Wales was the biggest casualty of First Past the Post in 2024

Alberto Smith, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Make Votes Matter

What sort of democracy do we want to live in? When people go to the polls in Wales, their vote should count. But in 2024, as in every general election under First Past the Post, millions were left unheard.

Wales, more than any other part of the UK, feels the consequences of our broken voting system. It’s a year since the 2024 general election, in which First Past the Post (FPTP) distorted the result in Wales more so than in any other area of the country.

In Wales, Labour’s share of the vote fell by four percentage points. And yet, thanks to the warped logic of FPTP, they gained nine additional seats. As a result, Labour now holds 84% of Welsh seats in Westminster, despite receiving just 37% of the vote.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives—who secured nearly one in five votes across Wales—won not a single seat.

Voters for Plaid Cymru, Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats faced similar distortions.

Unfit

This isn’t a system malfunctioning, it’s doing exactly what it is supposed to. And increasingly, people are waking up to how unfit this system is for a modern, multi-party democracy. No matter the views of the public, or the way that they choose to vote, FPTP has one job: to straightjacket our politics at any cost, even trust in democracy itself.

It’s a system that prevents pluralism and locks entire communities out of meaningful representation. Is it any wonder that the recent British Social Attitudes survey found that a record 60% of the public now back changing our voting system? How can the public trust a system that shortchanges most of them?

Wales has long recognised the dangers of FPTP — and has taken steps to improve the link between voting and representation. Representation has been part of the political conversation in Wales since the Senedd’s first election in 1999 under the Additional Member System, as well as in the latest Senedd reforms.

This latest round of reform has had its critics, and though I also identified improvements that could be made — such as open or flexible lists — when I was invited to give evidence in the Senedd committee hearings, First Past the Post has been catastrophic for Welsh voters, and no one is asking for its return.

At its heart, the Senedd reforms are being driven by an understanding that good governance is underpinned by a political system that accurately represents the views of the people. When people have more effective representation they are more likely to trust and engage with the political system that governs them. Restoring trust means when you tell people they can have a say over who represents them, you mean it.

Consensus

Restoring trust means putting consensus and long-term strategy ahead of short-term partisan point scoring. It means cooperation in the interests of the public, not confrontational parliamentary theatrics. It means when saying you’ll put country before party, you make good on that commitment.

For the first time ever, a majority of the public are in favour of parties working together in coalition, with the British Social Attitudes survey also finding that 52% of them prefer it to single party government.

This system of cooperation and collaboration is nothing new for Wales. There is a long established precedent of the  need for cross-party support for legislation to be passed here, leading to a more durable policy landscape, and a government more honestly reflective of its populace.

Wales isn’t alone here either, all of our devolved chambers, in Scotland, Northern Ireland and London elect their representatives using fairer systems, And other democracies have also made the switch in their National Parliament. New Zealand, for example, abandoned FPTP in the 1990s after similar distortions — and has never looked back. So why is Westminster lagging behind?

Across the UK we have a system in which five parties are regularly polling above 10%, and in Wales, Plaid Cymru’s strength makes this a six-party system. But across both polities, no one party can come close to claiming to represent Britain — or Wales. This points at the most fundamental problem with our current politics. No one group can say they speak for Britain, so why do we have a voting system that allows them to?

Distorted politics

The way we elect our politicians really matters. Getting it wrong matters. The cost of distorted politics is distorted outcomes. It’s being led by values and policies out of step with the broad views of our communities. It’s locking out voices that should be shaping the future of our country. It’s undermining the already fragile trust in our institutions.

This distortion doesn’t always benefit the same party. In past Westminster elections, historically it’s benefited the Conservatives—turning minority support into huge majorities. However in 2024, it handed Labour a landslide victory on 34% of the vote. Perhaps the next beneficiary will be a new rising force, or Reform UK, who some polls say could take total control on less than 30% of the vote. It’s simple: no one should be able to take total power on a minority of public support.

Under FPTP, whichever party is the winner, the voter is always the loser. We need to recentre this debate away from the narrative of the horse race in Westminster, and back towards those it is meant to serve.

To do that, we need a new social contract, with Proportional Representation at the centre of it. First Past the Post disenfranchises more election participants than it enfranchises, and it stands in the way of fixing trust in politics. We deserve better. We deserve a politics in which all voices are heard. We deserve for all votes to matter.

The public knows that FPTP is busted. It’s time Westminster caught up.