That’s quite remarkable given that the PLP isn’t a representative sample of Labour opinion on this issue for the simple reason that all 258 were successfully elected by the current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system so they all have an underlying vested interest in maintaining it because it has worked for Labour in their seats.
It would be just as interesting to know the views of the 373 Labour candidates who weren’t elected under FPTP last May. Particularly the ones in the three regions where FPTP virtually denied Labour any parliamentary representation, leaving us with just ten seats in the south-east, south-west and east, despite obtaining 20 per cent of the vote there. Another set whose opinions would be fascinating would be those who came second to Tories and might have been saved by AV because the votes cast for other (at the time!) centre-left options like the Lib Dems and Greens exceeded the Tory majority in the seat.
The MPs opposed to AV I feel most sympathy for are the small number with marginal seats where they face a second placed Lib Dem and worry that Tory second preferences will help defeat them. But their concerns are six months out of date. It will take more than Tory second preferences to ever get a Lib Dem MP in a progressive area like Chesterfield or Islington South now their true colours have been exposed through the coalition.
All the Labour MPs opposed to AV believe they are doing the right thing. They think they are acting in Labour’s partisan interest.
But that’s based on a deeply pessimistic worldview that thinks that Labour would not benefit from a system based on voters expressing preferences. It says we stand to gain most by denying voters greater choice, by allowing parties a parliamentary majority on 35 per cent of the vote nationally, and by allowing some MPs to be elected on 30-35 per cent of the vote in their seats. Believing that such a constitutional fix is the best way to return Labour to power suggests a lack of faith in Labour’s ability to both secure more first preference votes and be the second choice for other progressive voters. It suggests an interpretation of the left in Britain as being a small minority (with no voters outside Labour’s own ranks affiliated to it) that has to impose itself in government and in individual seats by means of a dodgy and medievally simplistic voting system.
An optimistic, positive and progressive worldview drives Labour reformers. We think there is a natural centre-left majority in Britain that has been held back by a divided party system on the left and that a voting system where more than one choice can be expressed will mean that centre-left majority will be counted in more seats than it is now. We think that Labour is a party that is capable of attracting many more first preference votes, and second preferences from other centre and left voters. We think more democracy and more voter choice is something a centre-left party should embrace, not shy away from.
Opposition to AV is also based in some cases on woeful or perhaps wilful ignorance of the actual basis of the referendum. This is not a vote about proportional representation (PR). Yet many of the arguments deployed for a No vote are not anti-AV ones, they are anti-PR ones. AV doesn’t break the constituency link. AV doesn’t help small parties (it works against extremists like the BNP as moderate parties transfer to each other). AV doesn’t cause more coalitions because it’s a majoritarian voting system from the same family of systems as FPTP – besides which FPTP in the UK is now so unsuited to the reality of our voting choices it itself is causing coalitions.
AV is a simple and minimalist change that fits with British political culture but modernises our voting system so that it reflects today’s pluralistic society. Every MP would be elected by over half the voters and every voter could express more than one choice. I would urge all Labour MPs to support it, but particularly those in the 114 ‘No’ signatories who consider themselves modernisers need to ask themselves why they are not calling for the modernisation of our democracy, and those who have argued for greater choice in our public services need to ask themselves why they are not arguing for greater choice at the ballot box.
Photo: UK Parliament
A good few questions there and opens up the real debate; why should the left be afraid of AV. This is a real opportunity to make left of centre politics more relevant and win a bigger consensus; exactly the type of consensus that will be necessary to deliver a truly progressive government; and given (as the ippr report shows) that party support is now wider than ever before consensus building before and during elections is now essential. I start to build on this point in this post on Broad Left Blogging which I think compliments the arguments above: http://wp.me/pXkBd-5I
Some good points but one thing I’ve found that is missing from the AV debate is understanding exhausted votes. The AV model being put forward iis optional preferential. People don’t need to put a second preference. Labour can run a just vote 1 campaign and cause havoc in three cornered races between them, the Lib Dems and Tories. Also under an optional preferential system, the primary vote of a party becomes even more important because of exhausted votes
When oh when will you get it in to your head that FPTP did not lose Labour any seats it was people not voting for Labour which lost Labour the seat. Did the seats end up with a MP? Yes How? Because people voted for them instead! You can draft or rig any system you want to but if you don’t give the electorate a reason to vote for you then they won’t it’s that simple.
