NEXT month will almost certainly see the first UK General Election since I was five years old which won’t result in a Tory Westminster government – and yet I feel no excitement.

Keir Starmer will almost certainly become Prime Minister with an almighty Labour majority, but it’s hard to see how very much at all will materially change in how our country is governed. The austerity-driven, anti-immigration politics which puts profit over people will remain the tenant of Downing Street, even if the colour of the tie it wears switches from blue to red.

Starmer offers me no hope at all for a brighter future. But not only do I struggle to feel any excitement, I actively fear what an almighty Labour landslide will mean for the future of UK politics. Polls show that Labour are on course to win over 400, maybe even over 500 seats at next month’s election – that could be between 60%-80% of the total number – despite the fact the party is consistently polling at significantly less that this in the 40%-50% region.

This is a result of the deeply flawed and undemocratic First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system – a voting system used by only one other country in Europe, authoritarian dictatorship Belarus.

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FPTP substantially inflates the electoral success of larger parties, resulting in thumping government majorities for parties which most of the public don’t support.

This means that most governments in Westminster are run by parties which a majority of the public have rejected in the polling booth (and probably, due to tactical voting, even some of those who did vote for them will have preferred to have voted for someone else).

In fact, the only government since the Second World War to have received a majority of votes from the public was the 2010 Tory/LibDem coalition.

Next month Starmer will almost certainly be handed enough seats in Westminster to rule with impunity, to pass policies with ease and without meaningful scrutiny, and we’ll all suffer as a result. But the biggest danger of such a landslide – and particularly one where the Tories are almost completely wiped out – is what the consequences of this could be in the longer term.

While some polls have shown that the Tories could slip to becoming the third or even fourth biggest party in the House of Commons, falling behind the LibDems and the SNP, no polls have yet shown any realistic chance of the Tories slipping behind either party in terms of vote share. If the Tories are wiped out from Parliament, a sizeable chunk of the UK population may be left without representation – and the consequences of this could be severe.

I would love nothing more than for right-wing politicians to never be voted into our legislatures again, but I am also consistent, and my outrage that the 5%-10% of the population who support the Green parties across the UK are left with just 0.15% of the representation in parliament means that I also worry that leaving Conservative voters without the representation they vote for is bad for democracy, and will only further embolden the far right.

I worry greatly of the possibility that in 2029, the right wing of British politics re-emerges not as a revival of the Conservative Party, but instead with the rise of Reform UK, which manages to take ground from the Tories and emerges as the official opposition – or even a governing party following dissatisfaction after Starmer’s Labour makes little meaningful change in government.

A centre-right Labour Party and an increasingly far-right Reform UK could then become the dominant two parties in the UK’s two-party system, with the following election becoming more reminiscent of the current Macron/Le Pen domination in France – which as this weekend’s European election results have shown will only bring the far right closer and closer to power.

The power will be in Starmer’s hands to prevent this. While proportional representation will not serve as a magic wand to prevent against the far-right, it will ensure that voters across the UK are properly represented – including those more progressive voices from parties like the Greens who are sorely needed in Westminster.

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It will avoid a situation where centre-right voters who are unhappy with a Labour government feel they have to tactically vote for parties like Reform following the annihilation of the Tories. Importantly, it will allow for an end to the two-party system, in which both Labour and the Tories have drifted to the right anyway, with the latter dipping its toes – and on occasion its entire body – into fascist far-right policies without the need for an alternative like Reform.

While proportional representation may result in a few Parliamentary seats for parties like Reform, I’d argue that’s a better option than what we’ve seen in the past few years where the politics of these parties has completely taken over the ruling Tory Party at a time when it holds a significant governing majority.

While it’s easy to attribute the rise of the far-right and right-wing populism in the UK and Europe to pure unadulterated bigotry, this bigotry must have risen out of somewhere, and it’s clear that frustration and destitution have certainly played their parts in this. People have experienced the decimation of public services as a result of Tory austerity, but have latched onto vulnerable minorities – particularly immigrants – as a scapegoat.

Instead of giving into these right-wing anti-immigrant narratives, Starmer could use his inevitable majority to revitalise public services, redistribute wealth and transform the lives of working people.

He could make clear that the enemies of the UK enter our country in private jets, not small boats, and could restore hope as the driving force of our politics instead of fear. Instead, he will continue to embolden populist talking points and will serve as prime minister for the employer class, not the working class.

This is why it’s so important that at this upcoming General Election, voters can vote for progressive parties like the Greens to send a clear message to Starmer. Even if they don’t win any seats, parties like Reform will absolutely be shaping the future of politics in the UK from the right. By voting Green, we can counteract this, and make sure we’re shaping the future of politics in the UK from the left.