The mid-term elections show that the two-party system has been smashed. I think it is not coming back. Multi-party politics is here to stay; we have five parties in England and six each in Scotland and Wales, with the nationalists now on the march in both.
This change is seismic. At the 1951 general election, Labour and the Conservatives won 97 per cent of the votes between them. A gradual decline was masked in 2017 when the two big parties shared 82 per cent. By the 2024 election, their share had dropped to 58 per cent.
Thursday’s local elections suggest combined support for Labour and the Tories is now down to the mid-30s. Although many party figures will be tempted to dismiss this as a blip, that would be foolish.
Significantly, the traditional main parties are both unpopular at the same time. See-saw politics, in which one is up when the other is down, is over. Reform UK is ahead, while Labour and the Tories must compete with the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. The “big two” parties are no longer big.
The implications are profound. Our archaic first-past-the post (FPTP) voting system no longer serves Labour and the Tories well. They can no longer rely on pendulum politics for the comfort that their turn would come again – eventually. The two parties that lived by the sword are now dying by it.
It’s too simple to conclude that the new political landscape means the next general election will be a battle between a right-wing bloc (Reform and the Tories) and a left-of-centre one (Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems). One lesson from the local elections in England is that the absence of significant anti-Reform tactical voting meant the Greens split the left vote, allowing Nigel Farage’s party or the Conservatives to make gains. In 2024, Labour reaped the benefit of a split on the right between the Tories and Reform. Now the boot is on the other foot.
True, people might be more inclined to vote tactically when choosing a prime minister – especially when it might be Farage. But there can be no guarantees.
In 2024, FPTP allowed Labour to win two-thirds of the seats with a third of the votes – the lowest share of any party forming a post-war government. Labour benefited from a “get the Tories out” feeling, but next time Labour could be on the receiving end. Indeed, Farage’s slogan at these elections was “Get Starmer out”.
Today, the judgement some voters make is “Who do I hate most?” rather than a positive endorsement. In 2024, the Tories were hated. Today, it is Labour. As one Labour insider told me: “The consistent thread from Thursday’s elections is that not everyone wants to vote for far-right Farage, but they do want to punish Labour.”
Sadly, this trend has been fuelled by social media that encourages personal attacks. I think this partly explains why some voters “hate” Starmer, a decent person doing his best even though he has proved ineffective as prime minister.
Everyone inside Labour knows that Starmer will not lead his party into the next general election. Labour will hope the toxicity is about him, rather than the party brand, but it won’t be easy to recover unless a new prime minister can do a much better job than Starmer and deliver “change” that voters can actually feel.
The traditional argument for a “one person takes all” voting system – which is also used in Europe, but only by France (over two rounds) and Belarus – was that it delivered stability. We have hardly had stable governments in the 10 years since the Brexit referendum and Thursday’s results suggest the next general election will be unpredictable and chaotic. There will be no safe seats and many MPs will be elected on a small share of the vote.
In five or six-party politics, it will be very difficult for any party to win an overall majority, leading to post-election horse-trading between the parties on a coalition, or pacts for key Commons votes. Yes, that would happen under a proportional system, but at least the parties’ respective strengths would fairly represent what people had voted for.
These mid-term results point to Reform UK being the largest party in a hung parliament. The Tories and Reform will spend the next three years denying any pre- or post-election deals. Then, if Thursday’s results are repeated, they would likely do a deal after the election to put Farage in Downing Street and keep Labour out.
Farage used to bang on about the need for proportional representation, but – surprise, surprise – he seems to have cooled on it now that first-past-the-post offers him a chance of becoming PM. He was right first time: the mid-term elections prove that first-past-the-post is no longer fit for purpose. Britain needs electoral reform, not Reform UK. It’s time for fair votes and proportional representation.
