The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) has, this week, published the latest findings from their British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey. The survey has been conducted almost every year since its launch in 1983 and has been tracking British public opinion on a whole range of issues over the last four decades.
The latest BSA findings show that a clear majority of the population support a change to Westminster’s broken voting system – as 60% of the British public now support proportional representation.
This rise in support is no surprise. For too long, First Past the Post has distorted democracy and the 2024 general election gave us the least representative parliament in British history. This means that the way the British public is represented in Westminster looks nothing like how people actually voted.
How is this support for proportional representation measured?
Since 1983, the following BSA question about electoral reform has been asked over twenty times:
Some people say we should change the voting system for general elections to the UK House of Commons to allow smaller political parties to get a fair share of MPs.
Others say that we should keep the voting system for the House of Commons as it is to produce effective government.
Which view comes closer to your own?
We don’t agree with the view that First Past The Post (FPTP), the current voting system for UK general elections, always produces effective government. However, this is an argument often made by supporters of FPTP and is used here to produce a balanced question, alongside the pro-Proportional Representation (PR) argument that changing to such a system would produce fairer electoral outcomes.
One of the strengths of the BSA data is that the same question has been asked many times over the years, so we can be confident that any fluctuations in results reflect real changes in British public opinion.
This question on electoral reform was included in the most recent BSA survey and the data, collected in September and October 2024, features in a new BSA report chapter titled ‘Britain’s Democracy: A Health Check’, co-authored by Professor Sir John Curtice.
The question was also included in the previous BSA survey, conducted in 2023. Data from that survey revealed that support for changing to a more proportional voting system had reached a record high of 53%.
Three fifths of the public support changing the voting system
The new data, from late-2024, reveals another significant leap in support for PR. Fully three-fifths (60%) of the British public now support changing the voting system for UK general elections. Just 36% want to keep the current voting system, a record low.
As Professor Curtice and his co-authors write:
‘The heavily disproportional outcome of the 2024 election appears to have created – for the time being at least – a public that, irrespective of partisanship, is questioning the current electoral system to an unprecedented degree’.
Voters across the political spectrum are in favour of switching to PR
As reflected in the above quote, another notable aspect of the latest data is how there is majority support for changing to a proportional voting system among the supporters of each of the five main Great Britain-wide political parties: Labour; Conservatives; Reform UK; Liberal Democrats; and the Green Party.
As we noted in a previous blog, one of the key reasons why support for PR first rose above 50% in the BSA series, in data collected in autumn 2021, was a dramatic shift in the views of Labour Party supporters. For the first time in the series, more Labour supporters were in favour of changing the system, rather than keeping the status quo.
Despite Labour winning a landslide majority under FPTP at the general election of 2024, support for PR among Labour supporters remains strong in the latest data, with a clear majority (55%) wanting to see electoral reform. This represents only a five-point fall on the level of support among Labour supporters recorded prior to the 2024 general election.
Pro-PR sentiment remains strong among supporters of the three parties outside of the traditional ‘big two’ parties, with majorities in favour of PR among Green Party supporters (90%); Reform UK supporters (78%); and Liberal Democrats supporters (56%).
The most striking change in this year’s data concerns supporters of the Conservative Party. Historically, this group has been the least in favour of changing to a PR voting system. This year’s data, however, reveals a doubling in support for PR among this group, from just under a quarter (24%) in 2023 to just over a half (52%) in 2024.
The pressure to change the system is mounting
With support for PR reaching a record high and that support being so widespread among voters across the political spectrum, pressure continues to build on FPTP; a system that is out of time and no longer fit for purpose in the era of multi-party politics. In the words of the BSA report’s authors:
‘Support for retaining the single-member plurality system [FPTP]…has reached a new low’.
Are you in the majority who want reform?
Add your name to our call for proportional representation in the UK →