Empowering voters – the argument for AV

In this guest post, Young Fabian member James Roberts puts the case for supporting AV.

There is something intrinsically fair about the idea that the percentage of seats that a party has in parliament should be at least approximately equal to the percentage of people who hold corresponding views in the country at large. In contrast, there can be little argument that for a party to secure a majority of 65 (and 55.2% of the seats), as Labour did in 2005, with the support of only roughly 20% of the electorate, is undemocratic. This is partly due to an inherent bias towards the incumbent and partly due to the low turnout that year, but mostly down to the strange and quaintly simplistic voting system at use in the UK: First Past The Post (FPTP).

However, the only reform on offer in the near future is a switch to the Alternative Vote (AV). The distortions inherent in FPTP are well known, and while it is rather less well known that AV can lead to even bigger distortions, it does result in a considerable increase in the number of marginal constituencies and a majority of people’s votes counting, as opposed to the huge potential for wasted votes under FPTP. Most of the numerical arguments have been made and so instead I will try to present the cultural arguments in favour of reform.

Wheras the battle now is between the ability of each party to raise funds in order to swamp a small number of swing voters with material and the appearance of local activity, the deconcentration of electioneering from marginal seats can only increase the power of the individual to make their choices based on the needs of the local community.

The first post-independence Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, a Fabian socialist, made the case that democracy itself is not a ticket to the elysian fields, but is the very medium in which we, if we believe ourselves to be democrats and socialists, have to and should operate: “Democracy is good… because other systems are worse… But merely saying that democracy will solve all problems is utterly wrong. Problems are solved by intelligence and hard work.”

How can we condone continuing to support an antiquated and clearly badly-representative system? Even the joint leader of the German Communist Party in the 1920′s, Rosa Luxemburg, knew the importance of frequent and meaningful elections for maintaining a healthy public discourse: “Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.”

The critics of AV will point out that the trend of falling turnout in Britain is bad enough already, without introducing any ‘fiendishly complex’ reforms that will ‘put people off voting’. On the contrary, it is by providing people with real choices and empowering them with decisions that can actually shape their own lives and their communities, that we can expect to see an increase in voter turnout. The critics will also point out that AV will lead to ‘consensus politics’, often pointing out the example of Italy’s record in (not) maintaining coalitions. This is less about the system itself however than the political culture of a region. Sweden has had a form of Proportional Representation (PR) since the 1930s which has resulted in the Social Democratic Party controlling the agenda of the ruling coallition. This has led until recently to a powerful social democratic consensus and some of the best rates of equality in the developed world, with Sweden (alongside its other Scandinavian neighbors) regularly placing in the top 3 in indices of political and economic freedom.

Before and during the UK 2010 general election, there were very few people who voted for the Liberal Democrats under the belief that they were a party of the centre-right, and in some ways they have succeeded in becoming a ‘moderating influence’ on some of the most regressive aspects of Conservative policy. Even on one of the Lib Dem flagship issues, tuition fees, we see that a considerable number of Lib Dem MPs are prepared to defy the whip and vote against any increase. While it might seem distasteful in today’s political climate to work with the Liberal Democrats, AV could only work to increase the chances of being able to rely on the ‘progressive majority’ that so many voters believed in before the election.

Eventually, with a switch to a more proportional system, such as a form of Additional Member System (AMS) which I myself favour, we could see many of the eurosceptic members of the Conservatives join the likes of UKIP. Meanwhile, it is possible that the gains the far left and the Greens would make might come at the expense of Labour and the Lib Dems, but it is unlikely that a coalition of the left could arise without Labour forming the lynchpin of such a force, as in Sweden.

If we vote against AV in the referendum in May, we do so only out of fear, and yet it will be our undoing. The malaise which has afflicted turnout and general trust in politics in the UK is amplified by the ineffectiveness of our voting system. The thing that people disliked about Labour towards the end of the last government was that politics became something that was done to people, rather than something people did for themselves. Cameron has proposed the ‘big society’ as a hazy way to tap into this desire for localism; we can go far beyond this rhetoric and instead of expecting the army of volunteers to appear, actually empower people to make the changes they want to see for themselves. This is what the Labour movement has always been about. This is the kind of issue we as a party have to put to the forefront of our campaign. This is the political extension of the work done by the co-operative movement and can only result in greater levels of equality of income and opportunity.

But only if we vote ‘Yes’ in May.

This was originally posted on the Merseyside Fabians blog.

