election. How interesting…
What of the party’s other senior figures? When deputy leader Richard Tice was in Scotland on Saturday, Mr S quizzed him on his stance. ‘In theory, we’ve always been a fan of proportional representation, but at the end of the day, we deal with the cards we’re dealt, and I don’t see that changing in any way,’ the Reform man admitted.
Look, I love the PR system. I mean, obviously there’s a number of different PR systems. I actually think that the ones that are used in Scotland and Wales are probably the best – but you can debate it. But ultimately for parliamentary elections, we’ve got first past the post and our job is to win with it. So that’s the bottom line and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Funny what winning will do. When Steerpike approached Reform for an official comment, Mr S was informed that the party position of backing a referendum on proportional representation had not changed – but do the remarks of Reform’s senior figures hint the policy could be under review? Stay tuned…
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