Wednesday 24 March 2021

Why we need All for Unity

 

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.