How well do you understand the electoral system for the
Scottish Parliament? Probably not that well. This has become important because
All for Unity has been criticised for splitting the Pro UK vote leading to
fewer Pro UK MSPs being elected.
The most important point to make is that the Pro UK vote is already split. Scottish Labour, the Lib Dems and Conservatives stand against each other and do not cooperate in any way. This has frequently led to the SNP winning a seat which either the Lib Dems, the Conservatives or Labour might have won if only all Pro UK votes had gone to the Pro UK candidate most likely to win.
The Scottish Parliament election involves each of us
having two votes. The first vote is for one of the 73 constituencies which use
the First Past the Post system like in Westminster. There are in addition 8
regions which elect 7 MSPs. These are the list MSPs and they are elected using
a proportional representation system called the Additional Member System.
All for Unity will not stand in the 73 constituencies.
So, there is no question of the vote being split any more than it already is.
Rather All for Unity is encouraging voters to vote for the Pro UK party that
has the best chance of winning.
The allocation of the list seats uses the D’Hondt
Method. The crucial thing to realise is that the number of list seats a party
gets depends on the number of constituency seats it gets. The more consistency
seats the fewer list seats.
To illustrate here is an imaginary region with 9 constituency
seats. The SNP win all of them. The voting is as follows
SNP: 150,000
Labour: 80,000
Conservatives: 70,000
All for Unity: 50,000
Liberal Democrats: 30,000
Green: 20,000
The SNP having won 9 constituency seats has its vote divided
by 9 plus 1 = 10. The other parties are divided by 1. (The 1 is necessary to
stop you dividing by zero, which would give an infinite number of seats.)
This gives the result
Labour: 80,000
Conservatives: 70,000
All for Unity: 50,000
Liberal Democrats: 30,000
Green: 20,000
SNP: 15,000 (15,000 divided by 10)
Labour has won 1 list seat in this region and in the
next round of calculations it’s vote will be divided by 1 + 1 = 2.
This gets
Conservatives: 70,000
All for Unity: 50,000
Labour: 40,000 (80,000 divided by 2)
Liberal Democrats: 30,000
Green: 20,000
SNP: 15,000
The Conservatives get a seat, which will see their
number of votes divided in two also. This process goes on 7 times until all the
seats are allocated.
All for Unity has an advantage because it is not
standing in the constituency seats and therefore cannot win one. If either of
the Conservatives, Labour or the Lib Dems actually win a constituency seat,
they will do less well in the list. If Labour won one seat it’s vote would be
divided by three (1 constituency, + 1 list, plus 1 to stop ∞ = 3), if it won
two seats it would be divided by four.
It is for this reason that it is advantageous to have
a Pro UK party that only stands in the list.
It is impossible to know for sure what will happen with
the list seats. It depends on how many constituencies Labour the Lib Dems and
the Conservatives win.
It is likely that All for Unity will take away votes
from the other Pro UK parties in the list seats. But there is no reason to
suppose that this transfer of votes will lead to fewer Pro UK MSPs overall. It will depend on how many seats the Greens
and other nationalist list parties win, and it will also depend on who wins which
constituencies.
Naturally Labour, the Lib Dems and Conservatives are
worried that they will lose list seats to All for Unity, but there is no reason
to suppose that the overall number of Pro UK seats will fall because of All for
Unity and there are good reasons for hoping that the presence of All for Unity
on the list will lead to more Pro UK MSPs. But in the end, it will depend on
the voters. D’Hondt is designed to reflect the proportion of the votes given to
each party. It should still do this whether or not All for Unity takes part in
the election.
The more people who vote tactically for whichever Pro
UK party has the best chance in a constituency, will make it more likely that one
of those parties beats the SNP in a constituency. But if that happens it will
be beneficial that All for Unity is standing in the list seats, because the
arithmetic of the D’Hondt Method benefits parties in the list seats who didn’t
win any of the constituencies.
It is intriguing that after being ignored for most of
the past year certain commentators have decided on a rather regular basis to
attack All for Unity. This all rather resembles a squabble between the Scottish
People’s Front and the People’s Front of Scotland. It’s all very well accusing
All for Unity of being splitters, when Labour, the Lib Dems and Conservatives have
been splitting the Pro UK vote for years.
I don’t know what is going to happen in the election.
No one does. A few votes either way could lead to the Conservatives
unexpectedly winning a constituency, which might make it advantageous for the
Pro UK cause that All for Unity is standing in the list.
What I do know is that I became involved with All for Unity because I was dissatisfied by the performance of the Pro UK parties in Scotland. Labour and the Lib Dems backed Humza Yousaf’s hate crime bill and abstained in the vote of no confidence against Nicola Sturgeon. If All for Unity were able to take some seats away from them it would be well deserved. The Conservatives too could do with a kick up the backside. I would be delighted if All for Unity could split the cheeks of Willie Rennie, Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross, they might be just that little bit less likely to take for granted the votes of Pro UK Scots.
