Senior Labour figures plan move to back electoral reform after general election fiasco Exclusive: Party is ‘shifting towards backing for PR’ following election disaster, campaigners claim

Senior Labour figures are to mount a drive to persuade the party to support proportional representation (PR) in the wake of its general election disaster.

Nearly one third of its MPs – including leadership contender Clive Lewis and several shadow ministers – are thought to favour electoral reform and a poll last month found 76 per cent of Labour members backed the move.

Supporters argue that it required around 50,700 votes to elect a Labour MP, compared with 38,300 for a Conservative, allowing Boris Johnson to secure a landslide victory on 43 per cent of the vote.

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A shadow Cabinet member who had previously advocated the first-past-the-post system told i that he had changed his mind.

“It’s the right thing to look at electoral reform because there’s a danger the Conservatives are going to be embedded in power in perpetuity,” he said.

Voting system ‘outdated’

Mr Lewis warned that embracing proportional representation would not be a sticking plaster for tackling Labour’s problems.

Arguing that the political parties and voting system were designed a century ago, he said: “Electoral reform is one of the issues we as a party and a country need to look at to resolve the democratic crisis we face.”

The shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has previously condemned the voting system and other supporters of electoral reform include Stephen Kinnock and shadow ministers Cat Smith and Jonathan Reynolds.

Several newly elected Labour MPs have backed a change in policy. Asked on BBC Radio 4 whether she supported lowering the voting age to 16, Nadia Whittome, the youngest MP in the Commons, replied: “Certainly, and not just electoral reform in terms of votes at 16, but votes for all UK residents, no matter what their immigration status and electoral reform so that people’s votes count.”

Labour has traditionally supported first-past-the-post because it benefited from the system at the expense of smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and Greens.

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No manifesto mention

It did not mention PR in its election manifesto, but said it would hold a constitutional convention in office to examine the case for voting reform.

Mary Southcott, of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, said there had been a “sea change” in attitudes within the party, adding: “I haven’t met people who are willing to stand up for first-past-the-post.”

She said the campaign would quiz Labour’s leadership candidates on their view and would canvass support for change from the major trade unions.

However, the Warley MP John Spellar dismissed electoral reform as an “inner city London media issue”.

He said: “If it happened the party would split within a year between a Corbynite and a traditional Labour party. It would be the Tories and the Greens who would benefit.”