Voters call for electoral change as Reform's popularity surges

Telegraph

25-06-2025

The majority of voters want electoral reform to allow smaller political parties to have more MPs, new research has found.
A British Social Attitudes survey found that 60 per cent of adults think the system should be changed to allow smaller parties to get their 'fair share' of MPs.
It comes as Reform UK continues to surge in popularity, with recent polls putting Nigel Farage's party ahead of the Conservatives and Labour.
More than four million votes were cast for Reform at the general election, but it returned only five MPs. The Liberal Democrats returned 71 with just 3.5 million votes.
Researchers at the National Centre for Social Research, which has conducted the annual poll since 1983, said it showed 'the political landscape is poised for potential transformation'.
Support for electoral reform is at an all-time high, according to the survey, with a majority of supporters for all political parties backing it. Just 36 per cent said they felt the status quo of the first past the post system should be maintained to 'produce effective government'.
Analysis suggested that last year's general election result was the most distorted in history. Labour won nearly two-thirds of the seats in the Commons last July with just over a third of the popular vote.
Mr Farage declared in the aftermath of the general election that he would abolish the current system. The Clacton MP claimed that Reform would have won 100 seats under proportional representation.
The party's popularity since then has surged, with local elections in May returning hundreds of Reform councillors as it seized control of eight authorities from the Conservatives.
Reform was created in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, rebranding itself as Reform UK in 2021. It is the newest political party in Parliament by decades.
Mr Farage has an unlikely political ally on the issue in Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has for years campaigned for electoral reform.
Alex Scholes, the research director at the National Centre for Social Research, said: 'The 2024 election highlighted significant challenges to Britain's traditional two-party system and the result has yet to restore public trust and confidence.
'With voter trust at an all-time low and a growing support for electoral reform, the political landscape is poised for potential transformation.'
More than half of respondents also said they would prefer a coalition government over a single party in power – a record high.
Earlier this year, Lord Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, said that if Tory and Reform MPs overall 'create a significant majority' at the next election, then 'obviously there's going to be a conversation to form a coalition or some sort of pact'.
He told the BBC: 'I'm talking about the practicalities of keeping Labour out of government.'
Both Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, and Mr Farage have sought to pour cold water on the idea of any kind of formal working relationship between the two parties.