Paul Anderson, Tribune column, 22 January 2010
Reforming the voting system is an anorak thing most of the time – but every now and again it breaks out of the closet, as it has in the past few months.
A year ago, electoral reform was barely on the agenda. Labour had won three elections in a row promising a referendum on the way we vote for MPs, and in government it had introduced different versions of proportional representation for elections to the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the London Assembly. Roy Jenkins had laboured mightily during Labour’s first term to produce a report recommending a more proportional system for electing the Commons, published in 1998. But the promised referendum on the Commons voting system had not happened – and since becoming prime minister Gordon Brown had given no indication of interest in it.
Then, however, came the MPs’ expenses scandal – and suddenly electoral reform once again lurched into view. There were letters in the papers and petitions demanding change. At last autumn’s Labour conference Brown promised a referendum on the voting system to allow voters to choose between the first-past-the-post status quo and the alternative vote (in which you have single member constituencies and mark your ballot paper “1, 2, 3, 4” in order of preference instead of “X”). And last month, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said the government would legislate before the general election for such a referendum. Cue more letters in the papers and, of course, a backlash against the referendum among Labour MPs – apparently led by Ed Balls, the schools secretary – culminating in a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Monday that seems to have come to no conclusion whatsoever.
I’ve been an anorak on electoral reform for getting on for 25 years, but I’m afraid I’ve found it a bit difficult to get worked up about it this time round.
On one hand, what’s most likely to be on offer (if anything) is deeply unattractive. A multi-choice referendum with the options of the status quo, the alternative vote and a proportional electoral system would be fine. But a choice between first-past-the-post and AV is not. AV is not a system of proportional representation – and it’s not a step towards PR. Indeed, in many respects it’s worse than first-past-the-post when it comes to reflecting the spread of opinion in the electorate: voting “1, 2, 3, 4” and redistributing preferences means that the least unpopular candidate wins in every constituency. Big deal!
On the other hand, it’s a bit late for Labour to be changing the voting system. Yes, it’s a matter of democratic principle, and yes, I’ve signed the petitions, but legislating for potential change now, with a general election imminent and Labour 10 points behind in the opinion polls, smacks of desperate opportunism.
What ought to have happened is easy enough to spell out. Labour should have agreed in 1994 or 1995 to propose a sweeping new constitutional settlement for the UK in its first term, with proportional representation for Westminster elections integrated with a democratic second chamber based on regional and national devolution – so that, when implemented, we’d have had something like the federal republic of Germany as our political system. Of course, that’s just a bit too neat: there are plenty of things in the German basic law that wouldn’t have worked for Britain, not least because we’ve got three stroppy Bavarias to contend with, hazy boundaries to regional identities in England and a monarchy (at least in stage one) ... but you get my drift.
The idea of a “big package” constitutional revolution was first given traction by Stuart Weir, Anthony Barnett and others who set up Charter 88 in the wake of the 1987 general election. They were dismissed at first by the Labour leadership – Neil Kinnock famously described them as a bunch of “whiners, whingers and wankers” – but Kinnock and others gradually came round. By 1993, a Labour Party commission headed by Raymond Plant had recommended an end to first-past-the-post Westminster elections – and with a democratic Lords and devolution to Scotland and Wales solid Labour policy under John Smith (and John Prescott winning the argument on regional government for England in Labour circles), it looked as if a Labour government just might do the business.
Instead, Smith died, and Tony Blair decided that constitutional questions were a diversion. The focus groups didn’t see them as a priority. Labour rowed back from electoral reform and promised referendums galore on devolution. Lords reform was watered down.
What was left by 1997 was worth having, particularly devolution to Scotland and Wales. But the government lost all momentum on the constitution by 2001– both on Lords reform, which was appallingly fudged and then put out for endless consultation, and on electoral reform, on which nothing happened after Jenkins produced his report. English regionalism breathed its last as a cause (at least for now) after a farcical referendum in the north-east voted no to a regional assembly in 2004.
