That’s why the physical doorstep campaigning I’ll be doing will be for Labour in marginal councils we can gain like Dover and Thurrock, not at home in London for the referendum. For another, even I’m beginning to tire of having the same argument endlessly, having campaigned for electoral reform in one variant or another since I joined the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform in 1990.
But this referendum does probably offer the best, probably only, chance in my lifetime of changing an electoral system, First Past The Post, that’s existed since Magna Carta. And there are only eight days left to debate it. And my side – and Progress’ – the ‘Yes’ camp – is 16 per cent behind in all the polls so it’s all hands to the pump. And more than that, I feel a moral obligation to try to make the case one last time because of the volume of nonsense that has poured out of the ‘No’ campaign. If they win through basically insulting people’s intelligence with piffle about ‘losers winning’, ‘£250m that could be spent on the NHS’ and ‘AV is too complicated’ then we will really have got the electoral system we deserve.
First, we should support a Yes vote on AV because it is better for Labour:
- For almost the whole of the last century the progressive left vote has been split in many constituencies, enabling Tories to slip through the middle. I’d prefer to address that split by hoovering up all progressives into Labour, but in the meantime let’s have a voting system where a result of 40 per cent Tory, 35 per cent Labour, 25 per cent Lib Dem in a seat doesn’t just give it to the Tories.
- Our vote has been squeezed to nothing in many southern and rural areas by Lib Dem appeals to tactical voting. AV would mean Labour supporters in those seats could proudly give their first preference to Labour, and any tactical voting could be done with lower preference votes.
- FPTP turns us into a party of a few regions whenever we lose elections. Those regions happen to be ones in demographic decline, returning fewer and fewer MPs. In turn our recovery is more difficult because we have too few politicians speaking with southern accents about southern concerns. AV would go some way to balancing the geographical representation of the parties, so Labour looked more a national party and less lopsided in the areas it represents – and is hence more able to win nationally.
Second, and more importantly, we should support it because of our social democratic values:
- We believe in advancing towards a more equal society through democratic consent, not through the largest minority imposing its will on everyone else. As Hugh Gaitskell said ‘Let us not forget that we can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.’ Imposing socialism without majority support for it is something to be left to Leninist supporters of a dictatorship of the proletariat.
- We believe in choice. How can we honestly argue that voters should be denied the right to rank parties and forced to pick just one in the 21st century, when the choices they make over every other aspect of their lives are so much more pluralistic and sophisticated?
- We believe in equality – so how can we defend the way FPTP means the winning line in some seats is 50 per cent but in others with a three- or four-way fight was as low as 29 per cent in the last general election? AV would mean the winning line was 50 per cent of the votes used in the final round of counting in every seat in the UK.
- We believe in fairness – so how can we defend a profoundly unfair situation where two-thirds of MPs are elected on a minority of the votes cast?
Above all, for Labour people to oppose AV smacks of deep-seated pessimism about the British people. AV will in many constituencies generate run-offs between us and the Tories in the final round. If our analysis is that in such a run-off the majority will pick the Tories not us, it does not say much about our political self-confidence. It suggests we only think we can win by electoral sleight-of-hand and that at heart the British people are innately hostile to progressive thinking. That’s not what I believe.
I’m sick of MPs of any party being able to win their seats on 29 per cent of the vote. I’m sick of political campaigns that argue that votes for some parties (very often for Labour) are ‘wasted’. What a disgusting thing to be able to say. In a democracy there should be no ‘wasted’ votes. AV isn’t perfect but people on the left should no more feel it appropriate to vote for the mediaeval anachronism of FPTP, designed for elections in an age when you were either for the king or against him, than for other Ruritanian nonsense that litters our constitutional landscape, like an unelected second chamber. We are the party of change and democracy, let’s vote for those values.’
“I’m sick of MPs of any party being able to win their seats on 29 per cent of the vote” You must be relieved that it has only happened once since the Second World War, then (1979, Belfast North). Or twice if you’re rounding down.
“But this referendum does probably offer the best, probably only, chance in my lifetime of changing an electoral system” Why are you going to pass away after the locals? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone but the only way if the once in a life time opportunity is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity is if all those who are to have the once in a life time opportunity pass away the day after the election.
cor,you’re a bit moody girls, think the No’s are going to loose obviously!
For almost the whole of the last century the progressive left vote has been split in many constituencies, enabling Tories to slip through the middle. I’d prefer to address that split by hoovering up all progressives into Labour, but in the meantime let’s have a voting system where a result of 40 per cent Tory, 35 per cent Labour, 25 per cent Lib Dem in a seat doesn’t just give it to the Tories. This is all based on the flawed belief that Liberal voters, and that their rank party is in anyway progressive, will vote Labour second. This rotten Coalition is reason enough to vote no to AV.
Well said Luke!
” … only happened once since the Second World War, then (1979, Belfast North).” Inverness, 1992, Russel Johnson elected with less than 27%.
Old Politics still fails to address the concerns about ‘tactical voting’ and ‘vote splitting’… How any Labour person can get in to bed with the Tories and their ilk, I will never know.
And I’m sick of Tories being elected in Council elections on a 25 to 35% turn-out because “Tories always vote.” Actually, I’ve already voted by post. My first choice went to ‘No’ and my second choice to ‘Yes.’ I did it because I want to see the look on the Liar’s face when the only reason for a coalition with the Tories was this certainty of electoral change. How will the leader of the Lie. Dems. wriggle out of this one. Resign? Yes, and pigs might fly! Apparently, AV does not end tactical voting. What you do is make the candidate you hate most your second choice? Seems to me a recipe, if everyone did it, for a Government that, truly, absolutely nobody wanted.
So the defects of FPTP are to be remedied by a system that is “even less proportional, disturbingly unpredictable and unacceptably unfair” in which MPs are elected on the 2nd or 3rd preferences of people who support fringe parties? In other words, you are prepared to scrap the sacred principle of one person, one vote, one value in the hope of a better system in the future? If AV is passed it wiill set back the cause of genuine electoral reform for generations. It will also offer a reprieve for the lying Lib Dems.
“Second, and more importantly, we should support it because of our social democratic values: ” and here was I thinking we are a party of Socialist values. I thought the Social Democrats sold out to the Liberals years ago.
So how do you get a seat with no one scoring over 29% on first preferences up to 50%? Just do the maths – it is extremely hard to see how any redistribution of preferences will produce a 50%+ result in every single seat – particularly if as is quite likely a quarter, a third or even a half (as in some Scottish local by-elections under AV) of voters refuse to express any second or lower preferences at all. This line is constantly used and is simply untrue. To get a true 50%+ result in every seat you’d need the French two-round knockout system.
new politics has already said it ,but Eileen gordon the Laobur M.P for romford in 97 won with 25% of the vote with Ukip.Lid Dems and tories all geting 24% and NF standing too, William Hague won the Richmond by election in 1989 with 31% too.