All our hopes of proper electoral reform were dashed this evening when the details of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition were released. Rather than holding out for PR, the Lib Dems have sold out for a referendum on the ‘AV’ (Alternative Vote) system.
Firstly, and most importantly, AV is not a form of proportional representation in any way. It is merely a modified method of electing each individual constituency MP.
Not only is AV more complicated than the existing FPTP system, its impact will be minimal, shuffling a few seats between the major parties. It will not add any MPs from any of the smaller parties and will only add confusion to the voting procedure.
Bizarrely, neither the Tories nor the Lib Dems had a commitment to the AV system in their manifestos. So we have now been lumbered with a vote on a system that not a single person who voted for either party actually voted in support of. With all the talk of mandates and listening to the wishes of the public, how on earth do they justify this referendum?
The big question that has struck me though is this: who will campaign for AV in the referendum?
The Conservative party is against electoral reform, and they have stated that they will campaign in favour of FPTP.
Labour cynically added a commitment to a referendum on AV to their manifesto after 13 years of Government to make themselves look like reformers. Let’s not forget that a promise of a referendum on PR was in their 1997 too, yet nothing came of it. The Labour party doesn’t want reform – they gain too much from FPTP.
The Lib Dems support the STV system, not AV. In fact AV will not significantly address the disparity between the Lib Dem vote share and the ridiculously small number of MPs they have in Westminster. Lib Dem support for AV will be lukewarm at best.
So what about all of the activists who have campaigned so fiercely for electoral reform over the past few months and years? Very few of them would even vote for AV, let alone campaign for it.
In the end, this referendum on AV could be a total waste of everyone’s time with no substantial campaign and little enthusiasm for the Yes side.
A referendum result against a switch to AV would be heralded by the defenders of FPTP as a clear indication that the British public are not interested in reform.
This unwanted, mandate-free referendum on a system that no one really wants could severely damage the call for real electoral reform.
#1 by Tern on May 9th, 2011
Writing from after the referendum was lost -
Labour were beign awkward, wanting to leave office and spoiling it for the Lib Dems, wilfully maliciously leaving them with only the Tories to turn to. They had to get an increment of electoral reform, to be worth making a deal at all. If they had not taken the chance of AV they would have got nothing at all, and we would have been left with a minority Tory govt and like 1974 again the uncertain possibilities of a second election without having seized any chance for reform at all on the rare occasion of getting a hung parlt. I still say Clegg was right to make the deal. He was, and is, wrong to be so unconditional towards the Tories and pledge to the coalition lasting full term. That may come from some innate rightist agenda on his wing of the party, anyway it is what made him toxic and that blew the referendum too. I’m furious with the Lib Dems for being ever so disciplined and not ousting him as leader before the referendum, but close enough to it that iot could not be cancelled. that is what they should have done.
Both in the dealmaking last year and in the referendum, it’s the anti-progressive tribal wing of Labour that comes out looking worst, has played the most ruthless game to keep the voting system corrupt.
#2 by Anthony Butcher on May 9th, 2011
I was interested to re-read what I wrote before the referendum. I managed to get myself very much behind the referendum campaign and become supportive of AV. it is a better system than FPTP, but miles away from the PR system that most of us would want.
I suppose that part of the problem was that the Lib Dems were focused on getting STV rather than a proper PR system. They could then justify AV as being an easy stepping stone to STV.
Since the country has now convincingly rejected AV, I think that the Lib Dems need to go back to the drawing board and think about endorsing a different electoral system that doesn’t involve preferential voting.