Choice for voters

It is good news that the government and MPs at Westminster recognise that electors are dissatisfied with the current closed-list party-list voting system used to elect our MEPs to the European Parliament (your report, 10 January).

But it is disappointing that the only change they want is to make the closed lists open. Allowing each voter to select one candidate from one party list will do very little to give voters real choice and do almost nothing to bring the candidates 
closer to the voters.

If the Westminster politicians want to make the MEPs less remote from the electors and to dispel the current dissatisfaction with the political process, they will change the voting system completely to give voters real choice among all the candidates of all the parties. The simplest way to do that would be to use the single transferable vote system of proportional representation (STV-PR).

We already use STV-PR to elect the MEPs who represent Northern Ireland. It’s time to do the same throughout the rest of the UK.

James Gilmour

East Parkside

Edinburgh