Chief Executive of Radix UK since 2019, Ben is a political strategist, writer and broadcaster. In 2021, he led the merger between Radix think tank and the Big Tent Ideas Festival and he continues to take overall responsibility for Radix Big Tent’s growing programme to promote system renewal.
Former Chief of Staff and Campaign Director for then Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron MP, Ben was also previously Chief Executive of the Movement for Reform Judaism and prior to that a Partner at City Public Relations firm, Luther Pendragon.
The end of democracy?
I was determined not to write about the Gorton and Denton by-election this morning because everyone else is and so, finding something new to say, seemed a challenge. Nevertheless, so much of the commentary glibly asserts the result is “seismic”, without really understanding why, that there are still some useful thoughts to add. So here goes:
All the parties now have a pretty good grasp of the campaigning tactics pioneered by the once great Lib Dem by-election machine, for which I worked in the 1990s: flood the zone with resources; use posters and numerous pieces of paper to establish yourself as the insurgent challenger; close the deal in the final days with an ‘us’ or ‘them’ message; and get more of your voters to the polls than theirs. It’s not rocket science but for much of the past two decades the other parties’ by-election efforts displayed all the subtlety of talking parrots – copying some of the tactics without the slightest understanding of what they were about.
Now, the Greens, together with Reform, the SNP and occasionally Labour have worked it out, which means that for voters looking to kick a government, they can pick and choose the most likely challenger and almost guarantee success, rather than have to rely on the Lib Dems as the sole party of protest.
This has massive implications for the next general election.
Still operating under first-past-the-post, the constituency by constituency battle that led in 2024 to Labour and Lib Dems together winning 76% of the seats with a combined share of just 46% of the vote, will take on quite a different shape.
These two parties achieved this by turning pretty much every seat - at least in England - into a two horse race, between whichever of the two parties established itself as the competitor and the discredited Conservatives.
What Gorton and Denton shows is that there are now at least five or six parties capable of this and, in 2028/29, the vast majority of the 632 races in mainland Britain will become two horses with the Labour and (to a lesser extent) the Conservative incumbent versus the Reform, Green, Lib Dem or Nationalist challenger.
The outcome of this fragmentation will be an even further breakdown of the relationship between vote share and seats won. Even now MRP polling models that show the Lib Dems finishing fifth in terms of vote share, but ending the night as the official Opposition are not uncommon.
Meanwhile, Reform and Green might also learn the trick of concentrating their votes where they can win. In such circumstances, the outcome of the election will become a complete lottery, while the polarisation of voting behaviours by constituency and community may lead many voters to dis-believe the outcome: “everyone I know voted Reform so it must have been fixed.”
It is particularly disturbing to see Reform UK, far from bigging up their own very credible performance in pushing Labour into third place, calling out “cheating” (sic), even if they still slightly lack Trump’s brass neck about it.
An election in which the votes cast become wholly disconnected from the outcome, where the integrity of the election comes into question and where accusations of cheating have a ring of truth for the electorate, could well undermine our whole democracy.
Of course, this outcome is not inevitable. With the Representation of the People Bill now in Parliament, the Government has the perfect opportunity to put in place a more robust voting system - a proportional system - which would not be subject to the vagaries of first-past-the-post, designed for a time that Gorton and Denton shows is now well past.
Will they take this opportunity? Will they hell and that could be the beginning of end for our democracy (and of course the Labour Party, just in case decision-makers care more about that).
Ben Rich is Chief Executive of Radix Big Tent. His explainer of what happens in by-elections produced for Radix Big Tent’s youth wing Politika can be viewed here.
Rate this post
Leave a comment
Please login or register to leave a comment on this post.
