Andy Burnham has raised the issue of reform of an electoral system that manufactures a parliamentary majority for a party winning only a minority of the vote. More than that, he told the recent Labour Party conference that the next Labour manifesto will include a pledge to set up a National Commission on Electoral Reform.
Burnham justified his reform was needed so that "everyone's vote counts and everyone's voice is heard". The 2024 election did the opposite. Two-thirds of voters have their voice muffled because they voted for parties that sit on the Opposition benches, while one-third have their voice heard in Downing Street. Labour gained 63 percent of seats in Parliament while winning 34 percent of the popular vote.
A month ago the pragmatic justification for Burnham making electoral reform an issue was that it offered a Labour Party short of a parliamentary majority its best chance of remaining in government. It could be a key part of a pact with the pro-electoral reform Liberal Democrats to gain its support for maintaining Labour's hold on Downing Street.
Given the variety of different types of electoral systems, the Commission could well split and fail to produce a consensus recommendation about the particular type of electoral reform that should be adopted. Even if there was agreement between Burnham and Liberal Democrats about reform, there is no assurance that MPs would give a majority vote to a new system that would abolish their constituencies and the method of voting that gave them their seats in the House of Commons.
The approval of a new electoral system half-way through the next parliament would still require a similar amount of time for another Commission to draw up new boundaries for constituencies, for parties to endorse candidates for multi-member constituencies and for the mass of the electorate to be educated in how to mark a new-style ballot so it could be counted rather than disqualified. The process of deciding what type of reform should be adopted and then implemented would give Andy Burnham up to five more years as prime minister before an election could be held by new rules.
The latest Electoral Calculus prediction spoils the pragmatic case for a slow but straightforward path to electoral reform. On the one hand, it shows that Labour has a good chance of setting a new record in maximizing the unfairness of the first-past-the-post electoral system. Its vote is more than 5pc down from the last election. However, thanks to the division of right-wing parties, with 27pc of the vote Labour is predicted to win more than double that proportion of seats in a House of Commons elected by first-past-the-post rules.
As prime minister of a government with a majority of more than 200 seats over the official Opposition, there would be no need for Labour to make a pact on electoral reform to hold on to power. Even if Andy Burnham were prepared to introduce electoral reform, he would face strong resistance to doing so within his party. While MPs and trade unions might accept reform as a price to pay for controlling government, this argument is negated if Labour wins a parliamentary majority.
In short, if a Burnham bounce gave Labour a parliamentary majority with a record low share of the popular vote, the prime minister would face a simple choice: whether to stick by his principled commitment to electoral reform or make a pragmatic U-turn and stick with an electoral system that gave him power.
Professor Richard Rose of the University of Strathclyde is Britain's senior psephologist. His new book, The Disruption of the British Party System, is published in paperback by Manchester University Press.