I’m kidding. Obviously I’m voting Yes to AV. I’ve been a member of the Labour party for nearly a quarter century, and been a supporter of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform (LCER) for all that time. In 1990 I made my first, and so far only, speech to the Labour Party conference in Blackpool in support of a resolution setting up the Plant Commission. No, not horticulture, but a review of electoral systems under the stewardship of Raymond Plant. I was delighted we offered a referendum in 1997, and was disappointed when we never quite got round to it. So I think it’s fair to say I am an electoral reformer.
The standard of debate about AV has been truly terrible. I have friends active on both sides of the fence, and sometimes I wonder what on earth they are thinking. The argument has been facile and ill-natured. It’s focussed on what Nick Clegg or David Cameron might want you to do; on what happens in Fuji and Australia, and made-up scare stories about the BNP and soldiers going without body armour because Slough council bought some vote counting machines. Given that both sides claim the moral high ground, it’s sad to see them wrestling in the gutter. They remind me of a game popular in the 1970s which had red and a blue plastic boxing figures in a ring, which bashed the hell out of each other. It was fun for a few minutes, and then it got put in a cupboard.
Far more illuminating have been the local Labour parties I’ve been speaking to. Here, whilst there is a high degree of scepticism, is also a high degree of knowledge and practical common sense. People have thought about the issues, and weighed up the options. I would say that local parties are as divided on AV as the PLP or the country.
I’ve developed my own script for these meetings, and avoided some of the nonsense being lobbed between the Yes and No camps. This has proved effective, as the No side turn up with a prepared speech answering points I’ve either discounted or not made. In Crawley Labour club last night, they didn’t turn up at all.
The first point is that Labour people who support AV are not closet Liberal Democrats. I do not believe that Lib Dems are socialists who got lost on the way to the Labour committee rooms. They are not part of the Labour movement, nor ‘progressive’. Their political methodology is disingenuous, which is a posh way of saying they tell lies to win votes. Before the coalition, I made the point to anyone that would listen that the Orange Bookers would rather form a government with the Tories than Labour. Events have proved that Lib Dems are not our friends. My guess is that AV will damage the Lib Dems because it removes the need to vote ‘tactically’. Most of their vote is ‘soft’; they are the rubbish bin into which protest votes are deposited. They have no residual base in a class or a wider movement as their anchor.
But this leads to the second point – that any attempt to re-run past elections as though they had been conducted on AV is pointless. Both sides have tried to demonstrate narrow party advantage by saying what would have happened if this or that election had been conducted using AV. But AV changes the way people behave – both the candidates and the voters. It might well increase turnout. You can’t run a campaign based on ‘what ifs’, entertaining though they are. And anyway, we shouldn’t be changing the electoral system just to benefit Labour. We’ve been complaining loudly about the Tory gerrymandering of seats, which is plainly part of a plan to help the Tories win the next election. It would be hypocritical to campaign for a yes vote based on what’s best for Labour. Although of course AV does give Labour the advantage, this is not an argument I would ever make. It is fair to ask why the Conservatives, to a man and woman, are sticking with the status quo. As a barrister might ask: cui bono?
In the 1920s, when Labour had a policy in favour of AV and a Labour home secretary brought in the bill to introduce it (no referendum nonsense back then), the Labour leader Clynes said that ‘good must give way to better’. That’s the nub of it for me. I don’t make great claims for AV. I don’t think it will prevent corruption, perfect the human soul, cure cancer, or make the sun shine more often. Nor do I think it will destroy democracy, herald a BNP government, or make us all live like the Papua New Guineans. I think the London factor will be key. Because there are no local or mayoral elections in a city of 7 million people, turnout will be low, and it will depress the national turnout. On a low turnout, with an electorate which mostly has not been engaged by either side of the debate, anything can happen.
A No victory will close down the debate for 20 years. A Yes vote will open the possibility of change to a new generation, who will see a connection between a vote cast in their local polling station and a real change to the system. Perhaps this, more than AV itself, is the greater prize.