Further evidence that Labour would benefit dramatically from fulfilling its 1997 pledge to hold a referendum on electoral reform emerged yesterday with a poll showing — among other things — that a third of Lib Dem voters would flock to Labour in key marginal seats at the next election.
I have long argued that electoral reform is the only way in which to smash the right’s dominance of politics and media in this country, breaking apart a system in which roughly a million voters in Middle England determine general election results for the whole of the UK. And as I reported in June, Brown is said to be considering the proposal by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, that the government hold a referendum on general election day.
Many in Labour — including cabinet ministers such as Andrew Adonis — oppose the idea, saying that the move would “muddy the waters” of a general election. This may or may not be true: one should not underestimate the intelligence of the British electorate. However, it is increasingly clear that Brown is going to have to pull a rabit out of the hat between now and next year’s election.
As I have just written in a forthcoming article for the Fabian Review, sent before yesterday’s report:
The Liberal Democrats, themselves let down by Tony Blair’s belated refusal to enter into any form of coalition, are, as they have threatened to before, likely to play a crucial role at the next election. Brown may well need them onside in the (quite likely) event of a hung parliament. And yet at present, they are more distant from Labour than at any time since when Paddy Ashdown was holding private talks in No 10 during the mid-1990s. Charles Kennedy quickly recognised, as Ashdown came to, that such flirtations were going nowhere. And so the party, which bravely opposed the Iraq invasion in 2003 and has since forged a civil-libertarian agenda, is no longer as natural a bedfellow to Labour. To make matters worse for Labour, under the guidance of Vince Cable and the leadership of Nick Clegg, the party has moved away from its position under Kennedy — that it would enter into coalition with Labour but not the Tories — to one in which it may be more likely to countenance the latter but not the former. So what can Brown and Labour do to change this, and what is at stake? . . . [The] prospect of that elusive PR referendum must be revisited . . .
Gordon Brown’s Labour government must surprise disillusioned and alienated (but not apathetic) voters between now and the election in half a year. This means holding a referendum before then. The right will complain but their hypocrisy — they would not have complained, of course, had Labour honoured its one-time pledge for a poll on the Lisbon Treaty — can be exposed with confident argument. This was also, after all, one of New Labour’s original pledges. Doubters could be appeased with the condition that the 2010 general election could be held under the present system to avoid charges of “changing the rules of the game”. But, whatever the details, the referendum must be revisited now. Tribalists and traditionalists will scoff. But it could be Labour’s only hope.
Buy the next edition of Fabian Review to read the whole article and many other interesting features.
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