Woolas-gate

Today,  news of a fresh twist in the Phil Woolas affair: members of the Parliamentary Labour Party are furious at Harriet Harman for effectively disowning Woolas, irrespective of the outcome of a potential judicial review into the judgement of the special election court last week which declared his election void.

Moreover, some of them are raising a ‘fighting fund’ to help Woolas challenge the ruling.

I’m given to understand – and the news today seems to confirm it – that Phil Woolas is held in quite high regard amongst many of his (former?) PLP colleagues.  While I have no reason to doubt that Woolas is a good friend to many of them, I think the PLP are letting personal relationships cloud their political judgement.

• Firstly, the election court judgement (pages 39-41) is quite unequivocal in its assessment of the facts against what is a very high watermark to declare an illegal practice has been committed. Evidence uncovered by the court portrays quite underhand electoral tactics by Woolas’ team. For example:

“The Respondent’s diary and the email correspondence between members of the Respondent’s election team, including the Respondent, explain why the Respondent was willing to make statements in the truth of which he had no reasonable grounds to believe. By the last week of the campaign, after the Prime Minster’s confrontation with Mrs. Duffy, he was pessimistic as to his chances of success in his own election. “I can’t see Labour recovering from this nationally; we may come third. Locally we will be very lucky to hang on”. His agent, Mr. Fitzpatrick, was very pessimistic. “I am convinced that it’s game over.” Mr. Fitzpatrick’s assessment was that it was necessary to find a means of persuading the Tories in the constituency to vote for the Respondent. “If we can convince them that they are being used by the Moslems it may save him and the more we can damage Elwyn the easier it will be to stop the Tories from voting for him”. The Respondent and his election team were aware that some Muslims wished to cause the Respondent to lose his seat and, to that end, were persuading Muslims to vote for Petitioner. They in turn wished to persuade the “white folk” to vote for the Petitioner. To do so they had to get them “angry”. The chosen method or strategy was to suggest that there were Muslim extremists who advocated violence, in particular to the Respondent, and that the Petitioner was attempting to seek the support of such Muslims. This was, we consider, one of the methods by which it was hoped to “damage” the Petitioner.” (para 199)

• Secondly, Harriet Harman’s position is strategically sound. Irrespective of whether an appeal overturns the original judgement on a technicality, she is right to say that the public won’t accept the party backing politicians who appear to have lied to get elected. Moreover, the nuances of the grounds of Woolas’ appeal are likely to be lost on most of the public – the damage has already been done.
• Thirdly, a YouGov poll today suggests that the overwhelming majority of the public agree with the courts’ decision, and the breakdowns suggest the same is true of Labour respondents.
• Fourthly, it sends a very damaging message to the electorate when they start raising money to protect one of their own from the consequences of behaviour which is clearly indefensible. Surely politicians learnt a few PR lessons from the expenses affair?
• Finally, there is some debate over whether or not a judicial review is (a) permissible and (b) would have the effect of reinstating Woolas as an MP even if successful.

Woolas-gate is a sorry affair. Irrespective of their personal loyalties, Labour MPs should recognise the damage that has already been done, and that is unlikely to be healed by a prolonged legal action or PLP-infighting.

Turning on Harriet Harman won’t change these perceptions. Rather, it will confirm in the mind of members of the public the self-serving and removed nature of the ruling class. In some ways, the PLP are showing a high degree of political naivety in defending Woolas in this way.

Woolas’ election literature has already done enough damage. Labour MPs should avoid making it worse.

Alex Baker is New Media Officer of the Young Fabians.

A Clegg-Cam deal could consign the Lib Dems to history

With it looking more and more likely with each passing hour that the Liberal Democrats will do a deal with the Conservatives, huge opportunities have opened up for the Labour Party – opportunities which if seized could propel us back into power in a matter of months.

The Fabian Society has today published a briefing paper outlining the potential for a revitalised Labour party to take full advantage of the discord, disillusionment and downright anger amongt Liberal Democrat voters – many of them Labour supporters who switched tactically – and win a second election within the year, in the event of a highly unstable Lib-Con alliance falling.

The reasearch shows that 18 of the Lib Dems’ 57 seats are prey to a Labour surge were just one in four Lib Dem voters to switch. If one in ten switch, the most achievable aim, eight seats will fall – Norwich South, Bradford East, Brent Central, Manchester Withington, Dumbartonshire East, Birmingham Yardley and Edinburgh West.

