LIVERPOOL, England, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Tuesday the Labour Party will contest the next election with a manifesto commitment to change the electoral system, after he announced he was establishing a national commission to look at reform.
Burnham has long supported Britain ditching its first-past-the-post system, which requires a party to win at least 326 seats out of 650 to secure a majority in parliament, in favour of proportional representation.
“We will contest the next election with a manifesto commitment to change the electoral system,” he told the annual Labour Party conference.
The next election is due in 2029 and Burnham said he would invite all political parties to take part in the commission’s work and seek cross-party backing for reforms.
Criticising the country’s recent turbulent politics — he is the seventh prime minister in 10 years — he said the current system was divisive because it meant a party could find themselves in government with 30% of the vote or less.
“I want to underpin our plan for Britain with a new politics,” he said, adding that while the changes would be difficult and not universally liked, they were needed.
Local elections in May underlined the fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system, with the once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties losing votes to right-wing Reform UK, the left-wing Green Party and nationalists in Scotland and Wales.
In a 2011 referendum in Britain, a proposal to bring in a preferential voting system, known as alternative vote, was rejected.
(Reporting by William James, Alistair Smout and Andrew MacAsKill, writing by Sarah Young and Sam Tabahriti; editing by Michael Holden)
