cover image: Electoral pacts and the UK constitution - An update one year on

20.500.12592/n6pg8f

Electoral pacts and the UK constitution - An update one year on

18 May 2022

We are interested in how voters might respond to it and therefore how likely it is to deliver on its objective: maximising seats won in the House of Commons by the participants in it at the expense of the Conservative Party. [...] Alternatively, it can involve agreements or pacts, for instance that between the Liberals and the embryonic Labour Party (then the Labour Representation Committee) in the 1900s; and the ‘coupon’ election of 1918 and the National arrangement of 1931, both of which saw the governing group achieve overwhelming victories. [...] To appreciate the significance of the Pact concept more fully, it is necessary to consider the role of FPTP in the UK political system. [...] While the Lords is willing to assert itself up to a point, the Commons is – in law and through convention – clearly the more powerful of the two. [...] The method of seat selection was as follows: • If a Pact party was elected to the seat in 2019 or gained the seat in a by-election, then that party is selected for that seat • Of the remaining seats, one seat in 16 (eg 6 per cent) is selected for the Greens, based on the Greens’ vote share in 2019.

Authors

Alex Walker

Pages
16
Published in
United Kingdom