Lib Dems on Kingston Council call for Proportional Representation

Liberal Democrats in Kingston passed a motion at last night's Full Council meeting calling for the Government to implement Proportional Representation (PR) for Local Elections in England.

Nationally, the Lib Dems believe that voters deserve a fairer voting system, and dspite winning a majority under First Past The Post (FPTP) earlier this year, all Lib Dem Councillors backed the motion to bring a fairer voting system to our Borough in both local and national elections.

The motion, proposed by Cllr Liz Green and seconded by Cllr Andreas Kirsch, was based on the ‘Councils for PR’ motion, calling for PR in Parliamentary Elections, but added that we also need it for Local Elections in England, as they already have in Scotland, Northern Ireland and an option to adopt in Wales. 

Lib Dem Leader of Kingston Council, Cllr Andreas Kirsch, said, “Earlier this year, Lib Dems won 44 out of the 48 Council seats here in Kingston, or 92%. Whilst we are delighted that so many residents voted for our positive messages at the election, we also remember that many voted for other parties and they deserve representation on the council too. We have no Labour or Green Party Councillors, despite around a fifth of residents voting for their candidates.”

Cllr Liz Green, who proposed this motion, added, “Frequently, Lib Dems are accused of only wanting PR as they cannot win under First Past The Post. So we want to be clear that even here in Kingston, where we win under the current system, we still believe in fairer voting and a more representative democracy.”

The motion also calls for a meeting to be set up so that all political parties that stand in Kingston council election can have a say on where we take this next and how we lobby the Government.

To see the full text of the motion click here.