Tory and Labour party problems starting to damage democracy

Wealden Libdems Parliamentary Spokesperson Chris Bowers draws attention to an article in the Independent by Labour MP Chuka Umunna.

In the article Mr Umunna talks about progressive alliance arrangements, saying

"Last week a number of my parliamentary colleagues, including Jon Cruddas, Clive Lewis and Ruth Lister, wrote an open letter to the party calling for the three members to be reinstated and for progressive alliance arrangements of this sort to be allowed to stop the Tories.

"I am instinctively a pluralist and not overly tribal in my politics so have some sympathy for the case being made. I have always obeyed the rules of my party on this - and I always back Labour candidates - but I have a genuinely open mind about whether the rules should be changed to allow for this, because of our anachronistic, outdated and undemocratic national voting system that forces tactical manoeuvres of this kind."

"This sorry state of affairs is one of many reasons why I have always been a passionate advocate of changing the rotten voting system we have to a system of proportional representation. It is the system we use to elect members of the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and the London assembly - where they have constituency members and top up members to ensure a more representative body - so it should be good enough for the UK parliament too."

Chris Bowers comments

"If a Liberal Democrat had written this article, people would say it was biased and self-serving. The fact that a senior figure in the Labour party has written it should make people think. There's a lot of inherent good sense in the column."