All unionist parties: 56 seats
Greens: 15 seats
This hadn't occurred to me until I saw someone mention it on Twitter this morning, but from a psychological point of view it's absolutely vital. Now, to be clear, I never thought the target of a single-party overall majority should have been set, I spoke out against it vociferously at the time, and I voted against it as a delegate at the SNP conference in Aberdeen. In a proportional representation system, it shouldn't matter a damn whether you achieve the near-impossible feat of a majority. But if unionists try to take advantage of the fact that the target was set, it's a massive problem for them that their combined forces in parliament are clearly outnumbered by the SNP as a single party. The only way they can arithmetically claim that the SNP have been denied a mandate for an independence referendum is by actually counting the Greens on the unionist side, which is the sort of logical gymnastics that even our biased media would be likely to find too much of a stretch. The Green manifesto, even though Andrew Neil apparently didn't bother checking it, baldly stated that "Scotland should be an independent country" and called for an independence referendum.
I also have very little time for unionist commentators (or for those who are, let me politely put it, adjacent to unionist commentators) who are trying to retrospectively claim that vote shares are more important than seats. I'm no great enthusiast for the Additional Member System - I've called for years for a switch to a pure list system as has just happened in Wales, and failing that STV would probably be my second choice (although STV is actually a lot, lot less proportional than people assume). But given that Westminster introduced our current voting system in the first place, the cheerleaders for Westminster rule really don't have a leg to stand on in saying that the result the system produced should not be respected. Let me remind them of the way they reacted with incredulity two years ago when I pointed out, entirely accurately, that the SNP's result in the UK general election was nowhere near as bad as was being portrayed, because for every 7 votes Labour had received, the SNP had received 6. "The system is the system!" they spluttered with entitled rage. "You're in denial about a total wipeout for the SNP across the central belt!"
If unionists now want to claim the electoral system is a problem, get back to us when you're ready to introduce a voting system at Westminster that would have given the SNP their rightful six-sevenths of Labour's seats at the 2024 general election.
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My first choice for a new voting system would be STV. I'm not a fan of the pure list system in Wales, which might be more proportional, but it still puts far too much power into the hands of the parties, whereas STV allows the voters to choose to elect the candidates that they want.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't have to be a binary choice - there are open list systems that give voters a choice of candidates (unfortunately Wales chose a closed list system).
DeleteSTV is crooked. We cant get rid of corrupt incompetent Councils in Scotland because of it. It was shoved down our throats by Yoons to try and destroy the SNP and keep them out of local govt as much as possible. That has been successful for the most part especially when combined by Council Boundaries gerrymandered by the Tories when they wanted rid of the Labour controlled/dominated Regional Councils.
DeleteIn my view the new system in Wales robbed Plaid of an overall majority with the collapse of the Labour vote. Sleekit Yoons.
You make a fair point but the SNP lost seats that they should have never lost. I blame Sturgeon for that. They lost other seats due to slick sleekit gerrymandering. They failed to take others again due to gerrymandering and poor candidate selections in my view.
DeleteOn the brightside the influx of Dirty Foreign Money into Yoon Party's couldn't stop a badly damaged and wounded SNP winning election empathically. Nor did the totally owned Foreign Press stop that SNP Victory or a clear Indy majority.
I have noted an increased shrillness and venom in the Yoon Controlled Press and Media towards SNP and Greens. The English Brainwashing Corp is even more toxic now and i didn't thin that was possible.
The SNP campaign in my view was also dreadful. What the could have achieved if it had been competent and the SNP leadership had grown a pair of baws.
Two things seem pretty obvious about the current electoral system used to elect MSPs to Holyrood.
Delete1) The FPTP part of the system favours the SNP because the vast majority of the Independence supporters have voted SNP and disfavours the unionist factions because their votes are split among 3, now 4 and possible soon 5 unionist parties.
2) Party apparatchiks will always push for a system which gives them MORE control and leaves less to the random chance of mere voter preference.
Combining 1) and 2) it is obvious that
a) Unionist party apparatchiks will tend to want to remove FPTP which is not favouring them.
b) Unionist party apparatchiks will tend to want to bend any new system towards favouring their particular interests.
The corollary of this is that WE should be vociferous in resisting a) and determined to call out the inevitable underhanded pressure towards b)
Before becoming EU President, Ursula von der Leyen was a pet beautician at Woofy Hoofs in Forfar.
ReplyDelete