Andy Burnham has got us all talking about Proportional Representation (PR) and so we should be if we want to stop Nigel Farage marching into Downing Street with his own “wide but shallow parliamentary majority”. Bryn Griffiths of the Labour Left Podcast interviews Sandy Martin, the Chair of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, to consider what we need to do to get PR done.

The possibility of Farage entering No 10 with a predicted vote as low as 27% is truly terrifying! The poll projection below from Electoral Calculus shows, with a little help from a junior Tory coalition partner, that the prospect of a Reform Government is a terrifying but real prospect.

The scary scenario above doesn’t even factor in Jacob Rees Mogg’s plan to unify the Right and make things a whole lot worse.

In the podcast Bryn Griffiths and Sandy Martin, a former MP and Shadow Minister for Waste and Recycling under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, consider the historical context of today’s campaign.

The podcast traces a path which stretches right back to the Chartists, a working class and social reform movement of the 19th Century. Looking at our modern history we discover the PR campaign is one of stops and false starts. We consider the 1980s campaign Charter 88; the 1997 Jenkins Commission; and, the forgotten Alternative Vote Referendum of 2011 under the Cameron Clegg austerity government.

The Labour Left has not always embraced PR so Bryn shares his experience of joining the late Bob Cryer MP’s First Past the Post Campaign. Having explained Bob Cryer’s reasoning he invites Sandy to rescue PR from Labour’s centrists and put today’s case for reform. Bryn also sets out his case that if the facts change you review your strategy.

Former Leader Neil Kinnock a recent convert to PR used to loathe the idea and Bryn cites his abusive riposte to the campaigners of an earlier generation.

In the second-half Bryn and Sandy start off by agreeing that the Makerfield by-election and the possible election of Andy Burnham could be the big moment for PR. With that in mind Sandy tells us exactly what we need to do if we are going to get PR done, over turn Starmer and implement the historic 2022 Labour Conference policy shift.

Find out what route map to PR will look like.

Watch more Labour Left Podcasts

If you enjoy the Sandy Martin interview, take a look at the Labour Left Podcast back catalogue to hear guests such as anti-Fascist historian David Renton looking at today’s extreme right; Rachel Shabi explaining the truth about antisemitism; Jeremy Gilbert on Stuart Hall’s analysis of Thatcherism; Bernard Regan, of Palestine Solidarity, on Netanyahu’s genocide; Corinne Fowler talking about Britain’s history of slavery and colonialism; and Bell Ribeiro-Addy telling us about the fight against racism in Parliament.

If you appreciate what we are doing, please give us a like and a follow. Every comment draws the podcast to a wider potential audience. Please, please, please share it with your friends as it gets the podcast to a wider audience.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive.

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast. You can find all the episodes of the podcast or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple, etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

In the latest Labour Left Podcast, introduced here by Bryn Griffiths, Paul Holden the author of The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy explains what the shadowy Labour Together group did to the Labour Party and how they inflicted their big fraud on the Labour membership.

Ten Pledges

In 2020 Keir Starmer stood for the Labour Party leadership and made ten excellent democratic socialist pledges to the Party membership and the thousands of trades unionists who had enthusiastically voted for him. On 4th April 2020 Starmer was elected Labour Leader. But all was not as it seemed. Starmer had committed a fraud. In the podcast Paul Holden reveals exactly what Morgan McSweeney’s Labour Together had planned for the Labour membership and it certainly wasn’t the democratic socialism they’d voted for!

Antisemitism allegations

Even before the book was published Steve Reed, Labour’s Housing Secretary, suggested in Politico that the book “would whitewash” the antisemitism crisis that happened under Jeremy Corbyn. In the podcast Paul Holden give’s his response to Reed’s horrible allegation.

“This is the Machine that now rules us”

In the second half of the podcast, Paul Holden explores the suggestion that Labour Together’s internal authoritarianism is spilling over into Government. Could Labour Together’s factionalism have created the conditions that explain the removal of Sue Gray, the Downing Street Chief of Staff? The appointment of Peter Mandelson as the US Ambassador? The proscription of Palestine Action? The attacks on refugee status? and, even the undermining of jury trials?

Labour Together’s Response to The Fraud

Every Labour supporter needs to know the story of what Labour Together did when they learnt Paul was to publish The Fraud. Paul tells us a chilling story of GCHQ involvement, spy allegations, Russian scare stories and ministerial resignations.

How do we fightback?

Here, as suggested in the podcast are the actions you can take and the links to find out more: Firstly, we need to restore democracy to our party so please join Sharon Graham and Andrea Egan, the Leaders of Britain’s biggest unions, in signing the Restore Labour Democracy Statement.

To sign up to the Restore Labour Democracy statement click here

Secondly, we have some important internal Labour elections this year. If we’re going to begin to change things we need people committed to democracy in key places, so please this year vote for the Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance (CLGA) in the National Executive, National Constitutional Committee, National Policy Forum and National Women’s Committee Elections.

Here are the details of how to support the Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance internal elections campaign: click here for campaign details.

The CLGA candidates for Labour’s National Executive Committee constituency section.

This year the stakes are so high we need to work together with others in the party who want to see democracy. So, when you’ve voted for the CLGA candidates I urge you to use any remaining votes you’ve got to support Mainstream, the new soft left group.

Watch more Labour Left Podcasts

If you subscribe you can catch up on all our 20-plus episodes back catalogue. The top episode of 2025 was the former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP. Other big hits have included Andrew Fisher, the man behind the 2017 manifesto For the Many and not the Few, and Rachel Shabi, the author of The Truth Behind Antisemitism. To reflect more on Starmer’s leadership, check out the episode where Mark Perryman discusses his excellent book The Starmer Symptom.

You can buy The Fraud here.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive.