Speaker 1Welcome back, one and all, to the James Kennedy podcast. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whatever time it is there, I hope you're awesome. I hope you've been enjoying all of the episodes so far. And don't forget, if there's anyone you would like me to have a chat with, let me know. Put it in the comments, send me a tweet, send me a message, and we'll try and make it happen. That's happened with a few of the guests that have been on. People have recommended them, and I've just gone and got them somehow. But I hope you remember that a few episodes ago, we had the awesome Anthony Slaughter on, leader of the Welsh Green Party. And as well as blowing all of our minds and talking punk rock, he mentioned during the chat a group called Make Votes Matter when I was asking him about proportional representation. I then immediately went and started nagging those guys for somebody to come and speak with me about proportional representation and what those guys are up to. And luckily, the very kind Mr. Owen Winter from Make Votes Matter has come on to date to give us his time and explain what they're up to, what proportional representation is, and how our current system is flawed. Now, many people listening around the world will already probably live under a proportional representation or voting system. Us in the UK have what's called a first-past-the-post system, and it is a major hindrance to any other political party having the faintest sniff or chance in hell of getting enough power in Parliament to actually have any influence. I'm a member of the Green Party, and this is so frustrating for us because, you know, I'm a member of the Green Party, and I'm a member of the Green Party, basically no matter who you vote for in this country you're going to get the conservatives or you're going to get labor because of the way the voting system has been set up and i think it's intentional but it leads to massive voter apathy people just not bothering to vote in the first place because there's no point and that was that was me for many years i just didn't vote for like you know over 10 years i just thought what's the point you know i hate both the major parties but no one else has got a chance in hell of ever getting in but then the problem is by not voting at all you're still inadvertently giving the main two parties what they want which is a continued monopoly on houses of parliament and another thing that i suffered with for a long time was this feeling of well they're all the same so there's no point and again that's that's more a reflection of our voting system because they're not all the same you know there's ukip who i hate by the way just saying uh the green party there's independence there's lots of choice but because of the way the voting system is set up none of them are ever going to get a realistic chance of affecting any kind of influence over power or even you know winning and becoming the majority party it's just not going to happen it's it's literally impossible but that doesn't mean that the choice isn't there there's tons of choice every possible perspective or interest or ideology is represented in a political party somewhere which is which is great that's the way it should be in a healthy so-called functioning democracy and luckily there is a trident tested alternative to the first past the post system which is utilized in many countries around the world very effectively and it's called proportional representation so i'm really keen to speak to owen today find out why our current system doesn't work how proportional representation works and how we can get this thing happening so from the make votes matter campaign mr owen winter thanks so much for your time thanks for joining us on the podcast today how you doing good
Speaker 2thanks thanks for having me
Speaker 1oh thanks for being with us man i mean i know it's a crazy busy time for the campaign right now with the local elections and everything happening um so really appreciate it i suppose it would be a good place to start to explain to the listeners like who you guys are and what you guys do at make votes matter
Speaker 2right yeah so make votes matter is the single issue campaign for proportional representation in the house of commons uh we're a totally cross party and no organization uh we were founded uh in 2015 2016 um and yeah we've been kind of working across the political spectrum um to get people on board with changing the voting system and we've also been kind of setting up grassroots action where people can get involved and you know like campaign themselves to change the voting
Speaker 1system that's awesome i suppose then we should probably start by establishing at the outset what it is about the voting system and what it's about the voting system but our current system that what how how does it work and why doesn't
Speaker 2it work yeah so the current system is i think deceptively simple um so at the moment we have first past the post uh which means that the country is divided into um areas called constituencies so in the uk we have 650 constituencies and each one elects a single mp and to be elected as an mp in a constituency you just need a plurality of votes you need one more vote than your nearest competitor uh so yeah that sounds simple but actually it has a really kind of distorting effect on our politics and that's basically because um to win like i said all you need is one more vote than the person who came second so you don't need a majority in your constituency um and basically all of those votes for other candidates um don't really go anywhere they essentially get wasted uh so a lot of mps um most of the time mps are elected on a minority of the vote they get kind of uh 35 40 45 percent of the vote and most people didn't vote to elect them but then on the flip side of that there's a problem in areas where mps get um a lot of votes for one party so uh kind of happens in london or liverpool for labor and maybe like more rural areas where one candidate has this huge mass of votes they get like 70 or 80 percent of the votes uh but that means that