It would be easy but wrong to categorise the TUC’s launch of a debate on electoral reform as a sign of desperation and nihilistic acceptance of the inevitability of defeat for Labour at the general election. For one thing, the decision to initiate a debate within the trade union movement was the democratic decision of the unions themselves at last year’s Congress in Liverpool. Moreover, as activists within the labour movement cannot have failed to notice, the debate is already off the ground. True, it has been concentrated by the prospect of defeat or a hung Parliament. The Government itself, sensing a mood for some form of change in the system is committed to a referendum on electoral reform, while favouring the non-proportional alternative vote system on the justifiable grounds that it maintains the link between MPs and constituencies.
But, as Tribune has said before, the Labour Party will never be the same again after this election, win, draw or lose. Exactly the same point is made by Neal Lawson of Compass on page 11. His organisation goes further in its apocalyptic forecast of Labour’s fate beyond an election defeat. In its provocatively titled paper The last Labour Government, Compass points to three possible developments that could wipe out Labour’s chances of ever forming a government for good: the Tory pledge to cut the number of House of Commons seats by 10 per cent, with Labour taking the heaviest hit; the possibility of Scotland embracing independence and taking the 41 seats currently held by Labour with it; and the Tory threat to reform party funding in a way that will break the link between Labour and the unions.
But there is greater reason than survivalist pragmatism to consider the need for a debate. As TUC general secretary Brendan Barber says: “Whatever the strengths of our present system, it encourages the major parties to concentrate their effort in marginal seats, and on the floating voters within them who are most likely to switch their votes. Safe seats and core voters end up getting taken for granted.”
The late Robin Cook would have been squarely on the side of reform. Reflecting on the result of the 2005 election, he wondered how Labour members would feel if the Tory Party had been elected with 35 per cent of the vote and a majority of 66 in the Commons. He was concerned too that the first-past-the-post system “dangerously” split the progressive vote.
Arguments about fairness and a cold pragmatism about which system best suits your favoured party have always been the two wings of the debate on our voting system. The first is not always driven by altruism alone; it is necessary to look closely at the motives of those advocating proportional representation and what they hope to gain from it, in some cases the weakening of Labour’s chances to form a strong government. Tribune has always favoured the pragmatic line in support of a system which is capable of delivering that strong Labour government. If the nature of politics has changed so fundamentally – not simply because of the prospect of electoral defeat – then this is a debate whose time has come.
