> the "first past the post" system locks us into 2 parties.

What you say is true, but while we're discussing an article about the UK, it is worth stating, for the avoidance of doubt, that the UK also uses the First Past The Post electoral systems (for its national parliament) and therefore doesn't have a representational seat distribution.

Indeed, that may be part of the reason that such an extreme policy from such an unpopular party is being put forward at all. (The current government won 43.6% of the vote at the last general election, with 67.3% turnout, meaning it had the support of 29.3% of the electorate, but won 56.2% of the seats).

Important context since this is about the UK: we don't have a representation seat distribution like that, we have first past the post. In the last election (2019) these are the results for each party with at least 10 MPs:

- Conservative Party, 43.6% of votes, 56.2% of seats (outright majority).

- Labour Party, 32.1% of votes, 31.1% of seats.

- Scottish National Party, 3.9% of votes, 7.4% of seats. The SNP only campaign in Scotland and win most seats there, which makes them extremely over-represented by FPTP.

- Liberal Democrats, 11.6% of votes, 1.7% of seats.

That was (and to a degree, still is) also the intent in the British system: you would primarily represent your constituency, not your party. This is why you have constituency surgeries where you meet your constituents, maybe address some concerns, etc. which are similar to the "town hall meetings" you have in the US. The US essentially copied the British system.

I don't know how well it worked in the past as I'm not that familiar with the history; in HMS Pinafore there's already a joke about it ("I always voted at my party's core and never thought of thinking for myself at all"[1]) which is from 1880 or thereabouts, so I'm guessing not very well shrug

It's natural for like-minded people with similar ideas to gravitate towards each other and form political parties for strategic and social reasons. In the US the founding fathers set up the system to work without parties, only to found the first political parties themselves a few years later, so that idea broke down pretty quickly.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCBxI9yKLgw

At the last general election to the UK parliament (2019), the Tories won 44% of the votes, and ended up with 56% of the seats - first past the post strikes again!

Actually no. It depends on the "whip" guidance (in the UK)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip_(politics)#Instructions

Yes, essentially we can just keep the main leaders of each party and assign them everyone's votes from their respective parties (35% in your example) that "won" and get rid of everyone else and end up with the exact same outcome, except orders of magnitude cheaper and more expedient. If you're a member of x party and x party won, why are you actually needed if you're not the leader? Your salary, benefits, retirement and as well as every single person on your staff are all a waste at that point, because you're going to vote for x's position, which is decided by the leadership.

lolnope, this is a FPTP country.

The last election, the Conservatives got 43.6% of the vote and 57% of the seats.

Even more extreme, although overall irrelevant, the SNP got 45% of the popular vote in Scotland, resulting in 48 out of 59 seats won in Scotland.