British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has committed Labour to fighting the next general election on a promise to scrap first past the post, drawing the battle lines for a contest his party is currently losing in the polls.
Speaking to the Labour conference in Liverpool on September 29, Burnham announced a National Commission on Electoral Reform and invited every party to take part in its work. Labour would go into the next election with “a manifesto commitment to change the electoral system”, he said.
He did not name Farage once in the speech. He did warn that the present system was divisive because it allowed a movement to enter government on less than 30 per cent of the vote.
Reform UK has led the polls for more than a year and has since abandoned its own backing for proportional representation. Under first past the post that lead would translate into a Commons majority, which a proportional system would be far less likely to deliver.
The next election is due in 2029. Burnham is Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade and took office in July without a national vote, after Keir Starmer resigned.
The Prime Minister also confirmed he would break the state pension triple lock, though only from April 2030 and so after the next election. The pension would then rise each year by prices or 2.5 per cent, with average earnings dropped from the formula.
He said someone had to go through the pain barrier on the issue. The announcement came a month before the British Government’s first budget, due at the end of October.
Burnham promised legislation this year to repeal Margaret Thatcher’s ban on public ownership of water companies, which he said would put the country on a 10-year path to a different water system. He stopped short of committing to renationalisation.
A leasehold bill would follow before Christmas and councils would be given greater powers to take over properties that landlords refuse to bring up to standard. He also promised a National Care Service, fully funded and not paid for through borrowing.
Tom Brake of Unlock Democracy, which campaigns for reform, said first past the post “bakes in volatility” and robbed millions of voters of fair representation.
The speech also reopened the Brexit question, with Burnham promising to set out options for a new relationship with the European Union at a summit expected in late November.
