Labour secured a massive Commons majority at last year’s general election with the support of just one in five eligible voters. The party won nearly two-thirds of MPs (63%) with just a third of the votes (34%). That is partly the result of the UK’s first-past-the-post system for general elections, but low turnout – in this case just under 60% – is also a big factor.

“The problem of low and unequal turnout in elections risks trapping British politics in a spiral of stagnation and discontent,” said political historian David Klemperer on the Constitution Society. A new cross-party Campaign for Compulsory Voting has been launched to try to emulate the likes of Australia , Luxembourg and Singapore, where voting is a legal requirement.

There are currently 22 countries around the world that

See Full Page