It is a sorry story of opportunities missed – and it would be great if the government could make amends, just a little, in the next couple of months. But something tells me that this is going to be one for the Labour manifesto after next.
Cross-posted from Gauche
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Saturday, 16 April 2005
PR BACK ON THE AGENDA?
Paul Anderson, Gauche blog, 15 April 2005
Tom Baldwin and Greg Hurst report in the Times today that the government has admitted secretly setting up a review of the first-past-the-post electoral system for the House of Commons. They go on rather about how the Lib Dems are miffed about not having been informed – but the very fact that Labour is thinking again about electoral reform is highly significant.
The party came to power in 1997 promising a review of the electoral system for the Commons to be followed by a referendum on its proposals, and Tony Blair entrusted the review to an Independent Commission on the Voting System chaired by Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, the report of which duly appeared in 1998. It recommended a hybrid quasi-PR system for elections known as AV-plus, using the alternative vote to elect 500 MPs in single-member constituencies and a top-up system to elect another 150 from counties or cities to ensure greater (though not absolute) proportionality. (Under the alternative vote, voters mark their ballot papers not with a single “x” but by numbering their preferences 1, 2, 3 and so on. If no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of first preferences, the bottom-placed candidate is eliminated and his or her second preferences are added to the other candidates’ totals, and so on until one candidate tops 50 per cent.)
But Blair was opposed to even the modest move towards PR that AV-plus would have represented, most of the rest of the cabinet and a majority of the parliamentary Labour Party agreed with him, and in any case Labour had a massive majority – so the Jenkins report was quietly shelved and the referendum promise kicked into touch. It took a massive battle by supporters of electoral reform to prevent the possibility being ruled out completely in Labour’s 2001 manifesto.
That electoral reform is now being revisited could simply be a token gesture to rally the small but vocal constitutional reform lobby to the Labour cause. But my hunch is that it reflects real worries at the top of the Labour Party about the likelihood of the Tories winning under FPTP in 2009 or 2010. Which is of course a cynical self-interested reason to consider a long-overdue reform – but what the hell.
The danger is that Labour decides to drop the Jenkins proposals and go for AV alone in single-member constituencies – an electoral system that would mean lots of MPs being elected as “least bad” candidates but has nothing to do with PR. We shall see. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the pro-PR Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform now has a rather impressive list of supporters among Labour MPs and candidates. If Blair does opt for AV alone, we can at least expect a bit of an argument in the PLP.
Cross-post from Gauche
Tom Baldwin and Greg Hurst report in the Times today that the government has admitted secretly setting up a review of the first-past-the-post electoral system for the House of Commons. They go on rather about how the Lib Dems are miffed about not having been informed – but the very fact that Labour is thinking again about electoral reform is highly significant.
The party came to power in 1997 promising a review of the electoral system for the Commons to be followed by a referendum on its proposals, and Tony Blair entrusted the review to an Independent Commission on the Voting System chaired by Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, the report of which duly appeared in 1998. It recommended a hybrid quasi-PR system for elections known as AV-plus, using the alternative vote to elect 500 MPs in single-member constituencies and a top-up system to elect another 150 from counties or cities to ensure greater (though not absolute) proportionality. (Under the alternative vote, voters mark their ballot papers not with a single “x” but by numbering their preferences 1, 2, 3 and so on. If no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of first preferences, the bottom-placed candidate is eliminated and his or her second preferences are added to the other candidates’ totals, and so on until one candidate tops 50 per cent.)
But Blair was opposed to even the modest move towards PR that AV-plus would have represented, most of the rest of the cabinet and a majority of the parliamentary Labour Party agreed with him, and in any case Labour had a massive majority – so the Jenkins report was quietly shelved and the referendum promise kicked into touch. It took a massive battle by supporters of electoral reform to prevent the possibility being ruled out completely in Labour’s 2001 manifesto.
