By Ann Higgins
Just as I do every time I write one of these pieces, I’ve been reading through the last one. What a difference a few weeks make. Bye bye Tories, hello grown-ups – or at least that is how it seems to a lot of people. Of course we know that our new PM Keir Starmer has made it clear that we won’t be rejoining the EU any time soon (“in his lifetime” was the phrase he used) but already there are welcome signs that our relationship with the EU will be closer and warmer. Our new PM has ruled out leaving the ECHR, our new Foreign Secretary David Lammy has made a whistle-stop tour of Germany, Sweden and Poland and this week the UK hosts a meeting of the European Political Community (am I the only one never to have heard of them before?) which is a relatively new group founded in 2022, comprising 47 European states plus the EU. More details here.
Meanwhile, our new business minister and self-confessed George V lookalike Jonathan Reynolds has been attending the G7 meeting in Italy with the express goal of fostering a “closer, more mature relationship with our friends in the EU”. Let’s hope he succeeds!
But going back just a couple of weeks or so to 4 July, hands up who stayed up all night for the results? That many? Impressive. Though I was relieved to see the remarkably accurate Ipsos exit poll, dare I say that it rather detracted from the excitement of the results being announced? That said, there were several rather satisfactory “Portillo” moments, especially Liz Truss being slow hand-clapped for being late for the declaration of the vote she had lost, and Jacob Rees-Mogg having to hear his loss announced while standing next to the Monster Raving Looney Party candidate wearing a baked bean balaclava. And, given the difference between the percentage of votes gained by Labour against the overwhelming percentage of seats it won (34% v 64%) not surprisingly the issue of proportional representation was soon being raised, though not necessarily by its most likely advocates. Who would have expected that Nigel Farage would suddenly become a leading proponent of electoral reform? Though having previously failed seven times to win a seat at Westminster in contrast to his successes in EU elections which of course use the PR system it’s perhaps no wonder he likes it. For once the LibDems were not banging that particular drum so hard, having spectacularly over-achieved by taking 74 seats with the same percentage of the vote that in 2019 brought them only 11 seats, including 2 in Cornwall: St Ives going to Andrew George, who previously held the seat from 1997-2015, and North Cornwall to Ben Maguire. The other Cornish seats all went to Labour: Perran Moon (Camborne & Redruth), Jayne Kirkham (Truro & Falmouth), Noah Law (St Austell & Newquay) and Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall). I’m sure that we wish them all good luck and look forward to seeing how they promote our interests in Westminster, particularly our relationship with the EU.
So how does our new Parliament elected by FPTP compare to a hypothetical one elected with the same division of votes under the additional member system (AMS) of PR such as is used in Scotland and Wales? Fortunately the Electoral Reform Society has done the maths and produced a projection which is more representative of how the votes were actually cast. It has to be remembered, however, that were a system of PR in place, voters might cast their votes very differently. It might also improve turnout as more people might feel that their vote mattered.
And now to what we were all waiting for – the King’s speech in which 40-odd bills were announced. Thankfully the Guardian has listed them in categories so I don’t have to. They should make for an interesting Parliamentary session.
