Dear John,

On Tuesday, Lib Dem APPG for Fair Elections member, Sarah Olney MP, made a phenomenal speech in Parliament. She spoke about the loss of trust in politics and the dire need for fairer, more proportional elections. You can watch it below.

Olney introduced a Ten Minute Rule motion calling for the introduction of a private members’ bill to ditch First-Past-The-Post and move to PR. And, for the first time ever, Parliament voted in favour. The voting record showed that Olney had cross-party support from 138 MPs, including 59 Labour MPs.

It’s the clearest signal yet of a quiet revolution against FPTP in Westminster. This is likely the most pro-PR parliament we’ve ever had. As the APPG for Fair Elections has found, Parliament is slowly catching up with public opinion – most people in the UKhttps://www.fairelections.uk/free-but-not-fair/now want a fairer voting system ([link removed]) , and want it before the next General Election.
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But, politics being politics, there’s still much more to be done. In theory, Sarah Olney’s bill now moves to Second Reading. But that would require the government to grant it time on the floor of the house and Starmer has indicated that he will not do that.

When Lib-Dem leader, Ed Davey, asked Starmer about the bill at Prime Minister’s Questions, Starmer replied simply that his Government “won’t be making time for it.” There’s no doubt that he could if he wanted to but it seems the bill will instead be consigned to sit in limbo.

Ultimately, Starmer’s rebuff of this bill doesn’t really change anything. These Ten-Minute Rule bills are great for drawing attention to issues of importance - something Olney has done brilliantly with this - but they are not the way to change the law, especially not on an issue as significant as the voting system.

Yes, Starmer’s hesitation and lack of a plan for restoring trust in politics is disappointing. But we’ve got our own plan. And we’re building an unprecedented coalition in Parliament that’s standing firm behind a simple demand: establish a National Commission for Electoral Reform.

Doing so would allow Starmer to get on with his policy programme while a representative group of ordinary people, informed by experts, identify a fairer and more functional electoral system. The APPG for Fair Elections is now one of the largest issue-groups in Parliament, and it’s slowly-but-surely ratcheting up the pressure on Starmer to make this Commission a reality.

As we move into the new year, it will be for those of us who are outside Parliament to start ratcheting-up our own pressure on Starmer.

Events in Parliament this week prove that the growing demands to fix politics aren’t going away.

The Prime Minister himself has declared that “the fight for trust is the battle that defines our age”, and his party has rightly accepted that flaws in First-Past-the-Post are driving distrust and alienation.

If the Prime Minister wants to win that battle, he should start listening to the growing number of MPs - and the majority of the public - who want real change now. He should establish the National Commission for Electoral Reform and let them get on with finding a decent alternative to our current dysfunctional voting system.

All the best,

Mark Kieran

CEO, Open Britain
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