The Liberal Democrats are also vulnerable in Lib-Con marginals. In the south west of England, where 13 of the Lib Dems’ 57 MPs were returned, the Tories finished second in all but one of those contests. A swing of only 2.5 per cent from the Lib Dems to Labour would see the Tories take six of those seats, with a swing of 5 per cent resulting in the Lib Dems losing all but two of their seats in the region.

As I argued on these pages two weeks ago, it just doesn’t make sense for the Liberal Democrats to join forces with the Conservatives. On a whole range of policy issues, from Europe to equality, from climate change to the economy, in opposition to fox hunting and the Tories’ regressive inheritance and marriage tax plans, the Lib Dems are much much closer to Labour than they are Tory, their activists and those who voted tactically even more so.

But it is on electoral reform that they are most at odds with the Conservatives. As the graph below illustrates, the Liberals were even more screwed by the first-past-the-post system this time than in each of the past three elections, losing five seats in return for an increase in their vote of nearly 850,000:

The ball now firmly in his court, wooed by everyone, the world at his feet, it’s the moment he’s waited his whole life for, but in his haste for power, and his desire to “do the right thing” – even though he’d be doing nothing of the sort – could Nick Clegg be opening his side up for attack from left and right, and from within, and in so doing signing his own political death warrant and consigning his party to another 90 years in the wilderness.

It’s high stakes poker with the dice loaded in his favour; the question is, will he roll ’em or be rolled?

Liberals would be mad to coalition with the Consevatives

As the Liberal Democrats maintain their rating in the polls, with Nick Clegg flying high having lived up to heightened expectations in the second leaders’ debate on Thursday night, attention has inevitably, even more so than last weekend, turned to the question of who the Lib Dems would join forces with in the event of a hung parliament.

So what is new, what have we learnt in the past seven days that we didn’t know before, and where does this leave Nick Clegg and his party, whose approval he must gain were he to enter into government – 75 per cent of Lib Dem MPs AND 75 per cent of the federal executive OR two thirds of delegates to a special conference OR 50 per cent of the entire membership – the so-called “triple lock” which could take months to pick.

But I digress; assuming the general election results in a hung parliament, who should the Liberal Democrats join forces with? Well, of course you’d expect me to say Labour, and so I will – Labour makes sense not just for us (obviously), but for the Liberals themselves. On some of the key dividing lines, they are much closer to Labour than they ever will be to the Conservatives: on Europe, climate change, equality, the Tory flagship marriage and inheritance tax plans and on the biggest issue of all – the economy.

Ken Clarke, in an interview with the Telegraph, has today revealed for the first time that the Conservative Party was drawing up plans for a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The shadow business secretary said:

“Our starting point would be to say to the other two parties ‘you know you have got to control the deficit and debt’, and have a plan our creditors believe for getting rid of the structural deficit over the next parliament. If they just sit there and say ‘that’s just your party platform’, my own view is that the economic consequences of abandoning that would be catastrophic.

“The core problem is the debt and the deficit, and the Conservatives have been the most consistently sensible on that. I don’t think it would be in the national interest to resile from that… You’ve got to ask yourself, would either of the other parties be prepared to do that?”

Well, there you have it, leaving aside the Tory leadership’s – and even more so the Tory membership’s – regressive hostility toward Europe, tackling climate change and gay, gender and race equality, on the economy, their plans to withdraw £6 billion from the economy and start slashing public sector jobs (see last night’s Jeremy Paxman interview with David Cameron for more), there will be no compromise.

On the Liberals’ other key platform, their raison d’être in many people’s eyes, constitutional reform and a change to the voting system, it would be utterly incomprehensible for them to do a deal with the Conservatives. The Tories, though, have been panicked into announcing some reform measures – but there are no plans to change the way MPs are elected. The BBC website has more:

“The Tories would not allow an unelected prime minister to hold office for longer than six months, David Cameron is to announce in a speech [today]. Their policy would force a new prime minister without a mandate to hold a general election.

“Mr Cameron will say that three of the last five prime ministers, including Mr Brown, have been unelected, but that Tory John Major won his own mandate after taking up the position. He will also outline plans to select parliamentary candidates through postal primaries.”

The plan for primaries is indeed progressive, the presidentialisation of the office of prime minister less so – we elect parties not prime ministers in Britain, and it is for the party most able to form an administration to decide who the prime minister should be. The party’s mandate is already there; Gordon Brown’s mandate came from the 2005 general election, which Labour won, by 66 seats.