That electoral reform is now being revisited could simply be a token gesture to rally the small but vocal constitutional reform lobby to the Labour cause. But my hunch is that it reflects real worries at the top of the Labour Party about the likelihood of the Tories winning under FPTP in 2009 or 2010. Which is of course a cynical self-interested reason to consider a long-overdue reform – but what the hell.
The danger is that Labour decides to drop the Jenkins proposals and go for AV alone in single-member constituencies – an electoral system that would mean lots of MPs being elected as “least bad” candidates but has nothing to do with PR. We shall see. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the pro-PR Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform now has a rather impressive list of supporters among Labour MPs and candidates. If Blair does opt for AV alone, we can at least expect a bit of an argument in the PLP.
Cross-post from Gauche
Saturday, 1 July 2000
AV IS WORSE THAN NO CHANGE
Paul Anderson, Tribune column, 30 June 2000
The word around Westminster is that Tony Blair has decided to come out against proportional representation for the House of Commons and in favour of the system known as the alternative vote. If so, he should think again. AV is the worst possible electoral system for general elections – much worse than the first-past-the-post status quo – and it would almost certainly be disastrous for Labour in the medium term.
Of course, it is not difficult to see why Blair might be tempted by AV. He is in a bit of a hole. As things stand, it looks as if the leaders of the big trade unions, who are opposed to PR for the Commons – even the diluted version recommended by Lord Jenkins's independent commission on the voting system – will succeed in getting a motion to ditch Labour's promise of a referendum on electoral reform on to the agenda of this year's party conference in Brighton. If it is debated, it stands a good chance of being passed, largely because the union barons will put their block votes behind it.
That would be a disaster, not only for Blair but also for the Labour Party. A defeat of the leadership by the block vote is the last thing the party needs in what could be the last conference before a general election. It would wreck Labour's relations with the Liberal Democrats, whose continued co-operation is predicated on the referendum being in Labour's manifesto. And this, in turn, could switch Lib Dem voters off the idea of voting Labour tactically to keep the Tories out. Result: dozens of Labour seats lost unnecessarily, possibly even a Tory victory.
In the circumstances, it would be surprising if Blair were not casting around for something – anything – that might keep the union barons at bay and the Lib Dems on board. And at first sight AV looks as if it fits the bill.
For a start, it is not a system of PR – which means that it could well be acceptable to the unions and those Labour MPs who object to PR. Under AV, single-member constituencies are retained. All that changes is that voters do not mark their ballot papers with a single "X" next to the name of their favoured candidate but instead rank the candidates "1, 2, 3, 4 ..." in order of preference. Unlike any PR system, AV would not necessarily result in a reduction of the proportion of seats won by Labour. Indeed, all the evidence suggests that Labour would have won even more seats in 1997 had AV been in place.
At the same time, AV would also almost certainly increase Lib Dem representation. Not by as much as a PR system, granted, but it might just tempt Charles Kennedy into acquiescence, particularly if the prospect of further change is not ruled out.
Here it is worth remembering that the system recommended by Jenkins was "AV-plus", in which AV would be used for single-member constituencies and topped-up from lists of candidates in mini-regions to make the overall result more proportional. It must have crossed Blair's mind that AV on its own might be saleable to the Lib Dems and other supporters of PR as a first step toward introduction of a Jenkins-type system.
All of which would be fine and dandy – were it not for the fact that AV on its own is so flawed as an electoral system. Its main effect would be to ensure that results in marginal seats were determined in most instances by the second preference votes of supporters of third- or fourth-placed candidates.
In nearly all the Labour-Tory marginals that decide British general elections, that would mean Lib Dem voters deciding whether they would rather keep Labour or the Tories out.
AV would reinforce the already stifling trend in British politics toward lowest-common-denominator politics. And, as Lib Dem voters' second preferences piled on the agony for whichever of the major parties they disliked more, it would also exacerbate the in-built tendency of FPTP to yield landslide election results
Although in 1997 this would have benefited Labour, throughout the 1980s, when Liberal and Social Democratic Party voters generally saw the Tories as less bad than Labour, it would have given Margaret Thatcher even more commanding majorities than she actually won. The chances that AV could deliver a Tory landslide at the election after next or the one after that should not be dismissed lightly.
