Media Storm - Do we need to change the voting system?

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Care about independent and ethical news? Support Media Storm on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Since 1945, no party has won more than 50% of the vote in a general election. In 2019, the Conservative Party won a big majority despite getting less than 44% of the popular vote. In 2024, Keir Starmer won Labour a victory, yet he got fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn in the election before him (an election Labour lost – with half a million more votes). At the last general election, nearly three quarters of all votes cast had no bearing on the result. How does this happen? The answer lies in our electoral system, called First Past The Post. A winning candidate does not need to get the majority of the votes cast in their constituency, only more than any other candidate. This is not the only way to do democracy. The UK is in a minority – just under one third of countries use First Past The Post. Many others use Proportional Representation – where a party’s share of seats mirrors its actual share of votes. This week we are joined by Mark Kieran, CEO of Open Britain, and Shaun Roberts from Unlock Democracy to ask: if 60% of people now back Proportional Representation, why has it not been implemented yet? What are the true alternatives to FPTP? Will the Representation of the People Bill heading through Parliament next week change anything? Will Andy Burnham stick to a promise of electoral reform, or will he U-turn like Keir Starmer did? And will any government ever change a system that works for them? Sign up to Open Britain's newsletter. Support Unlock Democracy. This episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)  The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@mediastormpod⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Open Britain. A grassroots campaign group making democracy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, Matilda. I think that we need to tell our listeners the thing that made us laugh the most this week. Helena and I went for one of our work dinners. It was delightful. We had pastas, we always do.

Our traditional pasta. And we were talking about this upcoming episode. And I was like, let's make some notes. So Matilda opens up her phone and she starts getting a sense of deja vu. I was like, this is something I've written before. And I search the term electoral reform in my notes because that's what we're going to be talking about today. And I found this notes page that I'd written at some time I have no recollection of. But it was like a 2,500 word essay about electoral reform.

It had an entire podcast plan. It had like breakdowns of exactly the guest. we wanted the structure, the questions we were going to ask, who was going to ask what questions, the statistics we were going to bring in. And guys, I have no memory of doing this. I was so confused because we had not planned this episode one bit yet. Yet Matilda had written the entire plan, the entire script in her notes. I think I'm working in my sleep.

There's literally no other explanation because you don't remember writing it. I don't remember you talking about it. We had literally not spoken about it before, but I did it. The world is in danger, guys, if I am working in my sleep, I don't know what I'm capable of. Or maybe it's just like our schedules have got so busy. I had to like find an alternative method of doing your research. And it's all for you guys. It's all great because we've got a great episode coming up for you.

So let's start it, shall we? including Matilda's perfect notes. Since 1935, the UK has had majority governments 90% of the time, but not one of them had the support of most voters. In fact, at the last general election, nearly three quarters of all votes cast had zero bearing on the result. We were told Kirstama won Labour a victory of historic proportions, gaining an extra 211 seats.

Yet he got fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn in the election before him. An election Labour lost with half a million more votes. How does this make sense? The answer lies in our electoral system, a system called First Past the Post. What is First Past the Post? It means that the person with the most votes in each constituency becomes the MP, and the candidates from other parties get nothing. Voters put across against the name of their preferred candidate on their ballot paper.

The candidate with the most votes, or first pass the post, wins. But they do not need to get the majority of the votes cast in that constituency. They only have to get more than any other candidate. Then in turn, the party with the most MPs wins the election. This is not the only way to do democracy. In total, out of the 212 countries and related territories, 68, just under one third, use first pass the post or FPTP systems. But today, First Pass the Post systems are found in many former British colonies, would you guess it?

This includes Canada, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, a dozen Caribbean countries, 18 African ones, and among others, the USA. New Zealand also inherited First Pass the Post from the British Empire, but switched in the 90s to a different model called proportional representation. That's where a party's share of seats mirrors its actual share of votes. Here's something worth knowing about first past the post. People don't like it. In the UK, polling shows 60% of people now back proportional representation, with just 36% for keeping first past the post. And it's not just the people.

A year and a half ago, in Parliament, MPs actually narrowly voted in favour of introducing a proportional representation electoral system. But the vote proved purely symbolic. and never became law. And when he became Labour leader, Kirstama said he would address the system. I also think on electoral reform, we've got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their vote doesn't count. And that's got to be addressed.

