How to VOTE4ANIMALS

How did PAD determine the best candidate for animals?

Assessing Candidates

PAD’s work since the 2005 election allowed us to measure MPs’ records on animal protection. We did this by looking at whether they signed animal-friendly ‘Early Day Motions’ (EDMs) tabled in the House of Commons. An EDM is like a petition for MPs that allows them to signal their support for a proposal.

This information was combined with candidates’ answers to six pivotal animal protection questions covering hunting, democratic reform, intensive farming and animal experimentation. From this we built a picture of each candidates’ commitment to animal protection.

However, there were a number of complicating factors to take into account when determining the best candidate for animals in each constituency.

Party Policies

The British political system, with centralised Government control over Parliament and rigid party discipline, means that even backbench MPs from the governing party have little direct influence over Government policy. This means that overall party policy and track record is a major factor in deciding who to vote for to help animals.

Tactical Voting

But we also needed to understand the current balance of power and how much we could realistically affect voting patterns. The Green Party had by far and away the strongest animal protection policy - in fact they are the only party to embrace the notion of ‘animal rights’. However, the problem is that in the first-past-the-post system for General Elections (unlike the more proportional system used in European Elections) it is very difficult for smaller parties to get MPs elected. For example, in the 2005 General Election the Green Party picked up 300,000 votes, or 3.4% where they stood, yet they didn’t win any seats. [1]

In many cases, tactical voting for an incremental improvement on the current situation was the only realistic strategy for affecting the result in individual seats. For example, this was the case in seats where, in the 2005 election, Labour beat the Conservatives in a close contest, and the Lib Dems and Greens were a long way behind. Because most Conservatives are in favour of repealing the hunting ban, the best thing to do in some seats will be to vote Labour to help retain the ban. So, the relative positions of the parties in each seat were one important factor to take into consideration in deciding who best to vote for.

It was also necessary to consider each seat in the context of the overall composition of the House of Commons, and how ‘marginal’ a seat was. In other words, there were some seats that, if Labour lost to the Conservatives, might have let in a Conservative Government who would probably be even worse for animals than Labour. But there were other seats that, if Labour lost, would mean that the Labour Government would have had a reduced majority or be the largest party in a hung parliament. This would mean that a Labour Government would be weakened and thus reliant on more animal-friendly backbench Labour MPs and the Lib Dems, who would be in a stronger position to influence Government policy in a more positive direction for animals.

Thirdly, in many cases the individual candidate may have had different views on animal protection policies compared to his or her party. For example, there are a few pro-hunting Labour and Lib Dem MPs, even though overall policy in both parties is for a ban. Some animal issues tend to be seen as ‘matters of conscience’, in which case individual MPs have greater leeway in terms of voting.

We took into account these factors in order to calculate our expert recommendation for the most animal-friendly candidate in each seat.

PAD’s analysis was carried out by Dr Dan Lyons, who has conducted award-winning research at the University of Sheffield's Department of Politics.

Notes
1. This figure is likely to have been significantly depressed by the current election system because it means that voting Green doesn’t usually affect the outcome. However, it should be noted that in three seats - Brighton Pavilion, Norwich South and Lewisham Deptford - targetted work by the Greens means they have a real chance of winning seats for the first time.

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