A powerful coalition of senior Labour women, including members of Sir Keir Starmer's top team, is demanding an urgent and fundamental overhaul of Britain's "unfit for purpose" voting system.
The intervention, led by Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell and joined by frontbenchers Alison McGovern and Bridget Phillipson, as well as backbencher Emily Thornberry, represents a significant internal challenge to the party's official stance. It throws down the gauntlet to the leadership just months before a likely general election.
The Core Argument Against First Past The Post
The group argues that the current First Past The Post (FPTP) system is fundamentally damaging to British democracy. Their critique centres on several key failures:
- It creates a yawning "representation gap" where millions of voters feel their ballot does not count.
- It fosters a "hyper-partisan, factional, and divisive" style of politics that prevents consensus-building.
- The system allows governments to be elected on a minority of the national vote, granting them untrammelled power for five years.
- It has led to a significant fall in voter turnout and a rise in safe seats where MPs face no real challenge.
A Divided Party on Electoral Reform
This public call for reform puts the group at odds with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who has previously endorsed FPTP. His 2020 leadership campaign promise to abolish the system was later downgraded to a less concrete pledge to examine how to make politics "work for everyone".
The Labour women are urging the party to not shy away from this critical debate. They warn that clinging to a broken system for short-term tactical advantage is a profound mistake, undermining the very health of the nation's democracy and public trust in the political process itself.
