[tomp]

> Full HOL reform would be a good way to start the move towards a proportional representation electoral system in the UK.

Ah, another one of those “if I were a dictator” comments…

UK citizens have democratically decided they don’t want proportional representation. But I guess you don’t care

[anigbrowl]

No they haven't. They decided they don't want ranked choice voting (known in the UK as the 'alternative vote'). Proportional representation is a different system, which the minority Liberal Democrat party and others had long argued for and quite a lot of people regarded the substitution as a form of bait-and-switch. Additionally some had reservations about the scheduling of the referendum to overlap with local elections in parts of the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternativ...

[Conscat]

That comes off as a childish understanding of what votes in a representational democracy actually mean.

[Mordisquitos]

> UK citizens have democratically decided they don’t want proportional representation.

When was that?

[tomp]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternativ...

[Silhouette]

AV != PR

In fact had the AV referendum vote gone the other way it is likely that the composition of our Parliament after the following general election would have been less proportional to the overall share of the national vote won by each party.

AV has certain desirable characteristics if you want to elect a single representative fairly. It makes little sense as a way to elect a group of representatives fairly. It sure is a great strawman if you're trying to kill off interest in real and appropriate electoral reform and fixing the systemic democratic deficits clearly evident in the current system we use to elect our MPs though.

[wizzwizz4]

That wasn't about proportional representation: that was about instant run-off: it's a vote counting algorithm, not an algorithm for assigning seats. For that referendum, they picked the worst simple voting system that was better than first-past-the-post, so I'm not terribly surprised it didn't win. https://ncase.me/ballot/ discusses these voting systems in more detail.

[zo1]

It's quite odd to me how we "hand wave" individual rights using the term "democratic" as if there is something intrinsic and unquestionable about it. LIke, sure 60% voted "democratically" for a decision to go one way. But what about the other 40%?