Vote Reform UK... if you want our politics to be more European (and Starmer in No.10)

DO YOU want politics — and elections — in this country to become more European? Then you really should consider voting for the Reform UK party in the forthcoming general election.

Its leader, an amiable multi-millionaire property developer called Richard Tice, claims that the ‘real reason why politics is broken in this country’ is our first-pastthe-post electoral system.

According to Tice, who bears a disconcerting resemblance to the Mattel toy known as Ken: ‘ First- past- the post is outdated. It’s much more divisive. It’s completely discredited. Proportional representation is used across the whole of Europe, with the exception of Belarus.’

But how could a vote for Reform UK produce such a change in our ancient system, given that even Mr Tice must recognise that it has next to no chance of winning a single seat at the next election?

Well, this former Conservative party donor’s main idea is to ensure maximum damage . . . to the Conservatives: ‘They have broken Britain and they have to be punished.’

And Labour is definitely up for changing our electoral system, should they get the chance to form a government.

Pact

But Labour’s ideas in this field extend to ways that potential Reform Party voters, or Mr Tice, might not find so attractive.

The Shadow Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said last year that Labour was considering plans to expand the UK electorate by introducing votes for EU nationals and for 16 to 17-year-olds.

A move to proportional representation (PR) would be much more likely if the result of the general election were a hung parliament, with some sort of pact between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

yesterday, in the left-of-centre Observer, Andrew Rawnsley, their chief political commentator, noted the ‘amiable relationship’ between Starmer and Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem Leader: ‘Both have kept the door open for a post- election deal.’ He rejoiced that a consequent change in the electoral laws to a system of PR ‘would make it impossible to impose a Right-wing agenda when most of the country didn’t want one’.

Another way of putting it is that had such a system been in place in 1979, Margaret Thatcher would never have got the opportunity to reform the country in the way she did.

For in that election, which propelled her into office, the Lib Dems and Labour combined actually polled over two million more votes than did the Tories.

Tice claims to want a radical reforming government and insists that Rishi Sunak has betrayed Conservatism by not being tough enough over immigration.

But a few minutes’ study of what PR has meant in Europe (whose systems Tice extols as superior) reveals that it results in political emulsification, under which various parties form a sort of mushy coalition compromise across the centre ground.

Last week, the Telegraph published the results of a poll by YouGov covering almost 15,000 voters across every constituency. This, said the paper, showed ‘the huge influence that Reform UK is set to have on the general election result.

‘While the Right-wing party would not win any seats,’ it continued, ‘support for it would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses — the difference between a Labour majority and a hung parliament.’

YouGov argued that the Telegraph’s calculation seemed to assume — wrongly — that all those indicating a preference for Reform would otherwise vote for the Conservatives.

But what is certainly true is that any disillusioned Conservative voters who are considering Reform might usefully look at where this party’s policies align, or not, with those of Labour and the Tories.

For example, Reform, in its manifesto issued last October, called for the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 on the grounds it was terrible value for public money. Rishi Sunak duly did just that, to furious criticism from Labour.

Reform calls for asylum claims to be ‘processed offshore’ — essentially a version of the Rwanda plan which Labour opposes.

And Reform’s manifesto declares that we should be ‘using our own energy treasures’ — such as oil and natural gas — ‘creating wealth and jobs to remain here in the UK, not disappear overseas’.

Sense

Well, that is precisely what Sunak has legislated for, with new North Sea oil and gas licensing rounds, while Starmer insists Labour wants the fastest possible end to new indigenous oil and gas production.

Meanwhile, Labour has declared it wants to harmonise more with the EU, should it form the next government.

At the Global Progress Action Summit in Canada last year, Starmer said that most of the ‘conflict’ between Britain and Europe comes from the UK trying to ‘do different things to the rest of our EU partners’. He added: ‘We don’t want to diverge.’

There are, in fact, no policy areas in which Reform agrees with Labour.

And yet, because of Mr Tice’s ambition to adopt an electoral system ‘used across the whole of Europe’, it apparently makes sense for this successor to the Brexit party to facilitate the victory of a Labour government which would seek closer alignment with the EU across the board.

So if you want all that, and you like the cut of Mr Tice’s jib, vote Reform!