NOtoAV

Don’t Believe Lib Dems when they tell Labour to vote Yes

For the last three weeks several leading Liberal Democrat politicians have been telling Labour supporters to vote Yes in order to block the Conservatives.

The irony is overwhelming: Lib Dem Cabinet Ministers trying to unite the Left while they prop up a Conservative government implementing Conservative policies!

If the Lib Dems find the Tories so distasteful, you have to ask why they continue in government with them?

Of course, we all know they are making a crude bid for Labour support but I believe that Labour voters won’t be fooled into backing this Lib Dem  project.

Up and down the country, we stand overwhelmingly against AV. That’s true of the majority of Labour voters, councillors, MPs and Peers.

The most important reason to vote No is the importance of keeping the principle of fair, equal votes – ‘one person, one vote’.

Our current voting system ensures that the British people elect their government in a way that is fair and equal – it is one person, one vote irrespective of a voters’ political outlook, background or station in life.

Under the Alternative Vote, however, some people would get more votes than others. While supporters of mainstream parties would typically only get one vote counted, people who vote for extremist and fringe parties could get two, three or more votes.

In other words, supporters of less popular parties will be more likely to get their second preferences counted.

And, if you believe that the Labour Party is the best vehicle for creating a fair, progressive Britain, it’s critical to vote No to AV on Thursday.

AV would cost the party seats in most elections and make it nearly impossible for Labour to win a majority.

Let’s look at what would have happened under AV in previous elections.  Because it exaggerates decisive elections, Labour would have gained more seats in 1997.

However, we would have had even fewer seats throughout the Thatcher years. As Peter Kellner said, AV ‘would have driven Labour yet further into the wilderness in 1983 and 1987’. And it also would have hurt the Labour party in close elections like 1992 and 2010.

By contrast, the Liberal Democrats always benefit from AV – that’s why they are urging a Yes vote. Under AV they would have gained more seats in every election since 1983. In the 2010, for example, the Liberal Democrats would have won an extra 32 seats.

David Laws wasn’t joking when he described the system as a ‘shield against’ their unpopularity. To quote Peter Kellner again, ‘Without AV, the Lib Dems’ prospects at the next general election could be bleak’.

The self-serving origins of this referendum highlight how AV suits one party’s narrow self-interest, not the general public. Of course, every electoral system has winners and losers. That is the nature of elections. The answer for the losing parties is to work harder to win more votes – not to demand that their voters get more votes than anyone else, nor to introduce a system that tries to change losers into winners.

In their crude bid for Labour voters, the Yes Campaign has repeatedly claimed that AV would make a ‘progressive alliance’ possible. I would love that to be true. Unfortunately, Lib Dem supporters seem to disagree: According to the latest polling, only 16% of Lib Dems want a Labour-led government after the next election, while 51% would prefer to see David Cameron in Downing St.

Labour supporters aren’t stupid, and we won’t take marching orders from Liberal Democrats. If they want to undermine Cameron they shouldn’t be tinkering with Britain’s tried and tested electoral system to do so, they should just resign from the coalition, today. Then we could see if the Lib Dems are really serious about forming a progressive coalition.

AV would save the Lib Dems and would embed them in government for generations to come, two good reasons why Labour voters and anyone else who puts conviction and vision in politics before cold calculation and back room deals should vote No to AV.

The Lib Dems fought the last election under a false prospectus and they are doing the same in this referendum. The only sure way to stop them is a resounding “No” to this shabby little compromise”.