On May 5, we have a chance to reform our Westminster electoral system – a chance that won’t come around again for a very long time, if at all.
The question those on the left should be asking themselves is not how much pleasure we can get from giving Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats a short-term kicking (tempting as that is), but what result is in the best interests of progressive politics in general and the Labour Party in particular.
No voting system is perfect. But first past the post must be the worst of the lot. It means that elections are won or lost on a few thousand votes in a handful of marginal constituencies. Parties focus their resources, campaigning energy and policies accordingly. Vast swathes of the country are effectively ignored in the rush to court Worcester Woman and Mondeo Man – or however that prized swing voter in those few swing seats is described. Voters in safe seats (the majority) who don’t support the winning party are effectively disenfranchised. In Worst of Both Worlds, a damning report published last month, the centre-left Institute for Public Policy Research concluded that FPTP failed both the “fairness” test and the claim made for it by its supporters that it provides “strong single-party government”. It is no coincidence that no country that has moved on from FPTP has subsequently moved back to it.
The alternative vote is not everyone’s favourite. But it is what is on offer. It unites former FPTP supporters such as Jack Straw with long-time fans of proportional representation such as Ken Livingstone. It is the system we in the Labour Party use to select our parliamentary candidates and leader. Most trade unions use it, as do millions of Britons who take part in elections for organisations as diverse as the Royal College of Nursing and the British Legion.
The Tories hate it and oppose it almost unanimously. The British National Party is also against AV. We should ask ourselves why. The Tories do not want it because they know they would lose out. The far right thinks AV could finish it off. The BNP would never get 50 per cent of the vote.
Conversely, AV would help Labour and the Lib Dems. Under AV, Labour’s majority would have been bigger at the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections. We know this because, for the past 20 years, exit polls have asked people for their second preferences. Lib Dem voters have consistently chosen Labour by a ratio of about two to one. At the 2010 election, AV would have halved the current Tory-Lib Dem majority.
But what should be even more compelling for Labour supporters is the future. Analysis of the impact on the electoral map of the gerrymandering being pushed through by this Government shows that, if we keep FPTP, the Conservatives are likely to benefit by about 35 seats. The claim that Lib Dem second preferences have suddenly changed because of the coalition is not supported by the evidence. The current polls show disaffected Lib Dems moving to Labour rather than the Tories by two to one. Even those in the rump who say they still support the Lib Dems have a preference for Labour over the Conservatives.
AV has other advantages. It would liberate all those natural Labour supporters in hopeless areas who have agonised about voting tactically to vote with their hearts and vote Labour, secure in the knowledge that their vote will count. It will encourage candidates and MPs to work harder and reach out beyond their core supporters. It will make it much harder for lazy or incompetent MPs to squat in safe seats for life and much less likely that parties would tolerate such behaviour.
In sticking his neck out and leading from the front, Ed Miliband has shown that he understands what is at stake. The right place for Labour to be is on the side of reform and the new politics that recognises both the continuing level of public dissatisfaction
with the political establishment and today’s pluralist reality.
The wrong place is fighting alongside the Tories for the status quo. David Cameron has the most to gain from a “No” vote. Those who dream of such a result toppling the coalition should think again. There have been scores of lost referendums in Europe over the past few decades and only two examples of coalitions falling apart as a result.
So let us focus on Labour’s long term interests and resist the seductive but ultimately self-defeating temptation to give Nick Clegg a bloody nose.
Ben Bradshaw is Labour MP for Exeter and a former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
