Coalition: Yes or no?

Liberal Democrats quite like to be in government. We like to think that we can make a difference. So when the larger parties find themselves without an overall majority, we - as individuals - are courted.

This article deals with two aspects of the decision to go into coalition - political legitimacy and our party's mandate to govern.

Liberal Democrats do not support the current unequal voting system. Put simply, we want every vote to be valued equally. We want the number of elected representatives to correspond to the number of people who voted for each party. So, if a party overall gets 10% of the vote, we believe that they should have 10% of the representatives.

When this doesn't happen - which is nearly all of the time - the main question to ask is whether we make our decisions based on the numbers of representatives, or based on our vote share. For example, if we have 10% of the vote but only 2% of the representatives, do we say our mandate reflects our 10% or our 2%?

The clearest example was the coalition government of 2010-2015: the Conservatives had (approx.) 35% of the national vote, the Lib Dems 23%, but our positions in government were allocated based on our number of MPs - a far worse deal.

We don't need to accept the implications of the existing voting systems. The first way to change thinking is to negotiate on the basis of our vote share not our usually paltry number of representatives.

My second point is the legitimacy of an administration when no party has an overall majority. Legitimacy is not automatically given to an administration that has 50% of the representatives. A government is legitimate when it governs in the name of more than 50% of the people who have voted.

In conclusion, Liberal Democrats should ask two questions when considering whether to go into coalition. First, will the proposed coalition involve parties that between them have won more than 50% of the vote? If the answer is yes, the second question is: will we as Liberal Democrats receive the positions and portfolios that reflect our vote share (as opposed to our elected representative share) in relation to our other coalition partners? If the answer to this is also yes, then we should enter coalition.

* William Hobhouse is on the board of Liberal Reform and is co-founder of the Lib Dem Campaign for Manufacturing.