essentially the seat never changes hands um no one other than that party will ever win it and in that case most of those votes don't really make much difference to the result either so all of our politics is focused on what people call marginal seats and these are constituencies where the election is fairly close and they might change hands at a general election so maybe labor and the conservatives are fairly even in an area you'll suddenly get like politicians descending on that constituency campaign uh they'll likely get loads of resources uh people who live there will get dozens and dozens of leaflets through their door uh and essentially all of politics is about winning over the voters in marginal constituencies so make worse matters whole message is we want an electoral system where every vote can be won by the vote of the voters and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do and that's what we're trying to do no matter where you live or who you vote for um and we think proportional representation is the way to achieve that
Speaker 1yeah it ends up in a very bizarre situation doesn't it where most of the people in a constituency didn't vote for the person that wins yeah and that just seems like such a backwards way of doing things to me i mean how do we get to that step how did how did uh how did the system come to be set up
Speaker 2like that yeah so britain i mean first past the post is relatively uh we've only used it for all constituencies since the 1950s i think uh but it really came to be popular or it was instituted around the country in 1918 um so it kind of grew out of a history of um constituency representation which wasn't democratic so before everyone had the vote um representation in the house of commons was more to do with who were the kind of stakeholders uh quote unquote in an area so it might be that in one area the local um lord or whatever uh you know the landowner um sends off someone he likes to parliament to represent that area um and as politics developed to become more democratic more and more people got the vote so they could go and elect mps but we didn't move away from the system where it was land that was the kind of basis of elections so that's why we've got geographic constituencies um and we're fairly unusual as a country to have that as a system um the vast majority of countries use other forms of system um but we did manage to kind of export it to uh different countries around the world through empire so canada uses um first past the post system the u.s uses first past the post yeah
Speaker 1well that was one of the things i was going to ask actually um is which other countries use this crazy backwards system but i suppose it would make sense that it is the uh the anglicized kind of former colonial territories um i gotta admit the u.s system has always confused the hell out of me i haven't got a clue what's happening there but essentially what you're saying is is that it's a it's a first past the post system as
Speaker 2well yeah it's a hangover of the same idea that um geography is the important part of politics not people um which obviously i think is completely wrong of course
Speaker 1yeah and and i think for me personally i know you know many people will relate to this the system that we've got the way that the outcome is always pretty much going to be the same uh leads to a sense of apathy like why should i even bother voting because the system's rigged in such a way that it's always going to be one of the two major parties anyway um even if most of the people in that area didn't vote for them so what's the point you know so which which i think is quite a corrosive attitude to have in a democracy because then it you know it becomes even less of a democracy if people don't even bother to participate
Speaker 2yeah absolutely i do think it's Joseph. We've seen that in a few different ways recently in Britain. I mean, one of the most striking probably is in Scotland. It used to be that Labour had all these safe seats, supposedly safe seats in Scotland, where they would rack up thousands and thousands and thousands of votes. And over time, the kind of leadership was ignoring Scotland because they had to focus on winning marginal seats for mostly in England. And I think that's kind of fed into the rise of Scottish nationalism. And eventually Labour lost all those seats because they kind of neglected that area. And I think as well with the EU referendum, a lot of people felt really disconnected from their MPs. So when their MP said, go out and vote, remain, they kind of said, well, you know, why should we listen to you? You don't listen to us. And over time, there's a real sense of dissatisfaction with politics, dissatisfaction with democracy that, as you say, undermines the entire system.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it's great that there are people such as Make Votes Matter who are highlighting this and also campaigning for it to be changed. So for those people then who are completely unfamiliar with how proportional representation or PR actually works and what it is, would you be able to give a kind of brief kind of basic introductionary explanation as to how proportional representation actually works? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great Yeah, so it is
Speaker 2a bit of a mouthful, proportional representation, but the name kind of describes it. We believe that people should be represented in proportion to how they vote. So if 10% of people vote for a party, a political party, we think that party should get 10% of seats in parliament or close to that. So really, it's about making seats in parliament match how the people have voted. So I think that's a great question. I think that's a great I think that's a great question. And we actually use them as well in the UK. So Scotland and Wales both use PR systems to elect their national parliaments. London uses a PR system to elect its regional assembly. So it's not like first past the post is the only thing out there. First past the post is an outlier and PR systems are really effective wherever they're used.
