He was reflecting on the 1992 referendum in France which saw the Maastricht Treaty adopted by but the narrowest of margins. Voters turned out to punish a socialist government and president they did not like. The same happened in France in 2005 when Jacques Chirac, then at the height of his unpopularity, was disavowed by voters in a referendum on the EU’s constitutional treaty.

In the first flush of a regime change and a bright new popular government, referendums are popularity polls. Tony Blair easily won the early referendums to set up the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. But a few years later when he tried to win a Yes vote for devolved regional government in northeast England, people were fed up with Blair and a No vote resulted. Jim Callaghan suffered the same fate over his Scottish and Welsh devolution referendums which took place at the height of the 1974-1979 Labour government’s unpopularity and, in consequence, were defeated. Margaret Thatcher wisely avoided referendums. She used Attlee’s words to describe them as ‘plebiscites, the device of dictators and demagogues’. But she also knew that any referendum she supported in the 1980s would get a No vote no matter the merits of the issue being decided.

Will we see the same happen on May 5 if the AV referendum gets the nod from parliament tomorrow? Campaigners in the Yes and No camp insist that their arguments will prevail as voters reflect maturely on the arguments for or against. Some of the arguments are silly. The only major democracy – Australia – that uses AV shows a pattern of alternance of power between the left and the right not dissimilar to other countries with a clear tilt to the right. Anyone who has observed Australian politics will laugh at the idea that AV makes for better or cleaner politics or connects voters better to parliament. Equally we now see FPTP does not prevent secret behind-closed-doors deals. May 2010 was a continental style deal giving birth to the UK ConDem coalition in exchange for the betrayal by Nick Clegg of solemn pledges made before May 2010.

Had the AV referendum been held at the end of 2010, it would have been a plebiscite on Nick Clegg then at the height of his unpopularity over student fees, the Sheffield Forgemasters scandal and other Lib Dem U-turns. But Clegg is losing profile as there is less and less evidence that Lib Dem ministers have any influence on government policy. Clegg was 2010. Cameron is 2011.

The Yes to AV camp is receiving a tremendous boost as a result of the success of Ed Miliband’s strategy of making David Cameron and the Tory party the main target after the early months of ferocious Clegg bashing. Cameron and the Tories are completely identified with the No to AV camp and the best way to punish Cameron is to punish his politics. Hence the sudden rise in the polls of the Yes camp which corresponds almost precisely to the slump in Tory popularity. As the cuts bite middle Britain voters will punish Cameron as they have forgotten Clegg.

The No camp now faces a real dilemma. They have good arguments but they are lumbered with the Jonah of David Cameron. The more he is identified with the No to AV position the more the chances of a Yes vote grow. This may change as the campaign takes off but for most people there is simply a giant yawn of indifference to the notion that AV is the magic wand that opens the way to a better, fairer, cleaner politics. In the end it will be the quality of the party offer – both in terms of policy and political leaders – that will decide the next election, not the voting system.

Far more important is the reduction of representation – the first time in parliamentary reform history that power is removed from the people and handed to the executive and other power-holders in Britain as there will be fewer MPs to scrutinise and challenge what ministers and the Rupert Murdochs get up to. The AV referendum is a sideshow. Politicians and commentators have been asleep as the much bigger prize for the Tories, namely the reduction in the number of citizens’ representatives, goes through with little opposition. Cameron can afford to give Clegg a Yes vote on AV. For the interests that Cameron represents, what really counts is weakening parliament and making it much harder for Labour to again win an outright majority.

For more on AV read…

A marriage of principle and politics – Progress editorial

Stephen Twigg MP: Why Labour should support AV

Peter Kellner investigates why the BNP may be so against AV…

AV and the PLP by Luke Akehurst

Miliband should lead on AV – Paul Richards

AV and reducing MPs are not the same says Denis MacShane MP

Yes to AV, no to PR says Samuel Walker 

Photo: Adrian Scottow