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How First Past the Post turns politics into tribal warfare

Poll after poll and headline after headline in the U.K may leave you with the impression of a country more divided than ever. This is never more obvious than in the seemingly daily polling notifications....

Posted 10 Dec 2025

Why reach out when you can win a majority on just 30 percent of the vote

How First Past the Post lets people with fringe views slip through the net

Britain’s First Past the Post system was designed for a two-party age. One that pretty much everyone agrees we no longer live in. Yet even when most people voted for one of the two big...

Posted 13 Nov 2025

First Past the Post doesn’t care how narrow or extreme a party’s agendas is

What can the UK learn from California’s Prop 50 gerrymandering plan?

A high-stakes fight is underway in the United States over redrawing the constituencies for the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. One flashpoint is California’s Proposition 50, a ballot measure that passed today. Voters have...

Posted 05 Nov 2025

Photo of Golden Gate Bridge, California. Text overlay:

Why single-party governments under First Past the Post fail to get things done

For all the talk of “strong government,” the reality of single-party rule under First Past the Post (FPTP) often looks anything but. Behind the scenes, these governments can be paralysed by internal battles, faction against...

Posted 29 Oct 2025

The real fights aren’t across the floor of the Commons but inside the ruling party itself

Latest YouGov poll shows multi-party Britain breaking the voting system

If there were a general election tomorrow, who would form the next government? It sounds like a simple question if you have access to the latest polls. But when the latest YouGov poll, released on...

Posted 28 Oct 2025

Britain deserves an electoral system that treats voters with respect

How First Past the Post helped apartheid take hold in South Africa

South Africa’s history shows how an electoral system can change everything. Sometimes, democracy’s biggest dangers aren’t coups or revolutions, but the quiet impact of the rules that decide who wins power. The First Past the...

Posted 14 Oct 2025

The danger of choosing a voting system that works for you today

We all have a party we lean toward. Maybe we’ve stuck with them for decades, maybe our loyalties shift with the times. But when it comes to how we elect our parliament, our choices shouldn’t...

Posted 08 Oct 2025

Distorting mirror of first past the post

First Past the Post could catapult Reform UK into government

A new YouGov MRP poll, published on 26 September 2025, provides another snapshot of the chaotic democratic outcomes being caused by First Past The Post (FPTP) in our era of multi-party politics. Although only a...

Posted 02 Oct 2025

Small changes in support result in wildly different outcomes

How many votes did Labour get in 2024?

On election night in 2024, the headlines celebrated a Labour landslide. Crowds cheered, pundits predicted a bold new direction, and the idea of a strong majority government dominated the conversation. But as the confetti settled,...

Posted 25 Sep 2025

Labour won a commanding majority, even though two-thirds did not vote for the party

Councillors keep winning with less than a third of the vote – what can England and Wales learn from Scotland?

Each week, usually on a Thursday, a number of local council by-elections take place around Britain. As with UK parliamentary by-elections, these take place when a representative either resigns or dies and there is a...

Posted 23 Sep 2025