Speaker 1That's really interesting. And to me, it makes total sense. I mean, it seems pretty obvious almost to me that in a truly functioning democracy, that the interests of the people should be represented proportionally within parliament. Surely that's the whole point. But I'm guessing there's resistance to this idea. And I have my own guesses as to where that may come from. But where does the resistance come from to this in your experience?
Speaker 2Yeah, so. I think you're right. For a lot of people, that does just seem obvious. And it's actually, I've met a surprising number of people who think we already have a system like that. I mean, it's so kind of obvious that, yeah, you would, if you didn't know about first past the post, you would just assume that votes are matched in parliament, because that's what democracy should be like. Probably the most resistance to it is from people who are already elected under the current system. And I think that's the whole point.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 2So the Conservatives historically have been the biggest advocate of first past the post. Although I should say we have lots of Conservative members of the Make Votes Matter Alliance. And also historically, some people in Labour have been in favour of first past the post, although that is changing quite quickly. In terms of public opinion, polls show that the vast majority or. At least a large plurality of people would support changing the voting system. Typically, typically around half of the people say they want to change it. And then maybe a third say they don't know. And then the last little bit is people who like the current system. But yeah, definitely most people are on board. It's just unfortunate that the people who least want to change the voting system are also the people who have the power to do it. So that's obviously Make Votes Matter's job.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a bit of a problem with like the lawmakers, because they don't benefit from it being this way. But it can only, we can only change the system through the very machinery that they're in control of. So is it a no-win situation, this? Or are there roots around it?
Speaker 2Well, we believe there are roots around it. So obviously, in the last few years, Make Votes Matter has been campaigning and trying to persuade people. And we've had a lot of successes. So last year's Labour Party conference, for example, 80% of Labour members said that they wanted Labour to back a proportional system. And I think that's feeding through to the MPs. A lot of MPs are now coming out in favour. So on the Labour side, there's a lot of hope. Within the Conservatives, we've also had a few MPs join the campaign recently. I think Derek Thomas in St Ives was the most recent one. So there is kind of, from a democratic values perspective, even if you have like a self-interest in the system, people are waking up to the fact that we could do things much better. And probably the thing that gives me most hope as a campaigner is seeing places around the world that have changed their voting system. The vast majority of times countries change their voting systems, they get more proportional. Very few have gone the other way. And a good example recently is in New Zealand. So New Zealand had a very similar system to ours, which they kind of inherited from after empire. But there was so much kind of dissatisfaction with politics, and people were really angry at the way government was being run essentially in the 1990s, that there was a big grassroots push to change the voting system. And eventually the politicians couldn't ignore that. So they had a referendum, changed the system, and they've been using PR ever since. So I'm hoping that Britain is on a similar path to New Zealand.
Speaker 1That's interesting. So yeah, I was going to ask, are there any examples where this transition has happened? And there's a very recent example right there where a country has actually made that exact shift. That's so interesting that that's happened, and that it was a success as well.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it was a huge success because they kind of said, okay, we'll change it. And then we'll have a referendum down the line to decide whether people like it. And when they had the second referendum, people came out again and said, no, we like our new system. We like the proportionality and things have worked really well. So obviously, if you're looking at kind of COVID statistics, New Zealand had a really, really effective response to the COVID pandemic. It's not obviously solely down to the electoral system, but it shows that you can have really effective government with a PR system. Yeah, that's really interesting, man.
