First-Past-the-Post to be scrapped for mayoral elections

As recognition that the existing system is flawed, the government is changing the electoral system for mayoral elections. First-Past-the-Post(FPTP) for directly elected mayors was introduced by the Conservative government in 2022; supposedly to ensure clearer accountability but widely considered an attempt to increase the chances of their candidates being elected. That change had the foreseeable effect of mayors being elected on small vote shares with little democratic backing.

For instance, in 2021 under the previous system all seven mayoralties were elected with the support of a majority of local voters. However, since the beginning of 2024 under First-Past-the-Post, in sixteen mayoral elections only five attained a majority vote share. In one instance, the mayor won with the support of just one-in-four voters.

The new electoral system that the government is putting forward in fact reverts to the Supplementary Vote (SV), previously used in mayoral elections, rather than adopting the fairer Alternative Vote (AV) system that the Liberal Democrats support. 

As a quick explanation between the two: under AV a voter can rank as many candidates as they wish in order of preference. Under SV, a voter can choose only their preferred and second choice candidates — a seemingly small difference but with a detrimental effect on the fairness of the outcome.

Despite this, at least under the Supplementary Vote system the winning candidate must garner at least half of the votes cast. The government's change is a wise (but hopefully not final) step in the right direction. More significantly perhaps, it brings into stark contrast the contradiction between the different voting systems that will now be used in mayoral and parliamentary elections, the latter keeping the FPTP system.

The government's principle argument for scrapping First-Past-the-Post is that as mayors oversee large populations and big budgets they need a stronger mandate than afforded by FPTP. But in an area such as Watford, the local MP has a larger electorate than the local elected mayor: according to the government, it seems that Watford's representative at the national level needs less voter support than Watford's representative at the local level, despite the latter serving a smaller number of people.

This inconsistency lays bare the need for a broader reform of our democratic system — one that delivers fairness and legitimacy not just locally, but nationally too.