We will never get full participation in our electoral system until we do that at every level. So we need to address that. But this week, his government's landmark electoral reform bill is going through Parliament without the voting changes promised. It's called the representation of the People Bill. Legislation introduced in Parliament to reform the electoral system. The bill contains several important proposals, ones that will change the electoral system,

including extending the vote to all 16 and 17-year-olds, widening the range of accepted voter ID, and strengthening the powers of the Electoral Commission to enforce donation rules to weed out dark money. The bill was debated in. in Parliament for a second reading in March this year. But noticeably missing from the bill was proportional representation. Here's Ellie Chown's Green MP for North Hertfordshire during the debate of the bill in March.

If we are to have true representation of the people, it's really a profound irony that the representation of the people bill does not tackle the fundamental problem that we have in our representation. True representation requires seats to match votes. It requires every vote to count equally. And so I call on the government to take this opportunity to bring forward proportional representation. It's the principled thing to do to ensure everyone's vote counts equally. Now the bill is back in Parliament next week for its report stage and third reading. It will be one of Stama's final bills before conceding leadership, almost certainly, to Andy Burnham. Burnham, incidentally, a strong advocate for electoral reform. Yet by the

time he's Prime Minister, it looks like he'll have missed his chance to do anything. Was this deliberate? If people don't like the system, why do we have it? What alternatives are there? And can we ever trust those in power to change the system that put them there? We've got to address the fact that millions of people vote and they feel their vote doesn't count. True representation requires seats to match votes.

Some parties had a large gap between their share of total votes and the share of seats in Parliament. And that has prompted fresh calls for a change of the electoral system. This has made it the most disproportional election we've ever had. How, if ever, can this be changed? Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson and I'm Helen Awadier. This week's Media Storm, first past the post. What's your vote really worth? Welcome to Media Storm. Our first guest is the CEO of a campaign group you would have heard us talk about many times on this podcast. as they are our new partners.

As the CEO of Open Britain, he is a passionate advocate for better democracy, with extensive experience of governance and political campaigning with past roles in local government, Whitehall and Parliament. Welcome to Media Storm Mark Kieran. Hello, good to be here. Our second guest has been working in British politics for nearly 30 years,

including as former head of elections for the Lib Dems, and now as Director of Campaigns at Unlocked Democracy, which works to create a vibrant and inclusive, democracy that puts the people in charge. Welcome to Media Storm, Sean Roberts. Thank you very much. We'll start with the theoretical and then we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of pushing change through in reality. First, pros and cons. So what do we like about first pass the post? Proponents say its benefits are that it usually gives clear results. It's easy and quick to count and you get a clear link between MPs and their local constituents. It encourages parties to become

broad churches as opposed to extremists or single agenda parties and creates a coherent opposition to challenge whoever wins. Sean, what are your thoughts? I think the proponents of first past the post would nearly always start with. It provides strong and stable government. And I think we can look and say, we're about to have our seventh prime minister in 10 years. It is not providing strong and stable government anymore. And yet that is the number one argument for it. But I think in a modern country, people seem to want more than two choices, which is, I think, a very reasonable place to start. I mean, I think if we went into a restaurant and they were only ever two things on the menu, people would get a little bit bored of that. It's even slightly worse than that.

It's not so much a restaurant with two items on the menu. It's a restaurant that has a whole menu. And yet if you order anything other than the two items they've chosen to offer, you just get served up one of those things. So it's even worse than knowingly just having two options. I guess the consequence of that is that most MPs are elected with a minority in their constituency, meaning that more people voted for rival candidates. As you say, like a menu with two choices, that might put people off voting altogether. And the reality is that in this country, all of our governments, our so-called majority governments,

have been elected with less than 50% of the vote since 1945. So would we say that this is the starkest disadvantage of First Past the Post? Or while we're on this roast, is there anything else that we've missed that we need to highlight that is fundamentally not working with First Past the Post? I think the most fundamental thing is people should get what they vote for. And they don't. It's that simple. Most recent government was elected on 34% of the vote and it got nearly two thirds of the seats in Parliament.

