London mayoral election to be changed to First Past the Post system under Government plans

London mayor Sadiq Khan
PA

A row erupted today after Priti Patel announced plans to change the way the Mayor of London is elected.

She announced moves to dump the “supplementary vote” system used since 2000 and adopt a simple “first past the post” (FPP) contest from 2024 onwards.

There has been no announcement of changing the much more complicated system used to elect members of the London Assembly, perhaps because switching that to FPP would benefit Labour.

Mr Patel said FPP, which is used for electing MPs, would give “strong and clear local accountability” to mayoral contests and would honour a Conservative manifesto commitment to drop more complex election methods.

But a spokesperson for Sadiq Khan said the mayoral system was “fairer” and he demanded called a referendum before any changes.

Green Party peer Jenny Jones, a former mayoral candidate, called the proposals “a terrible idea”.

Tony Travers, professor in government at London School of Economics, said FPP would remove the pressure on the two major party candidates for mayor to build alliances with smaller parties. “The system was certainly intended to build alliances when it was chosen,” he said.

The voting system awards seats to whoever has the highest vote count and does not take preferences into account.

At present, voters can pick a first and a second preference for Mayor.  The candidates with least votes are knocked out and their second preferences allocated to the others, until someone gets a clear majority of votes.  The system encourages turnout for small parties and fringe candidates.

The planned changes will need to be confirmed through Government legislation and will not be in place before the upcoming local elections on May 6.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson included in his 2019 election manifesto a pledge to further roll out the voting system, which is used for General Elections, at a local level.

The London Mayor was created in 2000 following a referendum 1998. The type of voting system to elect the mayor was not on the referendum paper.

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