Speaker 1And I'm wondering whether some of that might be to do with the fact that New Zealand is a much more modern country, and Britain being as old as it is, I'm wondering, are there sort of like historic, infrastructural or cultural things to do with the broader way that our politics is exercised in this country that would be a hindrance to PR? So even if we had proportional representation, would there still be limitations on what we could actually achieve politically? Unlike a country that's much younger, like New Zealand, that doesn't have this lengthy, baggage that goes back, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years?
Speaker 2I don't think so. And I think the reason I don't believe it or it is that voters are already kind of so far ahead of politicians. So it might, I mean, politicians have all this package, but voters are much more kind of dynamic. And since at least the kind of 1970s, British voters shop around, they don't just have one party that they're completely wedded to. They don't just like get up and vote for their tribe kind of thing. People look around for different options. So we saw, I mean, in the last few years, the rise of UKIP on one side and the Green Party on the other, the SNP, Brexit, applied in Wales. And, you know, there's a whole range of kind of, it's a very diverse political system at the level of the voters. And it's just Parliament, which isn't kind of keeping up with that. And also, I mean, where it's been used in the UK, like I said earlier, Scotland, Wales, London, it's been shown to be really effective. And voters are actually much more satisfied with their representatives under PR systems where we use them in the UK. So, yeah, I think voters in the UK are already there. They're already, they have this commitment to democracy. They kind of have pluralistic proportional values. And it's just the system that is holding, holding. politicians back from you know keeping up with that yeah
Speaker 1that's a great point it makes a lot of sense um i'm just thinking just a just side digression here what other systems are there around the world are there any other models that are used effectively uh around the world or is pr being proven to be the most effective given what we know about other countries around the world
Speaker 2um i mean there are a few different proposed kind of options i don't know if you people i don't remember it really because it was before i cared about politics but we did have a referendum on the alternative vote it's important to say the alternative vote is not a proportional system but basically it changes first past the post so that every mp has to get a majority of votes which kind of sounds like it would fix the problems but it keeps the problem of the system of the alternative vote in place so that every mp has to get a majority of votes um elections all being decided by geography so any kind of system which is truly going to represent the country has to get rid of single member constituencies because there's no way one person in each constituency um can represent all of the views there so i think av is used in australia and that's about it um there's a few different types of proportional representation used around the world so uh if you go to any country with pr it will likely be a little bit different depending on where you are um so scotland uses a different system to northern ireland for example but they all kind of have the same principle of votes matching seats
Speaker 1what's wrong with um what's wrong with good old fascism yeah i mentioned that yeah well
Speaker 2well the interesting thing is a lot of countries a lot of non-democracies still have elections and they use all kinds of methods to uh cover up the fact that they're not democratic including i mean obviously i'm not comparing britain and north korea but north korea uses the first part of the post for its elections you can't see me but i'm saying elections with air quotes well in that case we'll scratch all that
Speaker 1we'll forget about it we'll just get back to proportional representation so what's going to be needed then to get this over the line what's it going to take to get the powers that be to enact something that's essentially going to disenfranchise
Speaker 2their monopoly yeah well this is uh what make votes matter has been working on uh so there's a few different kind of strands to the campaign uh one is grassroots action so make votes matter has local groups all around the country and there are new ones being set up all the time uh they are just run by ordinary members of the public who care about uh changing the voting system they do really cool stuff like street stalls events uh kind of fun creative actions to get the word out and basically that's all about making um well putting pressure on politicians to listen to voters um we often hear from politicians they say oh well it's a nice idea but no one talks about it so we're trying to make sure people are talking about it as a second strand of the campaign is our alliance so make votes matter is kind of linking up politicians um campaigners uh celebrities um like organizations from civil society trade unions um different campaigns who are all committed to pr so um we want to make a really loud call from civil society and from prominent individuals um and we've got some really interesting people in there i think frankie boyle is a member of our alliance that's cool all the way from green party to ukip um it's very kind of broad and the last probably very important point to touch on is what's happening in the labour party which i kind of mentioned earlier um there's a really big push at the moment uh by labour members who are working with labour for a new democracy which is a campaign within the labour party uh to tell kirstama and labour mps that they have to back reform uh and that is going really well uh and i think hopefully uh labour will have pr in its manifesto at the next general election which will make things much more likely to change um once one of the big two parties is on board
