The System’s Down

Ben Wildsmith

Unless all of the polling companies are out by a distance, Thursday’s election will bring a Plaid Cymru government, either in combination with other parties or in minority.

Even at this late stage, my conversations with voters suggest that a worrying amount of them don’t realise how the electoral system has changed or misunderstand what the implications of the changes are.

That’s hardly surprising, given that they system is at odds with the traditional idea of how elections work in Britain.

The notion of a definitive winner is baked into our experience of voting and the media, in particular, is addicted to a personality-driven framing of democracy that mimics the coverage of sports.

Despite the pluralist intentions behind our current system, old habits die hard, and the nation is captivated by which party wins the largest number of seats on Thursday.

This isn’t supposed to matter, seats are distributed proportionally according to our preferences and the eventual government, in theory, reflects that in its make up. We D’Hondt care about that, though, do we?

After months of foul-tempered online bickering, people want to see a knockout blow for their side.

Focussing on which is the largest party allows us the thrill of binary opposition in the namby-pamby, everyone gets a prize, European-style compromise that has replaced the ludicrous, but thrilling, system still used for Westminster.

It’s electoral drag hunting – obviously better than what its replacing but lacking the primal appeal.

There’s another problem, though. For power sharing to work, it’s essential that all participants have a commitment to the democracy and want to participate in government.

If a share of power is their goal, politicians can be surprisingly flexible about who they will work with, and which policies they are willing to let go. Instead of watered-down policy offerings to appeal to a broad voter base, parties can run on the full fat versions of their beliefs and then horse trade their most cherished ideas into governance.

Cooperation

Reform UK could, conceivably, get an M4 relief road like this. If their goal were eventually to lead a Senedd government and govern Wales into the future, accepting a left-of-centre victory and trading a big, visible project as the price of cooperation would set them up perfectly for 2031.

It would weaken Welsh Labour yet further, removing any need for a formal coalition, and position Reform as a reasonable and pragmatic force in Wales.

That’s not their goal, though, is it? As the campaign has progressed, Reform’s messaging has increasingly foregrounded the voting system as evidence that Welsh democracy is beyond saving. The existence of an ostensibly left of centre majority is explained away as an ‘establishment stitch-up’ between Labour, Plaid Cymru and, implausibly, the Greens.

To make sense of the notion that Plaid Cymru and the Greens represent the ‘Establishment’ requires some decoding. What’s being insinuated here is that the Senedd itself is an elitist, illegitimate body.

Peasant army

Any party which is willing to contribute to governance from Cardiff is de facto disqualified from representing Reform’s peasant army, whose loyalty is to Westminster where Reform can win an undiluted first-past-the-post mandate to do whatever they like, wherever they like.

The existence of a party which threatens the existence of Welsh democracy isn’t new. Indeed, many of Reform’s members supported the ill-fated Abolish party last time out, and Mark Reckless, Reform candidate in Caerdydd Penarth, ran for Abolish.

The difference here is that Reform’s potential in Westminster exceeds its prospects in Wales. The combination of an anti-devolution government in London with a Reform Opposition in Cardiff Bay threatens the existence of Wales at the institutional level.

A Reform Opposition as the largest party would be an aggrieved megaphone for the wider UK’s ills according to N. Farage.

Urgency

The electoral system we have doesn’t account for actors who have no interest in governing. The outcome is that an obsession with which party wins the most seats has gained urgency because the legitimacy of Welsh democracy is being threatened by a party that doesn’t believe it should exist in the first place.

As we sweat over our phones for the results on Friday, it will be in the knowledge that the overall result is as nothing to the minute variations that award fifth and sixth places either way.

That is the precise opposite of what this system was supposed to produce. Our democracy is being gamed by people who seek its destruction