[Marxism] Proportional Representation in Irish History

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[How the change from Proportional Representation to Winner-Take-All
stabilized Northern Ireland]

"The main problem for the Northern Ireland government was the large
(30%) Nationalist minority in the state. 25 local councils were
Nationalist controlled when the state was formed and, in fact, Tyrone
and Fermanagh councils were dissolved when they declared that they
would be answerable to the Dublin Parliament and not the Northern
Ireland Parliament.

"The government decided to stabilise the province by increasing
Unionist control of councils.

"So they abolished Proportional Representation and replaced it with a
'First past the post'* electoral system. They also strategically redrew
constituency boundaries to ensure that Nationalists were at a
disadvantage ('gerrymandering'). Also, richer people were given more
votes, depending on how much land they owned. All these measures
ensured that the number of Unionist MPs dramatically increased in the
first few years of Northern Ireland's history, and the level of
political upheaval was dramatically reduced."

http://members.fortunecity.com/irish_history_and_more/past/history/
19211925.html
_______________

And my point, you may ask? Under Proportional Representation, were the
voters in Northern Ireland to vote according to their nationalist
(i.e., Irish) aspirations, they would always have had a roughly fair or
proportional representation in the government. This large a minority
would have been a destabilizing ideological threat, reflecting the
legitimacy of the grievances of the Catholic minority. When the
government changed it to district voting for a single individual under
FPTP* or Winner-Take-All, and that is combined with gerrymandering, the
30% above can be almost entirely wiped out.

But there was an even greater threat. If the Nationalists had a Left
social program that could appeal to some of the Unionist supporters,
the 30% could be increased, perhaps to a majority.

Brian Shannon

*The term "First past the post" apparently comes from horse racing. The
winner is the one who gets there first, no matter how well the others
do. A better expression is "Winner Take All," but FPTP has become a
word of art.

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