Now, perhaps the proponents of First Past the Post will say, look, it's a strong and stable government, and yet everything we've seen for the last two years sort of shows you that strong government doesn't come from having a lot of MPs in the House of Commons. It actually comes from having public support. Something we often see as politicians make these big promises, they get elected, and then they never fulfil those promises. And often this is because when they get into power, they find out that, or maybe they already knew, that they're accountable to billionaires and big tech and bond markets.

if some system was introduced where every vote counted, do you feel that politicians would be held more accountable to the people, Mark? I think they would. I mean, every day of the week, they get together, they debate things, they decide things, and the result of those decisions is what shapes your life and mine. The problem with first-past-the-post voting system is all of those wasted votes. They just get ignored. And so the people who end up sitting around the table, if you like,

sitting in that chamber, they don't represent. all the different voices in the country. If we had a system where everybody who voted ended up getting some kind of say in that debate, politicians would have to make more effort to understand what people were asking of them and then deliver it. And the likelihood of them then being influenced

by other people, rich people, people who are well-connected, would be much less. Something I've always been quite confused about when I watch our politics in play. right now we have a Labour government. When it comes to election season, rather than channeling all their energy or most of their energy into answering their opposition's challenges, I find that Labor spends more time attacking the Green Party. And I suppose that's true on the other side. Often you might have conservatives spending more time attacking other right-wing politicians rather than actually addressing the issues that their opposition put before them. Is that a consequence of first-past the post that it sort of turns the left on itself, the right on its. and at the end of the day, we're the ones who then have very little to choose from. Exactly is the answer to that.

That is the politics we've ended up with, that people aren't voting for what they want. They're voting against what they like least. And wouldn't it be great if we could actually have a bit more of a debate about positive policies? Because I think while our politics looks incredibly divided, I don't think the people are quite as divided on quite as many issues as it would seem from our politics right now. the post is a winner takes all system. So if you get your nose in front of everybody else in the pack, you win, you take everything, you get all the power. With that situation, any rational

person who's really focused on winning, you look at the people who are going to be closest to you at the finishing line and you try and do whatever you can to just slow them down a bit. We have a system which incentivizes that destructive behavior. Lots of people just don't like that. They are constantly saying, when I have these conversations with ordinary people, not the wonks like us. They just say, I wish these people would just get on and make our lives better and just make things work properly. They want to see people going into this for the right reasons,

working together, considering good ideas wherever they come from, not poo-pooing them just because they weren't invented by the party that the particular MP represents. Yeah, that feels, that's a very familiar feeling by now. So if we were in a world where first past the post was put aside, what would work better? There's something called proportional representation, and that's the idea that seats in Parliament should reflect the proportion of votes cast, something which can be achieved through a variety

of electoral systems. Sean, how would that look and has proportional representation been used elsewhere in the world successfully? Yeah, I mean, proportional representation is all over the world. I mean, we are in the minority in our electoral system. I think in Europe is us and Belarus that use the electoral system we've got, which is obviously a strange bit of company to be keeping. But we can actually look really close to home to see proportional representation in action in Scotland, in Wales and Northern Ireland. That's how they elects their devolved governments. So we can see this thing works in action at home. But in terms of, you know, how does it all work? How will the system work? Our organisations have been pushing for a national commission on electoral

reform to look at our politics the way it is right now. to put forward solutions for the right electoral system for us to use for Westminster elections. I think that's a really important point to make. Often this discussion is framed as first past the post or PR. First past the post is a system. PR is a family of systems. And within that family of systems, there are some very significant practical differences between the systems there.

It is a hugely complex issue. We need to take the heat and the complexity out of that and have the national Commission on Electoral Reform that Sean talked about. It will in turn answer four questions. What is a good voting system? How does first pass the post stack against those criteria? What alternatives are available? And then finally, given where Britain is and what British people want, what is the best system that will meet those needs now and into the future? It seems like a very dry, boring topic. But for anybody who's interested in how politics actually impacts their life and how that might be improved, it's worth looking into.

Okay, so the situation we're in is we think the current system isn't working. We want change, but we don't necessarily know what the end result of that change would be. So I think it's important to look at why some people are nervous of change. And one of these is, of course, the risk of a coalition government. first past the post, typically gives us a majority. With proportional representation, the tendency is to deliver coalition governments. Sean, let's start with you. If we looked around the world and looked at countries that seem to do pretty well,

I think you'd probably start off with places like Germany. And Germany has made fairly decent progress and has a pretty decent economy. So I think this is kind of a little bit overrated. Point of contention, in the UK, coalition, have not tended to function like we see them functioning in Germany. Germany is an example where coalition tends to bring out the best. It brings, you know, broad church, politics, negotiation between different parties. But there are very different examples.

