Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and UKIP leader Nigel Farage joined forces on Monday to demand a fairer electoral system, delivering a 477,000-signature petition to 10 Downing Street. The unlikely alliance highlighted that their parties together secured 16.4% of the vote in the general election but won only 0.31% of Commons seats.
The event, organised by the Electoral Reform Society and Unlock Democracy, also included representatives from the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, and Plaid Cymru. A Green Party spokesperson said the Greens and UKIP were the most prominent because they had been the most unfairly treated by the first-past-the-post system.
Under that system, UKIP won just one seat despite 12.6% of the vote, while the Greens also gained only one seat with 3.8%. The Liberal Democrats won eight seats with 7.9%. In contrast, the SNP secured 56 MPs from 4.7% of the vote, and Plaid Cymru three seats from 0.6%.
If proportional representation had been used, UKIP would have had about 82 seats, the Liberal Democrats 51, and the Greens 24, while the SNP would have won only 31 seats. Farage condemned that five million votes were represented by just two MPs: 'It cannot go on like this.' Bennett called for constitutional reform, noting that Westminster had not seen significant change since women got the vote in 1918.
SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson reiterated his party's support for proportional representation, despite its recent success under first past the post. Farage appeared alongside UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, who has long campaigned for electoral reform, including with Green MP Caroline Lucas during the 2011 AV referendum.