Just to say with optional AV I never vote for anyone I don’t want.Without it being optional I would not vote. Who would vote for a Tory, a Lib Dem or even a Green. Currently the Lib Dems in the UK and the FDP in Germany show what happen to your supporters if you become a junior partner in a unpopular government. Of course the what people want to do is elect a government. The current system does not do this. However the Executive Presidential system has its own problems
The idea the AV would lead to a progressive coalition is dubious. In the last Mayoral election only very marginally more Lib Dems transferred to Labour than the Conservatives. Add the this that AV was introduced in Australia as a means of keeping the ALP from power. It worked very effectively until exceptional results allowed Australian Labor to introduce compulsory voting and exhaustive ballots for Federal elections – neither of which are on offer here. Supporting PR is honourable, though it would mean the end of our broad based party. But supporting AV smacks of supporting change for change sake – when the consequences could be devastating as we constitutionally enshrine a system specifically designed to make the formation of a Labour government more difficult. At best AV is a means that allows people to punish unpopular governing parties harder than FPTP. At worst it is a means to keep our party from power – and I would rather have the chance to change lives under FPTP than impotently cast a longer ballot under AV
I’ve been wittering on about the need for voting reform since forever but I won’t be supporting the referendum for AV. The perverse and undesirable outcomes to the two Labour Party leadership elections brought me to my senses. I cheerfully admit that I am also motivated by putting one in the eye of Mr Clegg. This is a normal and valid reason for voting, to approve or to sanction. This also why referendums are frequently pernicious, with voters answering an entirely different question to that put to them. I don’t believe most of us do other that vote according to our hearts or our gut instiinct – preferential voting systems may have different outcomes to run off and plurality ones, but was Mr Milliaband really what the Labour Party wanted? Added to which, the referendum is packaged with a blatant gerrymandering of the constituencies. The French two round run-off delivers representatives with more than 50% and allows voters to protest or let off steam in the first round. It also delivers sharp, painful but essential lessons to self-indulgent lefties, as Jospin’ s elimination in 2002 sadly demonstrated. Eventually, surely, we will have to move to a system of multiple representatives for constituencies, a mixture of direct election and open list PR. The present AV proposal is indeed only a small step, one with scarcely measurable benefits and some horribly recent perverse results. Let’s enjoy ourselves, rub Clegg’s toffee nose in it, and get on – as a previous writer said – with developing policies that the voters want us to deliver for them.
Many of the arguments deployed for a Yes vote are not pro-AV ones, they are pro-PR ones. But the adoption of AV would slow progress towards PR by 25 years or more because we’d have to have four or five GEs under the new system before contemplating another change. AV’s a remarkable system combing many of the disadvantages of FPTP with many of the disadvantages of PR whilst avoiding many of the advantages of either. If you want a progressive voting system, say “no” to AV!
Many proponents of AV trot out the line that ‘it will mean victorious candidates will have won over 50% of the votes’. It will not. It is a perverse system in which the 2nd, 3rd etc preferences of people whose first choice LOST are added to the tallies for those candidates remaining. Why is this regarded as being democratic? FPTP is clearly flawed, but at least it requires voters to put their money where their mouths are and actually back the candidate they think is the best. The German system seems to me to have things about right. In the Bundestag, the constituency link is retained through half its members being voted by FPTP, but the remaining half are selected by a proportional system such that the number of seats won matches the proportion of votes for that party. Before people start bemoaning party lists, perhaps they might take a look at the House of Lords, or ponder for a minute just how ‘democratic’ party selection procedures are for the Commons.
Luke, I’m afraid you’re being a tad optimistic in your view that any Labour MP who hasn’t yet publicly expressed a preference one way or another is undecided. Conservative estimates of a breakdown of the PLP, even before the publication of the 114 (or maybe 113) “No” supporters was that AV was opposed by about two to one. This is confirmed by the number of MPs who have broken cover. It’s fair to assume that the remaining MPs yet to express a preference will break down into similarly proportioned camps, with about two thirds opposing. As for the list of nay-sayers, no-one was asked to “sign” anything; I personally was asked to speak to just five colleagues, firstly to get their view on AV and secondly to ask if they would be willing to be identified publicly as a supporter of the “No” campaign. Of the five, four said they opposed AV and one supported. Two of those who opposed declined to have their name published. You asked me on Twitter why this occurs. I believe the main reason is that there is a (wrong) sense that the “Yes” campaign is somehow “progressive”; some MPs, therefore, worry about being labelled “dinosaur”, or whatever the insult du jour used by the “Yes” campaign is for its opponents.
It’s like trying to explain the concept of perspective to an adult: AV is not a viable alternative to FPTP. Firstly, what makes you people in your Ivory Towers believe that the majority of the Great British Electorate will happily list candidates in order of preference? What if they don’t? What if they simply vote for the single candidate that they want? What then? I have said it before: the best system is that devised by British socialists for Germany and I see I am not alone in that belief.
The best system is either STV or the additional member system that they use in Germany. Personally I do not think that AV is worth it – as a stepping stone to PR in many ways it is a set back. As somebody above noted it will take several electoral cycles before we can even begin to consider another change. Secondly, I don’t think it is an improvement on FPTP. Also what with this being bundled up with Tory gerrymandering and receiving the Lib Dem seal of approval, a ‘No’ vote seems to me to have important symbolic power.