Electoral Reform in Wales? Same old Labour hegemony

Politicians of all hues have been much exercised over the last few days with the vexed issue of electoral reform. The Lib Dems favour replacing our system of election on the basis of plurality (the candidate with most votes in a constituency wins) with a more proportional system.

On May 6th, our first-past-the-post system yielded the following share of seats in Wales:

British National Party 0

Conservatives 8

Labour 26

Liberal Democrats 3

Plaid Cymru 3

UKIP 0

If we adopted the fully proportional system used in European elections with one 40 seat constituency for Wales, the result would have been dramatically different:

British National Party 1 (+1)

Conservatives 10 (+2)

Labour 14 (-12)

Liberal Democrats 9 (+6)

Plaid Cymru 5 (+2)

UKIP 1 (+1)

This is based the fairly unlikely assumptions that voters would vote in the same way with PR as they did with FPTP. However, the smaller fringe parties would possibly achieve more seats under PR. Neither the BNP nor the Green Party, for example, fought every seat in Wales. Furthermore, a good deal of tactical voting was evident in some parliamentary seats and supporters of parties expected to achieve healthy majorities may have stayed at home.

Nevertheless, this exercise gives a good indication of the major changes in our representation in Westminster under a fully proportion system.

Both Labour and Conservative leaders have thrown a third option into the ring, that of the Alternative Vote. Again, assuming that voters would act in the same way under AV as under FPTP would be unwise but, ceteris paribus, my predictions for the May 6th election would be as follows:

Aberavon LAB (1st round, 52%)

Aberconwy CON (4th round)

Alyn & Deeside LAB (3rd round)

Arfon LAB (3rd round)

Blaenau Gwent LAB (1st round, 52%)

Brecon & Radnorshire LD (2nd round)

Bridgend LAB (3rd round)

Caerphilly LAB (3rd round)

Cardiff Central LD (3rd round)

Cardiff North LAB (2nd round)

Cardiff South & Penarth LAB (3rd round)

Cardiff West LAB (3rd round)

Carmarthen East & Dinefwr PC (3rd round)

Carmarthen W & Pembs S CON (4th round)

Ceredigion LD (1st round, 50%)

Clwyd South LAB (3rd round)

Clwyd West CON (3rd round)

Cynon Valley LAB (1st round, 52%)

Delyn LAB (2nd round)

Dwyfor Meirionydd PC (3rd round)

Gower LAB (3rd round)

Islwyn LAB (2nd round)

Llanelli LAB (2nd round)

Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney LAB (2nd round)

Monmouth CON (2nd round)

Mongomeryshire CON (2nd round)

Neath LAB (2nd round)

Newport East LD (2nd round)

Newport West LAB (2nd round)

Ogmore LAB (1st round, 54%)

Pontypridd LAB (2nd round)

Preseli Pembrokeshire CON (2nd round)

Rhondda LAB (1st round, 55%)

Swansea East LAB (1st round, 51%)

Swansea West LD (2nd round)

Torfaen LAB (2nd round)

Vale of Clwyd LAB (2nd round)

Vale of Glamorgan CON (2nd round)

Wrexham LAB (3rd round)

Ynys Môn PC (3rd round)

After a hugely complicated exercise for voters and counters, therefore, the net result would be barely different from May 6th:

British National Party 0

Conservatives 7 (-1)

Labour 25 (-1)

Liberal Democrats 5 (+2)

Plaid Cymru 3

UKIP 0

In other words, AV would be only slightly more proportional than FPTP. The voters of 5 constituencies would have woken up on Friday morning to find themselves represented by MPs of different parties but Labour would still be massively over-represented at the expense of every other party.