I've been a supporter of comprehensive constitutional reform – not just the voting system – since the 1983 election, when I was 14. Back then the Conservatives won less than 34,000 votes for each elected MP, Labour won more than 40,000 for each MP and the Liberal/SDP Alliance more than 338,000 votes for each MP. It somehow took nearly ten times as many voters to elect a Liberal as a Tory and Thatcher had an unassailable Commons majority of 144 with a minority of the vote.
I was disgusted and a few years later became a founder member of the Liberal Democrats, only to leave in the late 1990s as the Manchester party plotted to undermine that city's Commonwealth Games with fabricated stories to scare people off Labour.
Yet while I still yearn for a more proportional electoral system, I am not convinced I can vote for the Alternative Vote in the upcoming referendum and I'm shocked the Lib Dems asked Labour to introduce it without a referendum.
The Alternative Vote is not a system of proportional representation. It will generate more Lib Dem MPs, but is very unlikely to support smaller parties (check out the Electoral Reform Society projections). That's because to win an AV election, you really need to come first or second on first preferences. The Greens, for example, tend to come third or fourth and would be eliminated early on. They could get 10-15% of the popular vote and have no more MPs under the Alternative Vote.
Given its flaws, the Alternative Vote is not even Liberal Democrat policy. While their statements on voting systems have been increasingly vague in recent years, preferring ambiguous calls for 'fair votes', they have always supported the Single Transferable Vote (STV) and multi-member constituencies. This is also the favoured system of the Electoral Reform Society and all the other leading campaign groups.
So when the Jenkins Commission into electoral reform failed to back STV in 1998 it was a surprise that took the wind out of the reform movement's sails. Crucially, Jenkins did not recommend AV, but AV+ whereby parliament would be topped up with MPs from under represented parties. This idea, which would probably create additional Green and a couple of UKIP MPs, is not in the Lib Con proposal.
It gets worse. The coalition has also adopted the Tory idea of reducing the number of constituencies in Scotland, Wales and the inner cities (where Cameron has failed to win support). That is to say, the coalition appears only to support reforms that suit members of the coalition.
Set this in the context of the 55% lock in. This rushed legislation, that even the most prominent supporters admit transfers power to the monarchy, tries to stabilise the coalition by making Cameron virtually unsackable. Far from the much hyped reforming hung parliament, this is quickly emerging as a gerrymandering Lib Con.
The coalition says we have five years to the next election, but won't take the time to offer the country a new constitutional settlement of which we can all be proud.
Supporters of real liberal democracy need to stand up and say no to partial reforms that suit narrow party interests much more than they suit any democratic agenda. Say no to this obscene gerrymandering in the name of liberal democracy. Say yes making Britain a world beacon for liberal democracy.
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I've got my doubts about AV too simply because it isn't proportional.
With AV Labour votes in Kensington still won't mean that much in the national picture and the same goes for Tory votes in West Ham. If anything it's a Lib-Con compromise between the Tory preference for First Past The Post and the Lib Dem's Single Transferable Vote.
Some commenters below point out that any reform would be better than nothing. Normally I would agree with this line with regard to constitutional reform. But on this occasion I don't simply because I think the referendum is not a stepping stone to a better system but an effort to close down discussion on the issue of voting reform. If it passed the Government would say they'd acted and that's the end of it. If it failed they'd use it as an excuse not to raise the issue again. As a supporter of some form of Proportional Representation I think I lose either way.
As for AV - I prefer FPTP but am happy for a referendum. Again its slightly ironic seeing this post as it was a Labour manifesto pledge as well.
As for balancing constituencies - well overdue and just because it affects Labour is no excuse for the inequality it led to in the house. Don't you like democracy?
Labour did not gift a Scottish Parliament. It took part in wide and lengthy debate and asked the people to form a view through a referendum.
The whole article is flawed, protestations of supporting reform have no meaning unless you are prepared to accept the compromises and route maps explicit in the process. AV is not FPTP, that by definition makes it a fairer system that we have now. Ignoring that OUR party and OUR Prime Minister committed to AV last year even if you have a genuine commitment to proportional systems you cannot sell that to an electorate that is used to constituency MP’s and is still dealing with the realities of balanced parliaments.
The fact that the Lib-Dems might benefit (and it is a might, the nature of up to 5 years of coalition government could well undermine that) is utterly irrelevant to the question of support for AV, to even mention it implies a incoherence and lack of genuine commitment to electoral reform. I personally would have supported it in 97, 01, 05, 10 or even 83 when it would have lost us even more seats.
