The Guardian view on environmental politics: make votes for green politicians count
The announcement by the home secretary, Priti Patel, that, after this year, mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections will be converted to first past the post sent chills down the spines of all progressive electoral reformers. For decades, campaigners have plugged away in the hope of getting rid of the winner-takes-all system that dominates UK politics, and replacing it with something more proportional. The UK’s exit from the EU was, among many other things, a blow to this agenda. Because elections to the European parliament were proportional, and EU membership connected the UK to other more proportional systems, the EU elections were a gateway through which it was hoped that more support for change would flow.
This was the gateway through which Britain’s lone Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, entered the arena of national politics. Ms Lucas sat in the European parliament before her victory in Brighton Pavilion in 2010 took her into parliament. So it is unsurprising that Green supporters are among those most dismayed by the government’s plan to put the squeeze on small parties – if not freeze them out altogether. The system of ranked preferences currently used in mayoral races is a means for voters to register support for candidates and parties, even if they are unlikely to win. Now, ministers want to revert from this modest degree of pluralism to duopoly (three-way contests are rare exceptions to the two-horse races which are first past the post’s speciality).
With the Conservatives in power in what is a crunch year for global climate politics, and the stakes for upcoming UN climate talks enormously high, huge efforts by the wider green movement are rightly focused on influencing the government’s approach. Despite the net zero target of 2050 voted
into law under Theresa May, ministers show an alarming lack of urgency. This week a committee of MPs described the administration of a green homes scheme launched last year as “disastrous”.
Labour has its own green plans, with major investment in renewable energy among the wisest promises in its 2019 manifesto. Its “green industrial revolution” slogan has been appropriated by the prime minister, but in a speech on Thursday, Labour’s shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, promised that his party would be far more ambitious. To meet a target of ending sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030, he said, a Labour government would fund a million interest-free loans for the purchase of electric cars, and part-finance three more “gigafactories” to build batteries.
But it would be a mistake to imagine that, when it comes to the environment, the two biggest parties have now “got it covered”. On the London assembly, and on councils across England where they have joined coalitions, elected Greens have helped to keep the climate emergency at the forefront of policymakers’ minds. Examples include
Carla Denyer, the Bristol Green party councillor who was behind the first climate emergency declaration; and the opposition to the planned Silvertown road tunnel under the Thames from London’s elected Greens.
Nor are green policies the only ones that risk being marginalised, if first past the post reasserts itself. While the system suits nationalist parties well enough, since their votes are geographically concentrated, the Liberal Democrats and other small parties stand to be squeezed out if the opportunity to compete for mayoralties is effectively removed. Like the Tory promise to introduce voter ID, this move against proportionality seems regressive and anti-democratic. It ought to be resisted strongly.