Islington Green Party have called on the two sitting Islington Labour MPs and the Labour Council to publicly support calls to implement fairer and proportional electoral systems in local, general and mayoral elections. After the passing of the controversial Elections Bill in April by the Conservative government Greens have raised concerns about the democratic regression occurring in the UK – with one example being the Mayoral elections becoming less representative now that Tory MPs have voted to remove Londoners’ second preference votes.
Benali Hamdache, Green Party councillor for Highbury ward who is moving the motion said,
“You only have to look at Westminster to see how broken our politics are. Instead of becoming more democratic and representative, we are sliding backwards in England, in London especially. We’re calling on Islington Labour to be brave and take a lead.” He added “safe seats for lazy unaccountable politicians should be a thing of the past but under this Tory government they are safer than ever, this has to change”.
With a majority of Labour local parties and opposition parties supporting electoral reform it is no surprise that the Greens are hoping for public support from Islington’s Labour council and MPs. “Supporting the push for electoral reform should be the natural position for any opposition parties in power on a national or local level,” Hamdache argued, “Proportional representation would accurately reflect voters wishes and allow parties to work together on progressive agendas, as we see across Europe and the World”.
As it stands currently in the UK, governments are typically elected on a minority of votes nationally. However, Northern Ireland uses Single Transferable Vote (STV) in all its elections, barring generals, and Wales and Scotland use a mixture of STV and AMS (Additional Member System). While the London Assembly uses a mixed system that is partly proportional, England lags behind in terms of adopting fairer and more representative voting systems.
Caroline Russell, Green councillor and London Assembly Member who has been selected to stand in Islington North at the next general election, pointed out “We are simply asking our fellow councillors and Islington’s MPs to stand up and support electoral reform to bring England in line with the rest of the UK. This is something Labour members are behind! Distrust and disillusionment with politics are at an all time high, Islington Labour need to show they are prepared to work with other parties on this. Reform the system and let people vote for whichever party they like best knowing their vote will count rather than leave people to game the system with, tactical voting.”