The resignation of former Prime Minister Johnson as an MP will cause a number of by-elections.

Whilst one looks a likely ‘hold’ for the Conservatives, the others look very much like a three-way tussle where Labour and Liberal Democrats may accumulate significantly more votes in total but in splitting the vote will allow a Conservative to be elected.

To avoid this outcome both the Liberal Democrats and Labour must resort to appealing to voters to vote for them whilst not supporting them. So called ‘tactical voting’.

It seems likely at the next General Election that tactical voting will play an even bigger role in choosing the Government of this country. Many millions of voters will be encouraged to ‘hold their noses’ and vote for candidates that may not be their preferred choice so as to eject a candidate that is even less palatable to them. This is no way to run a democracy.

We have known for a long time that the British ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system is one of the least democratic ways of deciding on a Government. Not only does it allow for a political party with no clear over-all support to form an ‘elected dictatorship’ it degrades the political debate. Under first-past-the-post it is the votes of a few thousand of the electorate in so-called marginal seats that matter. So the political debate becomes narrower, new ideas are not explored and expounded. That inability to discuss the new, let alone adopt it, holds back our country.

It is also bad for political parties. One only has to look at the current in-fighting in the Conservative Party, and that formerly in the Labour Party, to see that two different forms of conservatism (shall we say ‘One Nation Tories’ and ‘Eurosceptics’) or two different forms of socialism (shall we say ‘New Labour’ and ‘Momentum’) would make sense. A broader range of political groupings would give the electorate greater choice and I believe lead to better government. Not least because the need to be civil to, and compromise with, each other would become a pre-requisite rather than a distant memory.

I have a personal stake in the need for electoral reform. I have been chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the Central Devon constituency. A significant portion of my time will need to be devoted to making the case for tactical voting. Of course, I hope that Labour and Green Party voters, and indeed unhappy Conservatives, will vote for me, but I’d really prefer it was because they agreed with me rather than that I was, from their perspective, the least bad option.

Mark Wooding

Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Central Devon

Nymet Rowland

Crediton