Speaker 1yeah it'd be great if they did man that would be massive if they did actually um i mean it's as you're as you're talking now i'm feeling a kind of renewed sense of hope and excitement about our politics in this country that doesn't have to just be this staid old boring predictable frustrating outcome every single time adaptation of what is a very simple well-tested and successful model that happens in many countries all around the world that we could actually have a much broader and fertile and truly representative uh democracy yeah
Speaker 2absolutely and i think it's not it's not just about democracy either so um i think all of the democratic reasons are enough reasons to support pr but also has a really significant effect on policy and this is one of the things maybe it's matt has been trying to kind of uh point out to people is that countries with pr tend to have better outcomes on things like income inequality or action on climate change or um you know sharing public goods electoral systems are how we choose our government and how we choose all of our mps so it makes complete sense that it has an impact on every single political decision we're making so i absolutely salute people who want to change things and go out and campaign and stuff but when we live in a system that doesn't really work it's going to be so much harder to achieve all of the things we want to um so i think pr has to be kind of like central to any kind of change in our political system and it could be the key to unlocking better performance on like a really wide range of issues that
Speaker 1makes a lot of sense yeah in fact you reminded me how make votes matter actually came up in the conversation that i have with the leader of the welsh green party anthony slaughter when he was on the podcast and that is exactly the reason why he mentioned pr as being so um at the forefront of this is because we can hit to the streets and campaign and protest and be civilly disobedient as much as we like and we should because that's ultimately the way things get done but without effective change within government so much can't you know and and that's not going to happen whilst we have the current system in place which effectively just puts a bottleneck on one ideology via two major parties yeah
Speaker 2absolutely and there's only so much you can kind of beg the prime minister who has absolute power to do what you want at the end of the day if he or she says no that's kind of it uh whereas in a pr system politicians actually have to seek a consensus for their ideas they have to work across the aisle um and i think that makes for better policy so in
Speaker 1it in its current form this this is a totally speculative question and i understand if you haven't got an answer to this but if we had pr right now today how would parliament look do you have any idea of that is there is there research on that given how people vote and what the will on the streets is would we have an idea of how the makeup of parliament would look if we had pr right now
Speaker 2um it's it's really hard to say as you say because it's um i think people would change how they vote if we had a different system so that bit i can't really account for but looking around the world and kind of elections in the uk which use pr systems i think it would probably mean um we'd still probably have the main parties uh in place that's still probably be a conservative party and a labor party uh you'd likely get a few more mps from some different parties so perhaps like i said the liberal democrats greens um formerly ukip maybe um yes yeah well maybe we should
Speaker 1abandon this idea
Speaker 2well the thing is those views exist in society um true so the only way you're ever going to be able to deal with them or have a like a serious debate is by having people in in parliament so you'd probably have a more diverse kind of set of political views and i think that's a good idea and government would likely be some form of coalition so there would be working across parties uh instead of just one party in charge that have total power and
Speaker 1that in itself is healthy because it waters down the extremes of both parties i think when you have that situation
Speaker 2well yeah and both parties at the moment are essentially coalitions as it is we've got conservative party that goes from or went from anna salber to jacob reese morgan whatever and a labor party from tony blair to jeremy corbyn um yeah they're just like they're just too big um and a pr system would mean voters actually get to choose uh which parts you know who do you want in government from this broad spectrum rather than being forced to choose well today's conservative party candidate is horace johnson uh but it might be that next week some other some other guy has complete power and in the labor party you are either picking from someone's super left wing or just like kind of left wing i think it would put power back in the hands of voters which um would be much more democratic yeah
