One discussion that has emerged from the recent election is the issue of how MPs are elected. The current system here in the United Kingdom is that MPs are elected on a first-past-the-post basis, which means that whoever has the most votes, regardless of percentage, wins. The reason this is now being talked about is because of the significance of the non-"Main Three" parties (parties that aren't the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberal Democrats), in particular, how the Greens, Scottish National Party and the United Kingdom Independence Party all performed.
Look at these statistics:
UKIP: 3,881,129 votes (12.6% overall, 3rd place) - 1 MP
SNP: 1,454,436 (4.7%, 5th place) - 56 MPs
Greens: 1,154,562 (3.8%, 6th place) - 1 MP
The five million people who voted for the Greens and UKIP, who combined make up over 16% of the turnout, are represented by only two MPs. By contrast, each SNP MP represents roughly 26,000 people. To compare two other political parties:
Liberal Democrats: 2,415,888 (7.9%, 4th overall) - 8 MPs
Democratic Unionist Party: 184,260 (0.6%, 7th overall) - 8 MPs
While both parties have 8 MPs each, each Liberal Democrat MP represent over 300,000 people whereas every DUP MP averages around 23,000 constituents. Regardless of what one thinks about any of these political parties, there is a severe imbalance in the amount of people each of them represents.
How could this be addressed? The best method would be introduce a system in which parties receive seats based on their vote percentages; for example, if the Liberal Democrats win 8% of the vote they would win 8% of the seats - not 8 seats out of 650.
It'll be interesting to see where the discussion will lead. It's unlikely, however, that there will be any major electoral reforms, as it's not a priority of the new government.
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