EXCLUSIVE: Only Richmond and Kensington and Chelsea would be under control by one party if a directly proportional voting system was used
A striking map shows 30 out of London’s 32 boroughs would be under no overall party control if a proportional system was used. The Labour Party took a hammering across London last week, losing 450 seats and losing control of 12 councils.
Their loss was the Green Party’s gain, which took control in Hackney, Lewisham and Waltham Forest, while Reform won its first London council in Havering. An exclusive MyLondon map shows how differently the results would have looked if they fielded a truly proportional result – meaning the exact percentage of votes won correlates directly with the seats handed to each party.
In both general and local council elections Britain uses the ‘first-past-the-post’ voting system. Locally, this means residents cast between one and three votes to choose their ward councillors, depending how many represent that ward. Once the votes are added up in each ward, the top candidates are elected and the party with the most seats forms the council administration.
This is a simple system that traditionally forms strong, one-party results, but is frequently criticised for not reflecting the wishes of local people. For example, Labour won 29.7 per cent of votes in Ealing last week but won 66 per cent of the seats. Essentially, 70 per cent of people did not vote for the party which won a strong majority in Ealing Council.
Under a map of how the same results would look under the ‘party list’ electoral system, only the Conservatives would have control of Kensington and Chelsea, and the Liberal Democrats of Richmond. All other boroughs would not have a majority-governing party.
The current London council layout shows 24 out 32 boroughs under control of one governing party.
Take a look at the interactive map here
Despite this technically fielding a more ‘democratic’ result, Dr Tony Travers CBE, professor at the London School of Economics, said an increase in minority-governed councils would create a series of short-term challenges.
“In politics at both a national and local level people are very used to majority administrations,” he said. “So one party wins, they get a majority and then that leader becomes the council leader or Prime Minister.
“The challenge in local councils would be getting used to councils being under no majority control, and generally it would make it harder to create consistent administrations which could govern with certainty over four years. But councils might learn over time to function this way.”
The most proportional system used in Britain to date was during European Parliament elections pre-Brexit where voters in each region of the UK voted directly for their party of choice. Each party had submitted a list of candidates prior to the election (such as Nigel Farage being top for the Brexit Party in 2019 for the South East), with the proportion of votes correlating exactly with the amount of seats handed to each party.
Dr Travers said this system could create difficulties in local elections because it takes away hyperlocal representation. Instead the system used in Greater London Authority elections, where one vote is used for ward representatives, and another city-wide vote for members off a party list, could be a better compromise.
“List systems would be so alien to Britain, if you have 60 councillors all elected off five party lists with no neighbourhood link,” he continued.
“Especially in a borough that has very different parts to itself, such as Westminster which has a strongly Labour-dominated north and an equally Conservative-dominated south – so the needs of a particular neighbourhood such as Brixton or Hampstead do need a voice.
“So a system that combines the idea of both proportionality and local representation would work best – potentially half elected from ward elections and the other half from party lists. If there was just a party list, candidates would mostly be nice to the person deciding the order, whereas at ward level in the average borough there is a micro contest of 15 people looking to get three council seats.”
Commenting on the new fragmented nature of London’s local politics, even under first-past-the-post, Dr Travers believes these areas newly under no overall control will become increasingly difficult to govern.
“I don’t think many of them are going to form formal coalitions, so you’re going to get minority administrations which have to go along vote to vote,” he continued. “Getting a budget together, horse trading with other parties. If you look at the councils with stronger majorities such as Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham, they are capable of making decisions fairly effectively on their own without needing to create a coalition on every issue.
“For minority councils it’s almost impossible to set out a long term vision.”
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