Fighting for Fair Votes
This page refers to our work campaigning on proportional representation July 2024 onwards. For previous campaigning, head to this page.
Compass has long campaigned to change the UK’s voting system. Through Win As One, our local groups backed electoral reform candidates at the 2024 General Election. Alongside this, we built new partnerships, produced influential research on proportional representation (PR), and mobilised members to pressure those in power. We have been part of the fight for fairer votes for years.
Since the 2024 General Election, we’ve doubled down on this work and started to see real results.
Making the APPG for Fair Elections the largest in Parliament
As soon as the new Labour Government was formed, we took action. More than 1,000 Compass supporters wrote to their MPs asking them to join the newly established All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections.
It worked. Today, the APPG has 150 members, around half of them Labour MPs, making it the largest APPG in Parliament.
This success, alongside evidence that a large majority of Labour members support PR, shows that support for democratic renewal in Parliament is now at a historic high.
Building Parliamentary support for PR
In November 2024, the House of Commons backed proportional representation for the first time. Sarah Olney MP brought the motion through a Ten Minute Rule Bill, calling to replace First Past the Post with PR in general and local elections. Though symbolic, the vote marked a historic breakthrough and signalled growing cross-party support for reform.
Our campaigning helped make this happen. Twenty-six candidates backed through our Win As One 2024 campaign voted in favour, including Rachel Blake, Tim Roca, Lisa Smart and Andrew George, alongside long-standing allies Clive Lewis, Nadia Whittome and Layla Moran.
That momentum carried into January 2025, when more than 12,000 supporters contacted their MPs ahead of a Westminster debate on electoral reform. During the debate, over 20 MPs from across the political spectrum described Britain’s voting system as “undemocratic, unrepresentative and outdated”. This included MPs elected in 2024 with the support of our Win As One campaign, such as Sian Berry, Olly Glover, Tim Roca, Joe Powell and Lisa Smart.
Delivering major wins for fairer votes
The 2025 Local Elections – like the 2024 General Election – exposed just how unfair and broken our voting system is. Together with Make Votes Matter, Unlock Democracy, and Open Britain, we called on Labour to scrap First Past the Post for all elections, gathering over 24,000 petition signatures.
That pressure delivered real victories. In July, the Labour government announced plans to replace First Past the Post with a Supplementary Vote system for mayoral elections in their English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill.
They have also pledged to remove key barriers to voting through automatic voter registration.
And for the first time, votes at 16 are being introduced – a manifesto commitment this government has delivered.
These changes are a direct result of members and supporters speaking out. There’s more to do, but we’ve shown just how powerful our voices can be.
Local action making national change
We are also incredibly proud of the work of our local Compass groups in Sussex. They teamed up, and campaigned hard to have their mayoral elections postponed until 2027, so local voters could benefit from the new voting system.
By sending thousands of letters to MPs, council leaders and the local press, and by influencing parliamentary interventions from Sian Berry MP and others, they helped prevent thousands of residents from being locked into an unfair and outdated system.
The Temper Trap
In September 2025, we published The Temper Trap: How Proportional Representation Tames the Far Right by Stuart Donald. It was a major intervention that challenged the common myth that proportional representation fuels extremism.
Drawing on significant case studies from the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Italy and more, The Temper Trap shows how coalition-building necessary in PR systems has stopped the Populist Right in its tracks.
Why? Because their extremist ideas are watered down, their ‘us-against-them’ narrative is quashed, and their popular support is diminished.
Take this example from Finland showing what has happened to voter support for the Populist-Right ‘PS’ Party since they joined the coalition government in 2023:
This research gained national attention. It was picked up by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, and also made it in Labour Hub, helping to bring evidence-based arguments for PR into the mainstream debate.
Building on this work, we have commissioned further research that will form the basis of our next major paper on proportional representation. This will explore the relationship between inequality and our voting system and is due to be published in 2026.
The Elections Bill
2026 could be a breakthrough year for fairer votes. The upcoming Elections Bill offers the biggest chance for electoral reform in decades.
As it stands, Labour’s plans would keep a system that ignores over 70% of votes. If that failure continues, the 2029 General Election could hand real power to the far right on just 27% of the vote.
That’s why we’re acting now.
Since September 2025, we have worked with Make Votes Matter, Unlock Democracy, and the Electoral Reform Society to mobilise supporters in key constituencies.
Together, we are bringing voters face to face with MPs who don’t yet back proportional representation – making the case directly and shifting views before the Bill reaches Parliament. If you want to help secure fairer votes, now is the moment.
To end this year of incredible work and great wins, we handed in over 250,000 signatures to the Democracy Minister calling for fairer votes and a voting system that works for everyone – the biggest show of support for PR we’ve ever seen.
We’ve got the most pro-PR Parliament in history, the highest amount of public support and the largest coalition of civil society organisations fighting for democratic renewal in history. We’ll be keeping the pressure up and with your help, plan on finally winning fairer votes for all in 2026.