Speaker 1no i'm feeling excited listening to this man i had no idea that it kind of had this um this reach you know on the surface it seems like a technicality you know proportion representation how are we going to divvy up the vote sort of thing but when you when you consider the um ramifications of it and and the um the effects that can have on a broader democracy it's quite exciting stuff isn't it to think of the possibility of one day having that in the uk yeah i
Speaker 2mean that's what make verse matters challenge is we have to take this issue that is sounds to a lot of people like it's just a technicality and make it interesting and make it relevant to people's lives because that's the only way we'll ever be able to change
Speaker 1it well it's damn interesting and i don't think it could be more relevant to be honest i think this is priority numero uno for us as a democracy and i thought it occurred to me when you were speaking then given the specifics of our situation in the uk where would the house of lords fit in with this yeah
Speaker 2so make verse matter like i said is a completely single issue so we don't actually take any position on the house of lords uh right so it could be that we have pr in the uk and keep the house of lords a lot of people say well if you're changing the voting system you may as well change the house of lords as well so that might be the case uh but yeah make verse matter doesn't really take position
Speaker 1i suppose though that that's an issue that's a that's a perfect example of the way proportional representation could have knock-on effects for other important issues to do with how our democracy functions in this country because the problem we've got at the moment is the two major parties are so tangled in with the house of lords and the lord system and favors and all that sort of stuff as part of a kind of class they're never going to approach that issue but if we had pr there would doubtlessly be a party for whom that would be a manifesto issue and people could vote for that if they wanted
Speaker 2to yeah i think so because i mean one of the big challenges with house of lords reform is a lot of people have suggested it a lot of people are in favor of it but because the government is either you know one party or another that has basically total power over it uh any proposals from those governments tend to be quite self-interested uh so yeah i agree if we change the voting system for the house of commons there's no reason why we wouldn't then go on to change the voting system for the house of commons but if we change the voting system for the house of lords maybe have another conversation about devolution or federalism uh maybe have you know a much more wide-ranging discussion about democracy but i think the electoral system for the house of commons has got to be the key bit because that's the fit that actually chooses
Speaker 1the government yeah that's a great point and where is the campaign at right
Speaker 2now then right now so um we are we've just come out of a kind of period of uh flux uh we had a really successful um we've just come out of a kind of period of uh flux uh we had a really successful labor conference at the end of last year and now we're kind of regrouping and deciding what to do next uh but we've got some exciting dates in the calendar uh so at the beginning of june we have our national action day uh where there'll be events all across the uk um you have to look up the details
Speaker 1on our website which is makevotematter.org.uk
Speaker 2i got it in front of me so planning new events with our alliance members so we're hoping to do some like seminars and um like panel events where we bring together kind of different people who you wouldn't expect to be talking about uh pr so like environmentalists maybe or uh women's rights groups or uh trade unionists um again making pr a bit more relevant to you know the issues that people care about uh and then at the end of june we're going to be having a panel where we're going to be talking about uh i think there's an event coming up for labor for a new democracy which people should also look up um launching their campaign within the labor party so if any labor members are listening they should look up labor for a new democracy and get involved there because there's lots of exciting stuff uh but yeah on our website there is so much going on um and yeah ways for people
Speaker 1to get involved yeah i second that the website is really good man uh there's tons of information up there over at makevotematter.org.uk there's loads of cool videos and presentations and info and facts and figures and things you can get involved in yeah i would really recommend anyone that's listened to this today uh to go over to the website have a good dig around there's tons of cool information and loads of fun content up there um so what can people do to directly get involved with this and to help and support and amplify what you guys are doing over
