After 13 years of Conservative dominance, the need is greater than ever for progressive parties to win power and build a politics that works in the interest of the common good. Our public realm has been hollowed out, our wages are stagnating and life expectancy has stalled. To combat this downward slide and deal with these monumental challenges, we need a politics that disperses power to the whole country and encourages constructive challenge and sensible cooperation.
But such a politics just isn’t possible under First Past the Post. Our voting system forces us to endure the tyranny of the minority by handing all the power to parties who win. Too often the victors are the Conservatives, who snatch victory from divided progressives by sheer virtue of their unity.
Across the country, particularly at local government level, activists and politicians are already working together to create the alliances that will help us challenge this Tory hegemony and build a better, more representative politics.
In Democracy Denied, we explore our new research that reveals a huge democratic deficit at the heart of Tory-run councils across the country. The report explains why our political system creates such unrepresentative outcomes and explores what we can do to help progressives win.