For example, if we look at Israel right now, Israel functions with a coalition government. So the largest party of government, Netanyahu's party, is in a sort of deal with the devil with very, very extremist, far-right parties. In this example, you see the fringe parties develop a huge amount. of leverage and manage to exert policies that are really very hardline and radical and have proven very, very harmful. Another example would be, I mean, if we look here in the UK at our past coalition government, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives, it sort of had the opposite effect where the smaller party, the Lib Dems, really got steamrolled and their whole promise about not

raising student fees led to them representing a government that tripled student fees, a policy for which they've probably never been forgiven for. So yes, coalitions can work well, but I think people's fear of coalitions comes from rather those negative examples and our experience, particularly here in Britain, just because it works in Germany. What's to say that it would work here in our political culture? I think this sort of is based on an assumption that a political party is not already a coalition. But what's happened in our system under first past the post, perhaps those more extreme elements actually end up going into the bigger parties. And actually, if anything, we can sort of say that we've seen both of our traditional parties

be pulled off to the left, off to the right in recent years. If we want to look at the ultimate two-party system, it's the United States of America, which works on first past the post, Republicans and Democrats. And are we honestly saying there's no extremism in politics in the US? the extremists have kind of taken over and the country is being run by kind of a 20% of people that have quite extreme hardline authoritarian views. Under first past the post, the bad stuff happens,

but you can't see it because it's inside the parties. Whereas at least in proportional representation, it's much more visible because the party stand on their own. Another thing, though, that we would lose with first past the post, or we might lose if we switched first past the post for a proportional representation model, is that immediate link between a constituent and an MP. At the moment, the local plays into the national.

Our current system allows you to have an MP that you know is directly accountable to you. For me, personally, this has been really, really relevant. My local MP is Belle Ribeiro Adi. She's a Labour MP, but she is consistently a challenging voice within the Labour Party. and there have been times in my life where I've actually needed a local MP to stand up for me.

I sailed to Gaza on the Freedom Flitilla and when no one spoke up for us in Parliament, Belle Ribeiro Addy stood up in Parliament and said, will the government protect British citizens and other citizens in international waters? I don't think that that would have happened if I hadn't had direct dialogue with her as my constituent. That's just one person's example. But when we see parliamentarians stand up in Prime Minister's questions and really, stories of their constituents, then we know that there is a really powerful channel for local representation. Wouldn't we lose that, Mark, if we gave up first past the post?

Well, look, you're right to say this is one of the most prevalent things that's raised in this debate. But this specific argument gets us back to the National Commission. There are models of PR that do retain elements of that direct link. And that is exactly. exactly one of the issues that should be looked at very, very carefully by an independent, expert-advised, public-driven National Commission. Because I think constituency links are very important. I think we have fewer really strong constituency MPs now, because I think the party has become, almost, for most people, when they go to vote,

far more important than who the MP is. And I think we should be looking at the sort of other things in the system that, you know, perhaps allowed a bit more individuality, a bit more, you know, how does my MP perform as a local MP? I, for a time, worked in the government WIPPS office in the House of Lords, so I understand what happens whenever the people speak. Parliamentarians have a view, they want to represent that view, and then they're told that when the decision point comes, actually all of that's irrelevant because you have to abide by the WIP.

If we have these alternative models ready to go and there is public support for them, why have they not been implemented? For a long time, two-party politics, people, yeah, 50 years plus after the Second World War, seem very, very happy with, well, perhaps not always super happy, but generally happy with the choices that they had. And now that has fundamentally changed in these last few years, where I think people clearly want more choices. So I think that's part of it.

