The suffragettes’ mission is not over

EVENTS will be held across Britain next week to mark the 100th anniversary of the first women winning the right to vote in parliamentary elections in the UK.

It now seems extraordinary that so many people – including men who did not qualify for a vote – were denied this critical aspect of citizenship for centuries.

Commemorations of the sacrifices and commitment of suffragettes will run alongside celebrations of the progress that has been made in the past century. Gender discrimination continues to blight our world but its different forms are increasingly recognised as a moral obscenity that weakens the nations in which it is tolerated.

The campaigners of the 19th and early 20th century would feel vindicated if they could visit our era and see the host of respected female leaders now in power in countries such as Germany and New Zealand.

But when they look at how democracy works in the UK they might tell today’s politicians to put down the champagne glasses and get into the debating chamber to press for change.

Aberavon Labour MP Stephen Kinnock and Arfon Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams are among those who believe the task of electoral reform is far from finished. They want to see the first-past-thepost system used to elect MPs consigned to the dustbin of history and replaced with proportional representation.

Mr Kinnock argues that the voting system has a direct result on the policies governments pursue and that first past the post is bad for regions beyond England’s “swing seats”.

He points to Germany as an example of a country that uses PR and has a federal system of government, and argues that this is a key reason why it has enjoyed much greater success than the UK at maintaining its manufacturing base and spreading prosperity through poorer regions.

Mr Kinnock says this as the MP for a constituency that has been rocked in recent years by the uncertainty surrounding the future of Britain’s steel industry. He is right that this is an issue which should matter to people who are not part of the political anorak brigade.

By instinct, governments will focus their attention on voters in the seats that will decide the results of elections. In both the United States – where there is the added problem of gerrymandering – and the UK, the lack of competitive seats is considered a major democratic problem.

Some will argue that the best way forward is not to switch to PR, which can make coalitions more likely, but to ensure that all of Britain’s constituencies have roughly the same population. The UK government’s proposals for reform along these lines would result in the number of Welsh seats going down from 40 to 29.

In Wales, an expert panel last year called for a larger Assembly elected by PR with a gender quota; local government is also seen as ripe for reform. Great, important and urgent debates await. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%