Emily Thornberry MP

• HUNDREDS of people from across the country descended on London on Wednesday May 24 to lobby their MPs for equal votes, better known as proportional representation.

Along with several other constituents of Islington South and Finsbury, I met Emily Thornberry, our MP, in Westminster Hall to make our views known to her. It was great she was able to find 24 minutes in her busy schedule to meet us.

I had never met her before despite writing to her on various issues for over the past 12 years, so this was a special occasion for me to see her in action; to observe her listening skills, to understand her approach to replying to questions in person, and to know her a bit better as a politician since most of her replies to my correspondence are written by her staffers.

Outcome: I was disappointed. But I sense this is water off a duck’s back as a politician.

You need to be made of the right kind of stuff to be an MP regardless of constituency, unless you’re an MP in a safe seat (oh, she is), and there are plenty of them across the country, both Tory and Labour.

Does your vote matter? Do some politicians care if you vote or not? Do you live in a constituency that reliably elects an MP on a minority share of the vote? Winner takes all?

In some way, not exactly, it feels like Hillary Clinton losing the US presidential election despite receiving the most votes. Donald Trump became president on a minority share of the popular vote.

Here, we ended up with Boris Johnson through our broken electoral system where Tories win over and over again on a minority share of the vote.

Ms Thornberry’s answer is vote Labour. The Tories are in government most of the time regardless of how the country votes. We use a two-party voting system with over seven parties competing for power.

It does not work. We need a voting system that reflects how everyone voted, that every vote is equal and matters.

There are more than two political parties. Other parties, whether we like their views or not, should be represented in parliament, if they get enough votes, so all views in the country are represented. All voices are heard.

Our aim was not to change Ms Thornberry’s mind on our current FPTP, first-past-the-post voting system. She is strongly in favour of it because she says she loves being a constituency MP and wants to maintain that link.

When asked if there are any PR systems that maintain the constituency link she so loves, she goes silent because there are; but she will not acknowledge it.

Instead, our meeting descended into a debate on specific PR voting systems, which led us nowhere. We had only wanted to get her view in principle on PR not the actual form of PR which would be worked out later in consultation with the electorate.

Her response was look where that approach got us on Brexit. Get agreement in principle to leave the European Union to only spend years arguing about what it means in practice.

We got no agreement in principle that she supports PR. In fact, she repeatedly said people should just vote Labour. Her view was that both Labour and the Tories are coalitions.

If you’re on the left vote Labour, and if you’re on the right vote Tory. Binary thinking for a binary,
two-party, voting system. She is stuck in the past and clearly believes in a two-party voting system for only two parties.

When presented with the idea that some people are unhappy with the Tories and want them out of government, tribally she responded, vote Labour. She ignores that some voters might want to vote for the Greens, LibDems, or independents and not for a Labour or Tory party composed of factions she calls a coalition.

It seems in her mind there are only two parties competing for power: Labour and Tory, otherwise your vote does not matter.

If I got this wrong, Ms Thornberry, do feel free to write to this newspaper in reply.

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