Speaker 2at makevotematter yeah so uh if you sign up on the website you'll have loads of different ways you can help out uh probably the biggest thing we're asking people to do at the moment is to join a local group uh so that like i said local groups are up and down the country doing grassroots campaigning uh we also really encourage people to write to their mps um like we really want mps to know that people care about this uh because i think a lot of the time they assume people don't even if you think your mp will never support it uh they'll never even think about supporting it it's worth writing a letter to them just so they know that you care and so that we can see what they say and reply because we like to kind of keep track of what people are saying um it's a little bit embarrassing but uh i should also ask people to donate if you have uh any spare money yeah
Speaker 1the old classic we all hate asking for money but it's just got to be done man unfortunately this stuff costs money you know what i mean
Speaker 2yeah it's a shame it is a shame we're a very small team at make birds matter but we kind of try and punch above our weight and make every pound count so um yeah if you've got any spare change you can give us that is hugely appreciated always i'm
Speaker 1sure nobody will begrudge that man i mean what you guys are doing is really really important you're working really hard you're doing great stuff and it's such an important issue that hopefully having listened to this now um there's many many new people that are going to come on board with this and i'm sure they're not going to be grudged given that they're not going to be grudged given that they're not going to be grudged given you guys a couple of pound a month or a week or whatever it is to keep this campaign afloat and there are lots of other ways people can get involved in support as well i know times are really really difficult for many people at the moment so every penny does matter but um get on the website join the social pages spread the word is really important you know join the conversation join the mailing lists you know write to your mp and get involved in all the other ways that owen mentioned earlier definitely check out the website for loads of resources and find out other ways you can get involved but if you can spare some money you can get involved in all the other ways that owen mentioned earlier definitely check out please do help the guys out so before i let you go is there anything else you'd like to say to my gorgeous listeners before we sign off
Speaker 2well i mean if anyone has any other questions or anything they'd like to know the last thing has to be to plug the website so makevotesmatter.org.uk um and also just get in touch email us um yeah we'd like to hear from
Speaker 1people there we go folks you've got an open invite from the kind folks at make votes matter you can send them a message if there's anything you're unsure about or if you've got any questions or queries let them know and they will do their best to get back to you um but man i'm excited i think this is uh really like giving me a renewed sense of hope and optimism and excitement again at the uh the prospect of actually having a a democracy where there are so many different um possibilities and the prospect of actually being represented rather than being limited to the same old tactical voting for one of the two major parties uh both of whom are pretty much the same you know in most regards so massive thanks to the guys at make votes matter for raising awareness about this and for founding the campaign for proportional representation in the uk and thanks to mr owen winter for coming on today and answering my questions and explaining to us all how it works thanks for everything you're doing and best of luck with the campaign and let's make this thing happen thanks so much for having me thank you man thanks for being with us today there we go what do you think about that super interesting stuff yeah that just makes so much sense to me i don't see a problem with any of that my gut is telling me that there's going to be super resistance to that from the powers that be because that's going to kind of you know completely ruin their game isn't it but hey you know crazier things have happened and nothing changes without public pressure you know so now you've got the information you've got the website you can dig in and further educate yourself on it and with enough people making noise about this then hopefully if nothing else we can normalize and popularize the idea to the point where we can make it a reality and we can make it a reality it's just a no-brainer and let me know what you think as well put it in the comments man you know it'd be interesting maybe i've missed some stuff and i tend to get a little bit carried away in these conversations i get a bit excited you know um and then it's always afterwards i think oh i didn't ask about this i didn't ask about that but that's just the nature of it right so the whole point of this is to open up a debate in a conversation and to share some cool shit as i find it you know so put your thoughts in the comments you know what i mean it's like let's let's get this going and um you know if there's some other aspects to this or some other campaigns that people can get behind then share it man and i'll see you in the next one bye it's part of the public part of the public forum you know and on that note i shall bid you farewell once again my noble voyagers and truth seekers i wish you all an awesome week and i shall see you next week for another episode oh by the way have you subscribed to this goddamn thing yet come on you freeloading bastards subscribe help a brother out here right you've been told all right love you guys i'll see you next week have a good one Thank you.
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