The Brexit Party - I'm Guessing Proportional Representation Will Be Part Of The Plan

I'm currently listening to Nigel Farage speak live in Watford at the Brexit Party rally. I say live it's from last night, but you get the meaning. He's in rousing form. He was preceded by Richard Tice who ran through some of the Brexit Party policies. They're on the front foot with a lot of this stuff. So I think they'll be in good shape going into any election. They're running quite a tight and tidy ship.

Richard Tice did allude to proportional representation in his run-through though. This is the one major policy issue I have big reservations about. Personally I'm against it for many reasons. I go through some of those here;

https://freckledmonkey.blogspot.com/2019/05/will-brexit-party-be-harbinger-of-pr.html

However, I also think it's a bit of a faux pas electorally too. Why complicate things with what would be a divisive issue. Last time we had a referendum to change the system to the alternative vote it lost pretty heftily. There are so many other big issues, even aside from Brexit. Plus there are larger voting reform issues to fix first. For a start both the postal voting issue and the House of Lords (Richard Tice mentioned both of these, so they will definitely be on the agenda). Almost everyone agrees the House of Lords needs reform so it's not going to be a vote-loser. Postal voting could be controversial, but it needs reforming, and it's easy to explain to people how open the system is to voter fraud. So both of those are sensible policies to pursue. Why then throw PR into the mix?

Also, with our current system the problem is that it favours the two party system. However, I would speculate that a major reason for this is the media. Traditionally people have received most of their information about politics from the mainstream media, and the media have a tendency to present things as a binary selection. As a Pepsi vs Coke choice. Partly because television as a format naturally favours good vs bad battles and confrontations, and partly of course because the people who have power also tend to have a big investment and control of the media. So it favours the status quo to exclude outsiders and deny them such a powerful platform.

With the rise of social media though that is all breaking down, and parties and individuals now have ways of matching the mainstream when it comes to reaching an audience. This may partly be why we're seeing the two party system already begin to break down now. So again, why rush to ditch the political system when it might finally be beginning to work in our favour. PR potentially could end up being a lifeline to existing parties that are on the way down.

It's probably all a bit of a moot point anyway though, as if the Tories are the main party with a Brexit Party side cart, then they'll probably kick it out the park. So once again, why complicate things by promising it as a policy only to ditch it out of necessity in reality.