Would a change in voting system improve democracy in the UK?

Would a change in voting system improve democracy in the UK?

The UK is seen as one of the most democratic nations in the modern world, however it is often argued that the UK's voting system does not allow for complete democracy. The UK uses the 'First Past the Post' system, this voting system is said to allow the winner to take all, this meaning that in most cases there is a clear majority winner at a constitutional and national level.

To begin with lets look at how the 'First Past the Post' system hinders complete democracy and fairness. One large downside of FPTP is the fact that the number of votes received in a General Election is not accurately reflected in the number of seats won in parliament. A very recent example of this occurring was in the 2015 General Election, UKIP gained 3,881,099 votes whereas the SNP gained 1,454,436. However despite these statistics clearly showing UKIP to be the victor of the two, it turned out that UKIP only got 1 seat in parliament whereas the SNP earned 50 seats. This basically voids many of the votes registered for UKIP, it in theory gave a lesser supported party greater power over those with a larger amount of support. Linked to these points under the 'First Past the Post' system smaller parties are left feeling unrepresented and weaker, for example some smaller parties might have national support yet do not gain many MPs because their supporters are wide spread and may not be concentrated in just one area/ constituency. Another disadvantage that challenges true democracies is the encouragement of tactical voting. For example people may decide it is not best to vote for their preferred party but instead vote for another , in order to stop a party from gaining power. This can often happen in elections and in parliament for example a labour supporter votes for the Liberal Democrats to stop the conservatives gaining a majority. One additional disadvantage is that which occurs in marginal constituencies (where voters change which party they side with election to election) the outcome of an election can be decided on the voting patterns in these situations, even although the constituents may number only a tiny proportion of the electorate.

However this system does have some advantages, extremist parties (such as hard-line communist and fascist parties) are unlikely to be elected as they would rarely gain enough votes in any one constituency. The time taken to calculate and work out the victor in an election is drastically reduced, the transfer of power from one party to the next is made very easy because of this. However with these points taken into consideration would a change in voting system really improve democracy. 

If the UK changed to a system similar to Proportional Representation it would make elections a lot more fair, mainly because this system addresses seats based on the number of votes a party gains. Smaller parties especially would benefit from this feature, yet this system does have its flaws in relation to smaller parties. Many voters would see this system as a chance to vote for their preferred party no matter the size, meaning that a lot of the time parliament would be filled with small parties making it impossible to make a majority decision. One example of this happening was in Weimar Germany in the 1920's due to the sheer number of small parties arguing amongst one another, a majority vote was difficult to secure. Democracy would be improved due to everyone having an equal chance at success however increased democracy can often lead to a reduced amount of efficiency.