But I think also that the main parties in that two-party system have had zero desire for change because it has worked very, very well for them. It has forced challenger parties out and away because the system is built against them. And I think that's kind of why the system has survived as long as it has. You put your finger on a real conundrum there, right? the power paradox. The way government works is changing the system depends on those in power

choosing to change the system that put them there. Do we see the problem here? We talked about in our intro, Helena and I very briefly, Kea Stama, sort of U-turning on electoral reform, something that he used to say he would take action on and that has fallen completely off the priority list. Nigel Farage would be another very good example. The reform UK leader used to back electoral reform. He rightly protested that the last general election delivered 1% of seats for 14% of the vote. But since reform gained traction, he's even topping the polls, he's fallen pretty silent. And his fellow reform spokesperson Zia Yusuf said at a spectator event, to quote, I think if proportional representation was ever instituted in this country, we will end up in a state of gridlock. What

changed? Could it be that they might become winners of this broken system? Mark, Andy Burner, was among the Labour politicians criticising Stama for ditching electoral reform. Now he's set, most likely, to replace Kea Stama as Prime Minister. But can we really trust any leader

to follow through once they're in power? I think we can. I understand why often they don't. I mean, if you had a system that effectively gave you disproportionate power, security, representation, that's a very enticing prospects. But I think more sort of charitably, it's a really hard decision to work out what to do

and how to do it. And that I think is the benefit of the National Commission on Electoral Reform. If you go to a politician and say, we think we should change the voting system, the number of very legitimate, reasonable questions that come back is huge. And so what we have done with the National Commission on Electoral Reform proposal is come up with a mechanism that answers those hard questions, that materially changes the question that you're asking the politicians, because you're no longer going to them with this sort of saggy monster of a question. An MP being asked to endorse the change now is in a very different place to the place they would be after a National Commission had done its thing. It does feel like change is in the air with or without those in power.

First, past the post, as we've spoken about, has historically favoured Conservatives and Labour. And yet, in 2024, more voters than ever voted for parties that were neither of the two. When reform, Greens and the Lib Dems broke through the local elections in May this year, we were bombarded with headlines describing Britain for the first time as a five-party state. Why do you think this is happening now? I mean, it's kind of how much worse does it have to get before we try changing something about our system? In terms of fragmentation, I mean, it's five-party politics in England. And then, of course, we've got Wales being run by Plyde, SMP running Scotland.

So, you know, you can argue it's more like seven-party politics. People are speaking and the system isn't responding. Something has to change, for sure. The share of the electorate turning up to vote is falling. It fell from 67% in 2019 to 59.7% in 2024. That's millions fewer people who turned out to vote, despite the electorate having actually grown in size. And meanwhile, I think we all have a sense of seeing anger and frustration

visibly building up on our streets. People are starting to feel unsafe. And a lot of people are choosing to express their political will at protests instead of the polling booth. Parliament may have little choice, but to change the system from within or watch it be destroyed from without. System collapse, I don't think would be fun for anyone. And yet, there is an attempt building momentum to force the system to change from within. It's culminating in Parliament next week, but is it enough to save democracy?

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Welcome back to Media Storm. So far, we've established it's time for change. Now, let's work out how. Next week, the government's landmark electoral reform bill is going through Parliament for a third reading, the representation of the People Bill. The bill contains several important proposals, to change the electoral system. Mark, what positive changes does it bring in?

It brings in a number of things. One of the main things, from my view, is the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. Young people in this country have got most interest in what happens to the future of this country because they're going to be spending the most time in it. Also, we live in a world where 16 and 17-year-olds are massively better informed

than I was when I was that age. And I think it makes sense for those people to have a say in what the future of this country should look like. This bill was heralded as the biggest opportunity to give our democracy a renewal for a generation. And despite some of those positive things, the single biggest thing that the government could do to make our democracy work fairly,

everyone is look at the voting system. And unfortunately, they failed to include that in the bill. And I would say as a result of that, it fails to meet the billing that they gave it. I think that's a fatal failure in that respect. Now, when planning this episode with Open Britain, we were expecting the bill to come in the autumn. And that created a sort of hopeful opportunity for a new Labour leader, Andy Burnham, to influence it. He appears to be more ambitious than Stama when it comes to electoral reform. And then we learned last week that the final common stage would in fact be happening in a few days, the 14th of July, this coming Tuesday.

