Illustration by Jonathan McHugh / Ikon Images Rumours of the death of first past the post (FPTP) tend to be greatly exaggerated. Proponents of reforming the UK’s winner-takes-all approach to voting – a system not used by any other European country except Belarus – have had their hopes raised and dashed many times over the decades: the Independent Commission on the Voting System established by Tony Blair and chaired by Roy Jenkins, Gordon Brown’s promise of a consultation, the ill-fated Alternative Vote (AV) referendum in 2011. But something is shifting. Recent elections at both national and local levels have thrown up results that increasingly call into question whether FPTP is fit for purpose. The parliament that resulted from the 2024 election was the most unrepresentative ever in terms of how people actually voted: with Labour winning two thirds of parliamentary seats with just a third of the vote. The dominance of the two-party system, under strain for decades, is now at breaking point.…