Democracy rests not only on open debate, but also on honest debate. For the voters to make an assessment of the choices they have available, they must not only be informed, but also correctly informed.
The reality, of course, is normally some way short of this ideal. Many members of the public have neither the time nor the inclination to fully understand all of the issues they are being asked to make a snap judgment on in a general election. Meanwhile, parties and the media frequently do little to elevate the level of debate or show confidence in the voters’ ability to comprehend an argument that is contained in more than a 30-second soundbite.
A referendum on an issue as complex as changing the electoral system, however, places a special responsibility on the main protagonists to ensure that the debate which is conducted is honest and open. Sadly, the No to AV campaign has singularly failed to discharge this responsibility.
We should caveat this assessment. Progress has made its position in this debate crystal clear: we unreservedly support a Yes vote. We do so, however, in the full knowledge that many of our most loyal supporters take a different position from ours. We have had to agree to disagree.
Nonetheless, while respecting the views of many Labour opponents of AV, we cannot condone the campaign that has been waged on their behalf.
Two principal arguments have been peddled by the Labour No campaign. Neither stand up to close scrutiny.
First, it is simply not true that the adoption of AV will prevent the election of a majority Labour government in the future, with the Liberal Democrats the permanent role of kingmaker.
As we showed in the February edition of Progress, each of the elections between 1997 and 2010 would have been won by Labour with a majority larger than that produced by first past the post. In 2010, AV, too, would have produced a hung parliament. But because the number of Tory MPs elected would have been smaller, as it would have been in each of the elections fought under Tony Blair, the parliamentary arithmetic could theoretically have led to a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government – an option that was not realistically on offer last May.
The truth is that the supposed strength of first past the post – its ability to produce stable governments with majorities in parliament – rested not so much on the electoral system but upon the fact that, for much of the 1950s and 1960s, nine in 10 people voted for one or other of the two main parties. Since 1970, that share has steadily dropped, so that, in 2010, 35 per cent of the electorate chose a party other than Labour or the Conservatives.
Second, it is also simply not true to suggest, as Matthew Elliott of the No campaign and the Taxpayers’ Alliance has done, that AV would give ‘BNP supporters more power at the ballot box’. This is related to the lie that AV would see the abandonment of the principle of one person, one vote. The truth is that every vote under AV is counted once and only once. Preferences ‘transfer’ only where candidates are eliminated before these votes can be counted.
Most importantly, research recently published by ippr demolishes the argument that BNP supporters’ second preferences could determine the outcome. It found that the number of seats where the second preference of those voting BNP could theoretically push a winning candidate over 50 per cent was only 25, and that in all of these seats the second preferences of the BNP are not ‘decisive’ and the second preferences of others just as critical. They have, of course, simply proved what Nick Griffin already knew, which is why the BNP have been campaigning for a No vote. And it’s the current system – which allows extremists to be elected on a minority of the vote – which is the most friendly to the BNP. Opponents of AV argue that this cannot happen at the parliamentary level, but the election of George Galloway in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 shows that first past the post allows highly undesirable individuals to be elected on barely one-third of the vote.
AV is not a panacea for the problems of British democracy, but it is a modest step forward. It preserves all that is best about the current system – the constituency link and the ability of local parties, not party bosses nationally, to select their candidates – while reducing some of its most egregious failings – especially the number of ‘safe seats’, where voters are denied a meaningful choice.
Neither is AV a panacea for Labour’s political problems. But, again, it is a modest step forward because it will temper the advantage the Tories have traditionally gained from a split centre-left vote. No wonder former Conservative leadership contender David Davis terms AV ‘the anti-Tory
voting system’.
The byline for this article really shows that we are in the realm of “Alice Through the Looking-Glass” politics. In most spheres of life it is the responsibility of those advocating a change to make the positive case for the change. Yet instead of making a positive case for AV you resort to attacking those who wish to retain the status quo. The notion that the YES campaign is a very thinly disguised Lib Dem campaign is seen in the re-use last year’s strategy of portraying themselves as the anti-politician politicians. I am still waiting for Labour YES! to provide a list of Labour MPs who neither work very hard to be elected nor work very hard as MPs – two failings which, apparently, are resultant from the current voting system and will be cured by AV. Anyone?
but won’t the voter be cured? of having their ‘vote’ turned into the election of a ‘representative’ representing only 25% of electorate ,if that.
Absolute nonsense. The most laughable thing is that it should be the yes campaign who should be doing the convincing but you can’t do that because of the miserable little compromise being just that. Honest debate is the last thing the yes lot want, if they did they would say exactly what their campaign is all about along with admitting that the apparent miracle that AV will help some minorities while defeating others in the ‘interest of fairness’ just doesn’t add up. With regards to respect, I am not sure how you can eve use the word when your campaign has become that disparate you’ve had no choice but to try and turn it into Labour v Conservative and brand anyone who wont accept the miserable little compromise solution as a Tory.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, that the No campaign has said about AV is true. The case for AV is, briefly, that it (a) gives far more of us a say in who represents us, (b) ensures that all MPs have the backing of a real majority of voters, (c) prevents the election of candidates who are widely disliked, and (d) eliminates the problem of the wasted vote: we can show which party we really support even if we know they can’t win – and still play our part in choosing our MP. It’s true that the Yes campaign has been feeble and ill-focused, but at least it hasn’t been a farrago of misrepresentations, half-truths and downright lies http://bit.ly/h0qZgO.
Jonathan A) No it doesn’t B) No it doesn’t C) No it doesn’t D) No it doesn’t IF you could just explain the BNP malarkey i.e. the Yes lot saying they will be defeated when other minorities will be helped it would be appreciated. I know it’s hard but it really is a simple question. While your at it if you could also explain “worried about your job Your MP isn’t” with evidence that shows not a single MP in parliament isn’t trying to help their constituencies that to would be nice. Sorry for being greedy but if you could also say how the so-called safe seats will be campaigned in in terms of how a Yes will generate the funding for it that to would be greatly received, especially to those who have seen members refused assistance because ‘we’ can’t afford it.
I am not impressed with this and have voted NO. Labour and indeed Progress should seize the opportunity to have a real debate on our terms and not those chosen by a opportunist Lib Dem leader anxious to get some sort of victory to subdue the critics of his policy within his own party