Mark, this was a bit of a blow to open Britain. Was that timing unfortunate or intentional? Well, I would say it's impossible to know for sure. One thing I do know is that when there is likely to be a material, change at the top of government. Clever people in the parties themselves and in the civil service look at the legislation that's sort of in the pipe already that's in flight and they ask themselves some very fundamental questions about it. Is this something which is going to just be accepted exactly as is by the new administration or is this something which the new administration

may want to do some very significant tweaking to? And I think anyone who has paid attention to what Andy Burnham has said for, you know, the last three or four years even, we'll know that there are some very fundamental things in this bill that his government would want to change. The timing doesn't just ice out Andy Burnham. Presumably, Sean, it hasn't left a whole lot of time for consultation with the sector. Yeah, it's kind of frustrating because there are some things

in the representation of the People's Bill that are really, really urgent. The government announced some fairly ambitious and extremely welcome changes to vote for registration about modernising the system because, you know, actually at the last election, there were about seven or eight million people, according to the Electoral Commission, who weren't even registered to vote in our country. There's that on one side. And if the government is moving more quickly in order to make those changes and deliver the voter registration improvements before the next election, then that actually is a good thing. We don't know whether that's actually the answer. I do have slightly mixed feelings, even though we're not as happy with it as we might

be, this is still going to be the most consequential change to the way elections work in our country and the best modernisation we've had possibly in decades. And, you know, that is something we've really needed for some time. Open Britain's briefing called the bill a massive missed opportunity by the media. And it's true. We went searching for media coverage and it's broadly absent. from headlines. The latest BBC articles that mention changing the voting system are from May this year, two months ago. There have been a couple of opinion pieces in prospects, The Guardian, The Observer, but it's hardly a hot media topic. Even the Guardian who have taken an editorial stance that first past the post should be replaced. Do not prioritise coverage

in their editorial agenda. Mark, why do you think this is? Because it's a very difficult subject to express in terms that ordinary people can immediately see the relevance of. I'm old enough to remember a very famous advert on TV where a group of young people were saying, oh, God, I don't do politics, don't talk to me about politics. But then they went to the pub and they went to the bar and the price of beer had gone up. And the guy said, oh my God, the price of beer has gone up. And his friend said, yeah, that was the chancellor, put some extra tax on it. So, you know, that's politics. And then a guy said, I have to leave early because the late bus doesn't run anymore. He said, oh, you know, that's politics too.

And the point they were making was actually politics is the thing that infuses every single aspect of your life that you care about. But it's just really difficult to make that connection. So we have a problem in the sector and in society in making people understand just how impactful this thing is on the things that they care about. That's one of the sort of missions that Open Britain is wrestling with right now, trying to find ways of translating this very complex topic in terms that ordinary people find accessible. Now, we've talked a lot about electoral reform, but there is one other big issue that your

coalition of pro-democracy groups was hoping this bill would address, and that was money in politics. We touched on this here at Media Storm with our season opener about foreign interference and dark money. Under current rules, There is no cap on how much an individual in the UK can donate to a political party. Sean, why is this a problem? Well, just going back to your last point about the media not paying attention. Well, actually, the media do pay attention when, you know, millions of pounds are funneled into British politics from companies or very rich individuals. I mean, that that is something that the media picks up on nearly all the time.

And the voters hate it. You know, what they also hate is when they see a politician come on to their television and say, oh, you know, the people that just gave me all this money, they're not asking for anything in return because nobody, nobody believes that. You're not thinking of anyone specific here, though, though, are you? Okay, let's address the elephant in the room. Reform UK's Nigel Farage has resigned after facing a lot of questions over a lot of money given to him before his election. In early 2024, this was by a billionaire reform UK donor. It had not been declared. But it's not just

this tie-based cryptocurrency billionaire Charles Harbon. On Sunday, the Sunday Times newspaper also reported that Farage had received a huge amount of money that he had not declared from someone called Post George, nicknamed Post George, who is a convicted money launderer. Now, I think there's a big question here, which is how money is allocated in our political system? because some politicians, some parties, some ideologies attract far more political donations than others. The heat has been on Nigel Farage. Nigel Farage will tell us that that's because the media hates him,

the establishments hates him, and he's a martyr. But the reality is he has been given huge heaps money more than any other political party as leader of Reform UK. And this isn't a massive grassroots mandate, This is a small number of incredibly wealthy people who are funneling their money towards the UK's most viable far-right party. So is it more of a problem on the right than on the left, and specifically, I suppose, on the far right? You are non-partisan organisations, but we cannot deny that reform seems to have by far the biggest share of super-rich backers. Why is this? Why does the super-rich seem to...