As the graphs below show, since the war, the Liberals have suffered the most from the current first past the post system, Labour and the Conservatives benefitting greatly:

This is more starkly illustrated in looking at the difference between the percentage of the popular vote each party has received and the proportion of seats in the House of Commons they win:

As Jeremy Vine explained on last night’s Ten O’Clock News on BBC One, under the current system, it is possible for a party to finish second in every seat across the land, win more votes than all the other parties combined, get over 50 per cent of the vote, and still end up with no MPs. Fair? I think not.

Under the Tories, with a majority or in coalition, there will be no referendum on electoral reform, no chance for the Liberals to secure a fairer voting system and exert the power their polling figures warrant. Only with Labour can they achieve that fairer future, and realign the left after a centruy in which the right has dominated; better together than apart, for the many, not the few.

The nasty party is back: Pro-hunting, anti-gay and getting personal

The increasingly desperate, deeply personal attack on Gordon Brown launched by the Conservatives is a stark reminder, if ever it were needed, that the old-style nasties never went away, they just kept quiet, hoping to con the public into believing they had changed. They’re back, and as unpleasant as ever.

The new poster campaign, derided as a “waste of money” for being old-hat, ineffective and simply “bad” by Paul Richards on Labour List (and already parodied on the excellent mydavidcameron.com website), may please the salivating hordes of Brown-hating nihilists on the Tory blogosphere, but will do little to appeal to ordinary voters, the kind of people in swing seats who the Tories need to win round to gain a majority.

Taken aback by the collapse of their poll lead, it seems more to do with pacifying their base – a worrying trend of late.

On Tuesday, David Cameron floundered badly in an interview with Gay Times, broadcast on Channel Four News. In it, he failed to commit to supporting the Alli amendment in the Lords which would allow civil partnership ceremonies to be performed on religious premises. He also, as Sunder Katwala blogged on Next Left, defended the Tories’ far-Right allies in the European parliament. Watch it:

Last week also saw Cameron’s European parliament front bench spokesman on international development speak out against the Tobin tax, the tax on bankers that would give billions to tackle poverty and climate change, in Britain and abroad, raising hundreds of billions each year, saying:

“What did we go and do just now, we voted for a Tobin tax to hammer already weakener financial institutions in the west and give money to a whole bunch of people who will probably steal it.”

And today, The Independent revealed details of a highly secretive, kept-under-wraps underhand campaign by bloodthirsty hunters to target anti-hunt Labour MPs and candidates, spurred into action by Cameron’s promise of a vote on the repeal of the Hunting Act. The Indy reports that:

“Hundreds of hunt supporters are under orders to ride into action in key marginal seats within hours of a general election being called, in the knowledge that David Cameron will allow a return to hunting with dogs if he gets to Downing Street. Documents seen by The Independent show that hunt masters have been rounding up supporters and sending them to the most fiercely contested seats, ahead of a big push planned for the first 72 hours of campaigning…

“Members of the Heythrop Hunt, which operates in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, have been organised to help Richard Graham, a businessman who recently gave up his job to be a full-time Conservative candidate in Gloucester, where the Labour MP Parmjit Dhanda is defending a 4,271 majority… The East Kent Hunt, operating south of Canterbury, urged its supporters to “do everything in their power” to help the Conservative candidate in Dover, Charlie Elphicke, unseat the Labour MP, Gwyn Prosser, who has a 4,941 majority to defend.

“Nicky Sadler, of Vote-OK… said: ‘We are helping some Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru candidates, but no Labour. The majority are Conservatives, because the Conservatives are the only party that has repeatedly said they will repeal the Hunting Act.’”

In many ways, these events serve only to remind us of what we already knew, and hopefully act as a warning sign to those conned by Cameron into thinking the Tories had changed. The most damning indictment is that, despite calling for an election ever since Brown took office, they still have nothing to say on the big issues, no plan for the economy, no eye-catching policies, save for the proposals to give 3,000 of the richest estates an inheritance tax cut while the rest of us endure “austerity”…

They’re running scared. Cameron and Osborne know that if it’s a straight fight over policy, fairness and the future, they’ll lose hands down, so they’ve dragged the campaign into the gutter, just as they did in 1992 and 97, it’s where they feel at home, it’s the only place they feel they can win. I mean, who needs policies when you’ve got bugles, bloodthirsty hounds and posters on your side?! Tally ho!