Saturday, December 21, 2019

If the UK had MMP...2019 Election


I came up with these seat allocations based on the following:

- English parties get seats proportional to their percentage vote
- English parties have to get 5% or one seat to be counted
- Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parties get their actual seats, I didn't spend the effort to figure out how much weight to give their vote share in a devolved proportional situation

Party Percentage Seats
Conservative 43.6% 283
Labour 32.1% 209
Liberal Democrats 11.6% 75
SNP 3.9% 48
Green 2.7% 17
DUP 0.8% 5
Sinn Fein 0.6% 4
Plaid Cymru 0.5% 3
Alliance 0.4% 3
SDLP 0.4% 3

Based on this:

- Conservative has the most seats but needs a coalition partner with at least 44 seats to govern. Must include at least one of Lib Dems or SNP
- Labour needs coalition partners with total 120 seats. Must include both Lib Dems and SNP

To me it seems doubtful the Conservatives could reach agreement with either the Lib Dems or SNP given their opposition to Brexit and a Labour led coalition government would look more likely.