Ник Гриффин: «Почему Бёрнэм может перейти к пропорциональной системе, чтобы остановить Фараджа»

Why Burnham May Switch to PR to Stop Farage

Источник: https://nickgriffin544956.substack.com/p/why-burnham-may-switch-to-pr-to-stop

If Andy Burnham wins in Makerfield on 18th June, he will become Prime Minister shortly thereafter. At that point, he is likely to win the next general election. Indeed, he could well call it early, claiming that he wants a mandate from the country, although actually in order to get it done before his reputation is destroyed by three years in charge of post-Iran Clusterfuck UK.

If he loses, he can’t become Prime Minister. Indeed – absent a drastic change in the Labour party constitution - his career will be on hold until several years after Nigel Farage wins the next general election and Labour finally get a by-election they can win.

If Reform win the by-election (and that could well depend on how many people are so hacked off with everything that they vote for Restore as a howl of rage, rather than Reform as a calculated move), or if Burnham only wins by a whisker, a new factor could easily come into play in UK politics – Proportional Representation.

If you can’t win with the present system, the obvious solution to a venal politician is to change the system, and Labour is already pretty much sold on the idea of PR.

The trend towards supporting proportional representation (PR) in the Labour Party gained significant momentum in the mid-2010s to early 2020s, accelerating after 2015.

Around half of Labour constituency organisations have passed pro-PR resolutions; the 2022 Labour Party Conference saw delegates (including major unions) overwhelmingly back a motion for PR in the next manifesto. This was non-binding on leadership.

Post-2024 election (Labour’s landslide on a low vote share, one of the least proportional results ever), renewed calls emerged, including parliamentary debates. Current support is strong at the grassroots level (polling shows 83% of members in favour) and among many newer MPs and some unions. The Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and leadership have been less keen, but the prospect of handing Nigel the keys to Number 10 must concentrate their minds.

Andy Burnham strongly favours PR.

The received wisdom is that it would take between two and four years to get a PR Bill through Parliament. With the Tories also facing a drubbing at the hands of Reform, however, it is perfectly possible that it could be got through in time for the 2029 general election. The LibDems have a long-standing commitment to such a change, so a huge majority for it could come together.

Reform would still emerge from a PR election as the largest party, and Restore would benefit from being protected from the “wasted vote” argument. But the change would insulate the UK’s body politic from drastic lurches, and would basically guarantee that Reform could not take full power.

They’ve Got Form For It For the political class to change systems “just because you’re losing” would, of course, be thoroughly indecent. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do it. Indeed, the Labour party in particular already has a record of outrageous changes to the electoral system, with two in particular springing to mind:

In the run-up to the 2004 European Elections, Labour introduced a Bill to make the contest a full postal ballot in the North West of England. Particularly when there was resistance to this change in the House of Lords, Labour peers berated the chamber with warnings that “if you reject this Bill, then Nick Griffin will become an MEP”.

It was as blatant as that. The law was pushed through and, indeed, the BNP was kept out for another five years by the massive fraud which was enabled by a full postal vote.

Similar cynicism was shown by Labour in Stoke. Before the BNP became a major force in local politics there, Labour persuaded the public to vote in 2002 for the creation of a directly elected mayor system. The contest was won at first by an independent, Mike Wolfe, who served until 2005.

In the election that year, he was succeeded by Mark Meredith for Labour. The bare result, however, concealed a voting pattern which horrified the political elite. The election used a second preference vote system, although only the candidates who made first and second place in the first round got to have their second preference votes counted.

Various sharp practices and dirty tricks pinned the BNP back to just behind the second-placed Tories, so our second preference votes were never counted. If they had been, we would have romped home. Basically, nearly all Labour voters gave the BNP their second preference vote, as did a high proportion of Conservative voters.

The next mayoral election was due in 2009, by which time even a cynical redrawing of ward boundaries and other dirty tricks still hadn’t stopped the growth in BNP support. It was clear that we would win the powerful mayoral position in this very significant English city.

What did Labour do? They simply abolished the office of elected mayor, using the woeful record of their own mayor and a huge propaganda campaign about saving money to ensure that, in another referendum, in October 2008, voters chose to abolish the position they had created just six years earlier.

The council reverted to a leader – chosen by the largest party - and cabinet system, which meant that Labour were spared the disaster of losing Stoke to the BNP.

Given that the same sort of people are now running the country, anyone who thinks that they would not stoop to another cynical stitch-up to keep Nigel Farage out of power (who, quite erroneously, they really believe is just a more careful, literal fascist) is so naïve that they really shouldn’t be allowed out alone.

It would be a far more elegant solution that that rolled out in Belgium or Greece, where insurgent parties were simply banned “as a threat to democracy”, or Romania, when the election won by a “far-right” candidate was simply declared null and void.

In each of these cases, be it noted, the British political and media elite were fully in favour of the liberal system trampling all over the wishes of the people. You are absolutely free to vote as you please, provided the winners are an approved part of the System.

We already have PR in the devolved assemblies, even in London. So why not for Westminster too? Labour and the Tories won’t hesitate if they decide it is necessary to keep the country on the same ruinous path they’ve dragged us down for decades. It’s what these people do.

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