In short, far from yielding a House of Commons that more accurately reflects the spread of party support across the country, AV would make the Commons less representative. It is not a step toward proportional representation but a step away from it – and as such deserves nothing but contempt from democrats.
Cross-post from Gauche
The word around Westminster is that Tony Blair has decided to come out against proportional representation for the House of Commons and in favour of the system known as the alternative vote. If so, he should think again. AV is the worst possible electoral system for general elections – much worse than the first-past-the-post status quo – and it would almost certainly be disastrous for Labour in the medium term.
Of course, it is not difficult to see why Blair might be tempted by AV. He is in a bit of a hole. As things stand, it looks as if the leaders of the big trade unions, who are opposed to PR for the Commons – even the diluted version recommended by Lord Jenkins's independent commission on the voting system – will succeed in getting a motion to ditch Labour's promise of a referendum on electoral reform on to the agenda of this year's party conference in Brighton. If it is debated, it stands a good chance of being passed, largely because the union barons will put their block votes behind it.
That would be a disaster, not only for Blair but also for the Labour Party. A defeat of the leadership by the block vote is the last thing the party needs in what could be the last conference before a general election. It would wreck Labour's relations with the Liberal Democrats, whose continued co-operation is predicated on the referendum being in Labour's manifesto. And this, in turn, could switch Lib Dem voters off the idea of voting Labour tactically to keep the Tories out. Result: dozens of Labour seats lost unnecessarily, possibly even a Tory victory.
In the circumstances, it would be surprising if Blair were not casting around for something – anything – that might keep the union barons at bay and the Lib Dems on board. And at first sight AV looks as if it fits the bill.
For a start, it is not a system of PR – which means that it could well be acceptable to the unions and those Labour MPs who object to PR. Under AV, single-member constituencies are retained. All that changes is that voters do not mark their ballot papers with a single "X" next to the name of their favoured candidate but instead rank the candidates "1, 2, 3, 4 ..." in order of preference. Unlike any PR system, AV would not necessarily result in a reduction of the proportion of seats won by Labour. Indeed, all the evidence suggests that Labour would have won even more seats in 1997 had AV been in place.
At the same time, AV would also almost certainly increase Lib Dem representation. Not by as much as a PR system, granted, but it might just tempt Charles Kennedy into acquiescence, particularly if the prospect of further change is not ruled out.
Here it is worth remembering that the system recommended by Jenkins was "AV-plus", in which AV would be used for single-member constituencies and topped-up from lists of candidates in mini-regions to make the overall result more proportional. It must have crossed Blair's mind that AV on its own might be saleable to the Lib Dems and other supporters of PR as a first step toward introduction of a Jenkins-type system.
All of which would be fine and dandy – were it not for the fact that AV on its own is so flawed as an electoral system. Its main effect would be to ensure that results in marginal seats were determined in most instances by the second preference votes of supporters of third- or fourth-placed candidates.
In nearly all the Labour-Tory marginals that decide British general elections, that would mean Lib Dem voters deciding whether they would rather keep Labour or the Tories out.
AV would reinforce the already stifling trend in British politics toward lowest-common-denominator politics. And, as Lib Dem voters' second preferences piled on the agony for whichever of the major parties they disliked more, it would also exacerbate the in-built tendency of FPTP to yield landslide election results
Although in 1997 this would have benefited Labour, throughout the 1980s, when Liberal and Social Democratic Party voters generally saw the Tories as less bad than Labour, it would have given Margaret Thatcher even more commanding majorities than she actually won. The chances that AV could deliver a Tory landslide at the election after next or the one after that should not be dismissed lightly.
In short, far from yielding a House of Commons that more accurately reflects the spread of party support across the country, AV would make the Commons less representative. It is not a step toward proportional representation but a step away from it – and as such deserves nothing but contempt from democrats.
Cross-post from Gauche
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)