Is it worth voting in the EU elections?
Saturday, June 1st, 2019 | Religion & Politics
I’ve previously written about why voting in a general election is pointless. One vote never makes a difference. It did in 1886. And again in 1910. But both of those occasions were before you, me, or even my gran was born.
One of the major problems is the first past the post system. But the EU elections are run under proportional representation. So, does that make it better? It certainly does! It allows a much fairer representation of parties at the table. However, as it is done by region, and because of the number of votes, your one vote still doesn’t really make a difference.
Let’s look at my region, for example, Yorkshire and the Humber. Here is the outcome:
- Brexit Party, 470,351 votes, 3 MEPs
- Labour, 210,516 votes, 1 MEP
- Liberal Democrats, 200,180 votes, 1 MEP
- Green, 166,980 votes, 1 MEP
- Conservatives, 92,863 votes, 0 MEPs
One of the best things about PR is that it makes the votes per MP fairer. For example, in a general election, the Lib Dems and UKIP typically have a large share of the vote while only a handful of MPs, while the SNP have very few votes but loads of MPs.
It’s not quite even in PR, but it’s better. The Brexit Party has the best ratio of votes to MEPs with 156,784 votes per MEP. So, in order for someone else to gain an MEP, they would have to beat this number.
Let’s look at what that would mean:
- Conservatives: 63,921
- Labour: 103,052
- Lib Dems: 113,388
Or, maybe you want the Brexit Party to take a fourth seat. That would require them to take an additional 156,785 votes.
All of those are big numbers. Way bigger than the 23,698 votes it would require for the Conservatives to take Leeds Central away from Labour in a general election. Which they haven’t done since 1923.
I also ran the numbers against London. The closest people were the Conservatives who could have taken one of the Brexit Party seats (200,129 votes per MEP) with an additional 22,165 votes. I looked at South East England, too, where the Greens could have taken Labour’s seat with an additional 26,107 votes.
None of these results was close. One vote does not make a difference.
I’ve previously written about why voting in a general election is pointless. One vote never makes a difference. It did in 1886. And again in 1910. But both of those occasions were before you, me, or even my gran was born.
One of the major problems is the first past the post system. But the EU elections are run under proportional representation. So, does that make it better? It certainly does! It allows a much fairer representation of parties at the table. However, as it is done by region, and because of the number of votes, your one vote still doesn’t really make a difference.
Let’s look at my region, for example, Yorkshire and the Humber. Here is the outcome:
- Brexit Party, 470,351 votes, 3 MEPs
- Labour, 210,516 votes, 1 MEP
- Liberal Democrats, 200,180 votes, 1 MEP
- Green, 166,980 votes, 1 MEP
- Conservatives, 92,863 votes, 0 MEPs
One of the best things about PR is that it makes the votes per MP fairer. For example, in a general election, the Lib Dems and UKIP typically have a large share of the vote while only a handful of MPs, while the SNP have very few votes but loads of MPs.
It’s not quite even in PR, but it’s better. The Brexit Party has the best ratio of votes to MEPs with 156,784 votes per MEP. So, in order for someone else to gain an MEP, they would have to beat this number.
Let’s look at what that would mean:
- Conservatives: 63,921
- Labour: 103,052
- Lib Dems: 113,388
Or, maybe you want the Brexit Party to take a fourth seat. That would require them to take an additional 156,785 votes.
All of those are big numbers. Way bigger than the 23,698 votes it would require for the Conservatives to take Leeds Central away from Labour in a general election. Which they haven’t done since 1923.
I also ran the numbers against London. The closest people were the Conservatives who could have taken one of the Brexit Party seats (200,129 votes per MEP) with an additional 22,165 votes. I looked at South East England, too, where the Greens could have taken Labour’s seat with an additional 26,107 votes.
None of these results was close. One vote does not make a difference.
