The electoral reform debate is stuttering into life. Today sees the official launch of both the Labour Yes campaign and Labour No campaigns. It’s a critical moment, not least because Labour votes will determine the result of the referendum. The most recent YouGov poll on the subject showed that while Lib Dem voters are overwhelmingly in favour of reform (69:15) and the Tories are largely opposed (48:29), Labour voters are split 42:33 in favour of AV.
With this in mind, Ed Miliband will appeal to his party’s activists not to turn the plebiscite into a referendum on Nick Clegg. He will say: “We can’t reduce the second referendum in British political history to a verdict on one man . . . the change to the alternative vote deserves our support because it is fairer and because it encourages a better politics.”
He will add that AV “should be the beginning of the journey, not the end”, although this is thought to reflect his support for a fully elected second chamber rather than a late conversion to proportional representation.
Meanwhile, in an op-ed piece for the Independent, John Healey, one of three shadow cabinet members who oppose reform (the others are Caroline Flint and Mary Creagh) manages to cite just above every misleading argument against AV. He repeats the lazy claim that the system has been “rejected the world over” (bar Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea).
In fact, as Healey should know, AV is the method used for Labour and Lib Dem leadership elections, for many US mayoral and district elections, for most student union elections and for internal elections in numerous businesses and trade unions.
The piece is starkly headlined “Vote refom would benefit only BNP, Ukip and Lib Dems” (ie, do you really want to give the fascists a helping hand?), a claim that, in the case of the BNP, has been exposed repeatedly as shameless scaremongering.
As Peter Kellner has written, “AV is the best system for keeping the BNP at bay. The party would seldom, if ever, win any contest under AV.” A system that forces parties to attract second-preference votes would lock out Nick Griffin’s mob. It is for this reason that the BNP itself is calling for a No vote.
Whether Miliband’s modest call for reform is enough to offset such demagoguery remains to be seen.
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