Electoral reform took centre stage—literally—at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this year. Andy Burnham was the lead speaker at the rally calling for reform of Westminster’s voting system, hosted by colleagues in the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform and Labour for a New Democracy.
The drama surrounding the Greater Manchester Mayor’s perceived challenge to Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the government’s performance meant there was a thronging press pack to witness his speech calling for a reset of politics at Westminster, with a proportional voting system at its heart. He told the packed auditorium in Liverpool’s ACC:
“There is nothing more unstoppable than an idea whose time has come – and PR’s time has come.”
Outside the rally, proportional representation and electoral reform were frequent topics throughout the conference. This year, the ERS was in Liverpool discussing these issues with senior journalists and politicians, as well as giving briefings on democratic reform.
Multiparty politics and PR were frequent topics of discussion
The uniquely fractured state of British polling put a particular spotlight on electoral reform, as the multiparty nature of how the public is voting is straining the two-party First Past the Post system. It was pointed out that five parties are now polling at or around 10% of the vote, making First Past the Post highly volatile, as seen in the General and Local Elections.
The fluctuating polls have fuelled growing interest in how the 2026 elections will play out, where voters will cast ballots under three different systems: the proportional Additional Member System (AMS) and Closed List systems in Holyrood and the Senedd respectively, and First Past the Post in English local elections.
There was also significant focus on the potential for electoral reform in the government’s forthcoming Devolution and Elections Bills. In the former, Labour intends to roll back First Past the Post for mayoral and police commissioner elections and replace it with the preferential Supplementary Vote (SV).
The epiphany that led Andy Burnham to support PR
At an IPPR event on devolution, Andy Burnham—who sat on the panel—described how standing under SV for the first time in the mayoral elections, after years as an MP under First Past the Post, converted him to the cause of PR.
He said that for the first time he had to appeal to voters beyond Labour’s narrow base to win second-preference votes from Green and Liberal Democrat supporters. This, he said, encouraged a more collaborative approach to politics that he carried into Manchester City Hall. Mr Burnham told the audience that he’d found the public wanted political parties to work together to get things done, rather than be constantly at odds with each other.
Meanwhile, the new Housing Minister, Steve Reed, who holds the democratic reform brief, was questioned at another IPPR event about his plans for the Elections Bill. The Bill promises to expand the franchise to 16-year-olds across the UK, introduce automated voter registration (AVR), expand the forms of ID accepted at polling stations, and tighten transparency rules around political finance.
Support the Electoral Reform Society presence at conference by becoming a member
Members support our work in parliament, in the press and online – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.
Join the Electoral Reform Society