like the right so much? Or am I just getting this wrong? Your numbers are right. I mean, and we are often accused of not being non-partisan because we constantly refer to Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, but that is because they represent the strongest illustration of the things that we're concerned about. If I take a slight step back and just explain why money in politics is such a huge problem. Our new campaign, bigger than politics, rests on the thesis that there are four things that we need to get right in order for democracy

to work for ordinary people. We need to have fair information, fair influence, fair votes and fair play. Fair information is all about having access to reliable information that is not misleading, it's not disinformation, it's not propaganda, so that people can consider it and make their democratic,

decisions based on a firm, reliable foundation. Fair influence is all about that point I was talking about earlier, that when the will of the people has been expressed, that is the thing that the government really ought to be focused on. How is it that we take the country in the direction that has been defined by the will of the people? But all too often, there will be powerful lobby groups or very, very rich individuals, able to pay, you know, 30,000 pounds for a seat at a, around a table at a private dinner and they can put their message into the minister's ear or into the powerbroker's ears. And so the will of the people is usurped in that basis. And of course, fair play is what we're seeing playing out with the Farage thing.

Regulators following rules that may have loopholes in them. They haven't got the resources to pursue the thing. So fair information, fair influence, fair votes and fair play are all things. That if you can get a grip on that, on those things, you can control the destiny of this country. And if you've got money, then you can control that, and then you can control it in a way that is beneficial to you and the kind of viewpoints that you have. So that is why big money in politics is a problem. And it's a particular problem if that big money is coming from people who aren't actually in this country, who don't have a vested interest in the success of this country. And I think people are starting to see that, although not with crystal clarity.

And the last point you made, Matilda, why does this seemingly happen at the right of the spectrum and not the left? It's just a factor of where these people come from and what their networks are. But the left is not without its problems. There have been some very rich individuals who've made some very significant donations to parties on the left. So finally, let's talk actions. What can ordinary people, like our Media Storm listeners, right here, right now, do to help create electoral change or get involved. Sean, let's start with you.

Well, look, one of the things we hear from the politicians from all parties is when we try and talk about, you know, democratic reforms like electoral reform or getting big money at a politics, what they'll say is, oh, that's not what the people are telling me. That's not what people in my area care about right now. They care about waiting lists. They care about cost of living. And of course, you know, they do care about those things. perhaps a lot of the reason why we're not getting the progress in those areas is because of our

political system and it's because of the problems in our systems. So, I mean, I'd really urge people to get onto their MPs and say, look, you know, it's in your hands now. You know, let's just look at that thing about donation caps in the United Kingdom. There's amendments down to the representation of the People's Bill next week that would actually introduce a donation cap into British politics for the first time that would outlaw big money donations. It is wildly popular with the general public, but will MPs vote for it? Will they potentially go against their party whip and vote for it? And that's, I think, where we need to get onto our MPs.

And, Mark, what can media storms listeners do to get on board with your movement for electoral reform? Well, I mean, if I had a magic wand, I'd ask everybody listening to do three things. I think the first is to understand that the decisions that are made inside Parliament have a direct impact on your life. The second thing is, I think I'd ask them to understand that real democratic power in this country lies with us. It's the people who have democratic power. We lend it to politicians for, you know, four or five years at a time, but it's ours. And as Sean says, the number of times we speak to politicians, and they say, yeah, you say that, but no one ever raises that with me in the street or when I go to an open a fate or whatever. Change that. Make sure that they realize that you not only think it, but that you're expressing it. And you can do that in all sorts of ways. There are all sorts of tools that you can use to speak to your MP and make those views known. And the third and final thing is just the usual call.

Open Britain has got a newsletter. We've got members. We've got supporters. We keep them informed. we give them things to do. We allow them to add their weight and their voice to do their bit in our movement. Just go to bigger than politics.com and sign up.

Sean's organisation does great work. Have a look at what they're doing. There are others as well. But get involved, take an interest and do your bit. Mark and Sean, thank you so much for joining us on MediaStorm. Thank you for listening. If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee

a month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout-outs to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. And if you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast. So please do tell your friends. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helen Awadier and follow the show at MediaStorm pod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Malinson. The music is by Samfire.