I also find it somewhat bizarre that some in a party of “progressives” have so much difficultly with progress. It is reasonable to say AV should be a stepping stone to something more equitable in 20-30 years time, it is puerile nonsense to decry that step being taken.
Lets us be honest (seeing as that is also the clarion call of the “take our time” brigade): even if it is a Tory-Lib-Dem government that brings in electoral reform (via a referendum), reforms the House of Lords, strengthens devolution, brings in fixed Parliaments, does a “great settlement” with Local Government, our party, The Labour Party has no business attacking developments broadly consistent with its attitude to fairness and democracy, its role is to tweek those aspects it can and help make permanent these reforms (and also to remember it had 13 years to have done it itself and manifestly failed to do so) for the betterment of all.
Lib Dems: AV, but not AV+. Don't want any more Greens. Tories: we don't want UKIP. Agreed.
Tories: Lets reduce Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish representation. We just can't win there. Our partnership with the Ulster Unionists killed them off! Lib Dems: okay.
Tories: how do we know Lib Dems won't swap sides should our popularity dip and go in with a new Labour leader. Lib Dems: how about this 55% rule? It does what you want, without bothering a future majority Tory government.
And so it continues!
I don't accept that a commitment to reform is undermined by an unwillingness to compromise. It all depends on the compromise.
I don't accept the stepping stones argument. Bring in AV now and its very unlikely we'll get another referendum on electoral reform this century. So let's get it right first time.
And the Tory price of AV now is less MPs for Scotland, Wales and the cities. How very convenient.
On the 55%, removing the PM's power to dissolve parliament to suit himself is a good thing. But the risk of politicising the Queen (a risk Peter Facey, director of Unlock Democracy accepts) is too great. We need to address how prime ministers emerge, not make a rushed rule change and see what happens. And the 55% would not have been a barrier for Thatcher or Blair.
This government's reform agenda is a compromise to suit this 2010 parliament, not a long term settlement. They have cherry picked reforms that suit the narrow current interests of the coalition partners.
If a majority of MPs decide that they want a dissolution and an election, then why not allow them? Sure, some would be voting to be removed from the House, but the current combination of MPs cannot work then why not allow the House to have that power?
As to fixed terms, Brown made sure that the last Parliament was a full term. Remember that since Brown became PM Cameron has called on a weekly basis for an election, so much for his conviction to fixed term parliaments. But this is the "new politics", it is created to benefit those in power.
I note your comments to mine are polite and potentially principled, if it is your position that only the "correct" system will do then you should continue to rail against AV and push for a NO vote in the referendum. What you must also do then is resign yourself to never seeing any other system but FPTP for as long as you can function.
I do not accept your argument about future referendum, they assume a electorate with a limited capacity engaging with reform and I equally think your comments on Scotland, Wales and the cities miss the point. AV ensure a fairer system in a Parliament of 650 or 500 or 300, that is te nature of AV, FPTP will distort the results even more with less MP's and constituencies (although to be clear if the ying to the yang of fewer MP's was they were properly resourced to do there job I could be attrached to the idea, especially if an elected upper house comes with it). Your position risks letting Cameron and Clegg do the popularist stuff without the vital reform.
A wise man from the East one said "a million mile march starts with a single step" your position seems to me to imply you won't even get out the door. The realities of 2010 are as equally profound in promoting the need for ANY reform as they were at any point since 1964 and that requires consistancy and pragmatism, non of which I see in your argument.
Electoral reform is only one issue. We need also to address the Lords (will a democratic Lords be more legitimate than the Commons, does that matter?), the role of the monarchy, England and its region's place in the Union.
Losing the AV referendum would shock the Lib Dems. Despite your first arguing that we should ignore the winners and losers, you suggest we should not assume they will do well next time.
If they lost because they were seen to be attempting a gerrymander, and given their survival might depend on it, we might get something like the constitutional convention we need.
As you appear to be so much better than all the rest of us, I am sure we will all await what you have to say with baited breath!
Were i to aske Alex Smith for a slot it would be for something substantive not my lastest bit of post electoral defeat angst.
There is no moderation of dissenting LABOUR voices on LL, that is why in the months I have been on I love the site because ignoring Tory Trolls it is the best place for us to discuss LABOUR matters