Today, the twin economic and political crises have brought voting reform back onto the agenda. People are demanding that politics changes. This has brought together Labour and people from across the political spectrum with campaigners from other parties and none. However, to get the necessary legislation before the next general election, the strategy needs to flow from Labour discussions, particularly the promise we made in 1997 to let the people decide their own voting system.

All went quiet on the electoral reform front from the day the Jenkins commission reported in 1998. Journalists were told any voting referendum had been kicked into the long grass. The Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform (LCER), inspired at that time by Robin Cook, went on making the arguments.

A decade later, Gordon Brown’s new cabinet discussed constitutional reform, the Ministry of Justice published Governance of Britain and Brown identified the need to build ‘trust in our democracy’, flagging up the promised review on the voting system, a new political culture ‘beyond parties and beyond partisanship’ and ‘a new British constitutional settlement that entrusts more power to parliament and the British people’. When the review was published in January 2008, Labour defended the status quo and the promised debate was left to one-off conferences, seminars, meetings and newspaper columns.

Then, this year things started to come together. Labour needed to tackle the unfinished democratic reforms from its 1997 manifesto. Picking up on the MPs’ allowances row and public criticism of politicians and politics, it seemed right to revert to the default position of a referendum. This chimed in with the idea that politicians should be more accountable, that safe seats should be a thing of the past, that never again should politicians take the public for granted. The voting system could be chosen by a citizens’ assembly, but Alan Johnson suggested the Jenkins’ proposal of Alternative Vote-plus be put to the electorate at the general election. Electoral reform was receiving more coverage than at any time since Labour’s own review, the Plant commission, reported in 1993 when John Smith offered the referendum.

In June, LCER met to respond to the prime minister’s statement: ‘We should be prepared to propose change only if there is a broad consensus in the country that it would strengthen our democracy and our politics … We will set out proposals for taking this debate forward.’ LCER chair John Grogan tabled an early day motion on a referendum on electoral reform. LCER was part of the coalition that launched Vote for a Change on 9 July which featured John Denham and Oona King, both former LCER chairs.

Most Labour electoral reformers are pragmatists. They do not want to divide the party. They know that insistence on the link between MP and constituency is important for legislators. They want to find consensus on the system to be put to the electorate. They don’t want the best to be the enemy of the good. They want change.

Johnson summed up where we are in an article in the latest Fabian Review (‘The view from Duck Island’). He argued that a ‘safe seat’ mentality had led some MPs to be careless about expenses claims. He challenged David Cameron’s claim that all we needed was to oust one government for another and, quoting Jenkins, wanted Labour ‘to have the unique distinction of having broken the spell under which parties, when they want to reform, do not have the power, and, when they have the power, do not want the reform’. LCER consulted prospective parliamentary candidates. Few defended the status quo. Most were willing to back the referendum. CLPs are being asked to think about reform and agree the proposition that supports the idea of change in the voting system and to hold a referendum to let the people decide at the coming general election.

Having a referendum on AV-plus ticks all the Labour boxes. It is fulfilling a promise which many of those who voted Labour in 1997 remember. It keeps Labour united going into an election, as it did in 1997, while allowing a free vote in the referendum. It allows us to discuss a different vision of politics which is closer to the electorate. It puts clear blue water between the Conservatives and other parties. It shows that Labour has progressive credentials and responds to argument. The question remains: will politics go with the eventual pendulum swing, or can we, please, vote for a change?