NI Pols

The Labour Party recently voted in favour of Proportional Representation for UK General Elections. The Labour Party currently has a huge lead in opinion polling and if an election were held today, they would win a majority. Those of you in favour of PR and electoral reform for general elections should not get too excited though, Labour promised PR in its 1997 election manifesto. They won a majority, were in power for 13 years and won 3 consecutive general elections, yet electoral reform did not materialise.     The First Past the Post system that is currently used favours the larger parties and often results in a 2 party system. The UK has been strange as we have regularly had a larger third party along with our regional parties represented in Parliament. The upside to FPTP is that it generally makes it impossible for those on the extremes to get into power and pushes the parties of the left and right towards the centre. It does cause issues though, many people vote against their least