With Andy Burnham, a long-standing advocate of proportional representation (PR), now Prime Minister, journalists and commentators have been speculating (once again) about the prospect of electoral reform in the UK and the removal of the First Past The Post (FPTP) system. What makes the issue much more intriguing this time round is the apparent alignment of three key developments which have to be in place to make PR a realistic political possibility, namely (1) a general election which produced a severely disproportional result (2) public opinion moving in favour of PR, and (3) growing cross-party support for proportional representation.

1. 2024: the most disproportional general election result in modern British electoral history

A major reason why PR is back on the political agenda is the 2024 general election, which produced the most disproportional result under FPTP in modern British electoral history. The outcome ensured that, for most parties in the Commons, the proportion of the seats they secured bore little relation to the share of the vote they obtained. The results for the five largest parties are shown in the table below to illustrate this point:

The two stand-out examples in 2024 were Labour’s ability to secure almost two-thirds of the seats (412) on just over one-third of the votes cast (9.7m) and Reform being limited to just 1% of the seats (5) on a 14% share of the vote (4.2m). Furthermore, nearly 100 MPs were elected on less than 35% of the constituency vote which highlighted the fact that a clear majority of those who voted ended up with a representative who was not their political preference. In 2024, this proportion of ‘unrepresented’ voters peaked at a record 58%. Another measure of the disproportionality of the 2024 result under FPTP concerns the unequal value of the votes that were cast, as indicated in the table below:

These figures reveal that one Labour MP was elected for every 23,565 votes cast for Starmer’s party but more than twice this number of votes was required to elect each Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP (56,437 and 48,877 respectively). As a result, each Labour vote had more than twice the aggregate electoral strength of a Conservative or Liberal Democrat one. The Greens and Reform fared particularly badly on this measure. Each Labour vote had almost 35 times the aggregate electoral strength of a vote cast for Farage’s party and the corresponding Labour-Green ratio was 20.6. Finally, turnout dropped sharply from 67.3% in 2019 to 59.9% in 2024 so Labour’s landslide victory in the Commons was supported by just 20% of eligible voters, a record low for the winning party.

2. Public opinion has moved in favour of electoral reform

According to the 2025 British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, public opinion shifted from a pro-FPTP to a pro-change position during the 2019-2024 UK parliament. In 2021, for the first time in a BSA survey, more people (51%) were in favour of changing the electoral system than retaining the existing arrangements (44%). In the 2023 (53%-40%) and 2024 (60%-36%) surveys the gap widened and, although the proportion in favour of electoral reform dipped in 2025 to 53%, the authors reported that ‘Much of the changed pattern of attitudes towards electoral reform that emerged during the 2019-24 parliament and in the wake of the 2024 election still seems to be present.’

3. Growing cross-party support for PR

A third important component is growing support for PR among the political parties. Blending principle with pragmatism in their 2024 election manifestos, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru all endorsed the single transferable vote (STV) for UK general elections. STV is currently used for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections and Scottish and Northern Irish local elections. Although the Greens did not specify a particular PR system, their manifesto supported a ‘fair and proportional voting system’. Furthermore, the Reform manifesto called for a referendum on PR for general elections, again without stipulating which form of PR should be put to the electorate. Farage’s party appeared to drop the issue after the 2024 election as it climbed in the polls ahead of Labour, but Reform’s present difficulties may reignite its interest in PR if victory at the next general election under FPTP appears to be slipping away.

Moreover, although neither of the two main parties are officially committed to electoral reform, Labour, and to a lesser extent, the Conservatives, have advocates for PR within their ranks. In 2022, the Labour Party conference passed a motion (which still stands) in support of electoral reform. Unite and UNISON, the two largest Labour-affiliated trade unions, have called for reform and Labour MPs make up the majority of the 150-strong All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections. Most recently, of course, the new Labour leader and PM, Andy Burnham, has reaffirmed that he remains ‘committed to proportional representation’ and has indicated that, after a national commission on the subject, electoral reform will be included in Labour’s manifesto for the next general election. Battered by a heavy electoral drubbing in 2024 and losing right-wing support to Reform, the Tories have showed signs that their longstanding faith in FPTP is fraying at the edges. According to polls conducted in 2025 more than half of Conservative voters supported electoral reform and, following the Tories’ poor performance in the 2025 local elections, senior Conservatives such as Nigel Evans and Robert Colvile endorsed electoral reform. More Conservatives are likely to back PR if the party appears to face an existential threat or loss of major status under FPTP.

PR: a realistic prospect?

Of course, although the three developments outlined above have galvanized the proponents of PR, there’s no guarantee that electoral reform will happen soon for the following reasons (1) those who want electoral reform tend to agree on the deficiencies of FPTP but are divided over which form of PR to adopt (2) as PM, Burnham wants to make electoral reform a Labour manifesto pledge for the next general election, effectively postponing parliamentary consideration of the issue until the late 2020s or early 2030s (assuming Labour win) (3) even if Labour win the next general election, many will argue that electoral reform, as a major constitutional issue, cannot proceed without a UK referendum to gauge the view of the electorate, and (4) although public opinion has recently shifted towards electoral reform, it can also move back to endorse FPTP in the years ahead. In the future, PR’s best prospects, arguably, lie with a reform-minded Labour government which holds a comfortable majority or a minority Labour administration backed by progressive parties whose continued support in parliament depends on the implementation of electoral reform.