The Green position on Zionism is no barrier to electoral reform
Photo Illustration by Antonello Sticca
4 min read
I’ve been campaigning for proportional representation (PR) since I joined the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform in 1990 as an 18-year-old.
I’ve always believed that votes should have an equal value anywhere in the country – rather than being more impactful in marginal constituencies – and that the seats a party gets should broadly reflect the share of the vote it receives. That is consistent with my social-democratic values: you can’t argue for a fairer, more economically equal society without wanting political power to be fairly and equitably distributed too.
I was therefore delighted when Andy Burnham told the Labour Party annual conference that he was going to set up a commission to look at electoral reform, and that changing the voting system would be in Labour’s next manifesto.
I’m also a lifelong supporter of Israel and opponent of antisemitism. So, since the Green Party conference declared that Zionism (the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination and hence Israel should exist) is racism, people have asked how I square my commitment to electoral reform with the risk that Labour could share power with the Greens in a parliament elected by a more proportional system.
I think this is based on a fundamental misapprehension that a parliament elected under any PR system would simply be a proportional version of the votes cast under first-past-the-post (FPTP) at the last general election.
For a start, the next general election will still be fought under FPTP – it’s the one after that which might be fought under PR. That could be as far in the future as 2034. We have no idea how strong the current political parties will be in up to eight years’ time, what political and economic events will have shaped public opinion, how the parties will relate to each other, or even whether all of them will still exist in their current form. (Reform UK didn’t exist eight years ago, remember.)
Nor do we know how voters will behave when faced with a completely different voting system. Generations of tactical voting behaviour and perceptions of a wasted vote could unwind, and people may also be less willing to cast protest votes for a party that might end up in government.
In a proportional system, mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties have every right to declare more extreme parties as beyond a firewall and unacceptable as coalition partners. That’s the case in Germany, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland is subject to a non-cooperation agreement – the Brandmauer.
There are no circumstances in which Labour or any other mainstream party can share power with a party professing an ideology that breaches the IHRA definition of antisemitism
I believe mainstream parties need to maintain such a firewall against antisemitism. I hope the electorate will react to the Greens’ recent decision by pushing them into political oblivion, but there are no circumstances in which Labour or any other mainstream party can share power with a party professing an ideology that breaches the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
In a general election, the Greens have only once – in 2024 – passed the five per cent threshold that would give them seats under most PR systems. Their extremist antics mean I believe they are heading back to political marginality.
Whatever the electoral system, parties of the left will be vigorously competing for votes between each other as well as trying to get switchers from the right. Labour under Andy Burnham has pushed the Greens down from around 18 per cent in May to just seven per cent in some polls already, while also winning back Reform switchers in seats like mine in North Durham.
We should judge voting systems on how they work over the long term, not on a snapshot of whether they favour our own party or a particular opponent at a particular election. Whether it is on enhancing voter choice, ensuring seats won reflect votes won, or avoiding “electoral deserts” dominated by a single party, PR systems clearly have the edge over FPTP.
Luke Akehurst is Labour MP for North Durham
