The stars are aligning for proportional representation

If it's ever going to happen, now is the time

The 2024 election, if it had been under PR. (Graphic pinched from the Electoral Reform Society, which I hope they’ll forgive as I’m writing about the thing they want to happen.)

British politics is in flux.

Reform is slowly sapping support from the Tories on the right, and as the Gorton and Denton by-election evidenced, the Greens are now a serious force on the left, capable of stealing even the safest of seats from Labour.

Then there’s the LibDems, who are still there, occupying the lane of being a suitably inoffensive vessel for people who don’t mind immigrants and don’t like houses.

Together, this adds up to something unprecedented. For better or worse, we’re now living in an era of five-party politics – but this isn’t the interesting part.

What’s more notable is how these unusual circumstances have quietly aligned the incentives of all five major parties so that today, in theory at least, they would all stand to benefit from electoral reform, and a shift to proportional representation (PR).

So I know this sounds mad, but I can’t help but wonder if this means we’re at the closest point we’ve ever been to a change in the electoral system.

And now I’m going to explain why.