NOtoAV

It is a great honour to be here and speak to you because this is a moment of real importance for our democracy.

In two days’ time, this country will take one of the most important decisions in our recent political history and unlike a normal election the result of this referendum will be permanent; there will be no way of changing the result five years down the line if we get it wrong.

Every voter in Britain has a big choice to make on Thursday.

People have heard the arguments and all the evidence shows that the more people hear about AV the more convinced people are that it is a thoroughly bad idea.

And that is no surprise; there have been many arguments over the last few weeks about what’s true and what’s not true. But let’s be clear. It is true that AV can be less fair by any definition of fairness as well as less proportional and more expensive.

And yes, it’s true that AV means that not just the candidate who comes second can win but under AV even the candidate who comes third can end up winning.  That is not what I call democracy.

And by themselves those are all powerful arguments against AV; it is worse than the voting system we have now.

We have many problems in this country. Many issues to address, but our voting system is not one of them.

But the most serious problem of all with AV is it that puts an end to the idea of equal votes and in doing so begins to undo the sum of two hundred years of British political progress.

When was I first elected to Parliament – David Owen will remember it, although we weren’t on the same side then – there were nine candidates, including the Monster Raving Looney Party. Screaming Lord Sutch himself was one of the candidates against me. I was told a story that although this was a by-election in Richmond Yorkshire he started off with his campaign in Richmond Surrey with his campaign.

There was the Monster Raving Looney Party, The Collective Party, Independent Sunshine Party – there were nine candidates. And under AV someone could have voted for all of them.

Started off with the Monster Raving Looney Party, moved to the Collective Party, then after much thought to the Independent Sunshine Party, graduated to the English Nationalist Party, then for some other independent, and still had their vote counted at the end for the Conservative, Labour and Liberal candidate.

They would have had their vote counted nine times whereas someone who voted for me at the beginning would have had their vote counted only once. That is not democracy.

If there’s one salient fact about British political history, it is the steady evolution towards the principle of one person, one vote. Progress was often slow and frustrating.

Many of those who campaigned for equal votes saw only small changes during their lifetime. But the direction was unmistakable and clear: from the rotten boroughs before the Great Reform Act, when the vast majority of people had no vote, to what we enjoy now, where each person has one vote, no matter your wealth, rank or station.

This is the British story, written by generations of reformers and progressives over two centuries. Today it stands as the cornerstone of our democracy.

And that is AV’s greatest problem: that it would reverse some of this history –the extraordinary thing about AV is that some people’s votes are counted more than others and more often than not the people whose votes are counted again and again are not the mainstream majority but those whose first choice is fringe or extremist parties.

As Foreign Secretary, I visit a lot of countries but I am yet to visit a country that recommends we change our voting system. I have seen many who would like to change theirs for ours – and have seen many who think we would be crazy to swap ours for theirs.

One person, one vote. Those four short words have been an inspiration to millions upon millions. Our way of voting – first past the post – is all about that. That is why it has been used – is being used – by more than two billion people across the world, by the world’s mightiest democracy, the United States of America, by the world’s biggest democracy, India.

Is the United States held back in the world by First Past the Post and does it agonize over changing it? Does India, facing all the changes it faces, think it can overcome them all if only they changed to the AV system? No all they use the system that came over to them from United Kingdom, from the Mother of All Parliaments.

What would the many nations around the world think if we in Britain chose AV?

It’s nobody’s first choice. Even its supporters see it as a compromise on the way to something else. It is a second or third choice system that favours second choice candidates. Less fair, empowering extremists, undermining the principle of one voter, one vote; capable of producing obviously undemocratic results, encouraging political horse-trading rather than open debate, AV does not represent electoral reform but a damaged democracy that no one really wants.

The world would be baffled by it – and rightly so.

So this is a big and crucial decision for our democracy, so big a decision that it’s bigger than any party. That’s why I am proud to share this platform here today and to be with people from other parties including from the Labour Party because this campaign is about the health of our democracy.

And if we are not to end up with AV, this unbritish, unfair loser’s charter, one thing is crucial: that everyone goes out on Thursday and votes and stops it from happening.

Don’t assume that just because most people are against it that will be enough, that you can rely on someone else doing the job: we all have to make it happen by turning out and turning up and voting no in the ballot box.

So let’s us be clear about it: you can either vote for a decisive electoral system, our system that in but two elections of the elections of the last 80 years has produced a clear result: the party with most votes goes into government with a majority of seats.

You can argue for a proportionate system as they have in Germany on grounds of fairness. I don’t agree with that for this country, but you can make an argument for that – for a decisive system or for a proportional system. The option at this referendum is neither decisive nor proportional. It is remarkably capable of being indecisive and unproportional at the same. And more complicated and expensive.

People don’t want it when they hear about it. It is in itself no one’s first choice. A system that gives an extra advantage those coming second or third can only ever itself be a second or third choice as an electoral system.

Having a system for this country that is a second or third or ninth choice as our electoral system – that is not good enough for the United Kingdom. And that is why people of so many parties and of none say to our country today: we should stick with a system that is tried and tested; is the envy of other countries in the word; that our greatest partners in the world have so often emulated; which has provided clear decisions; which has given the opportunity for great leadership to our country, with a clarity that has so often been the envy of many other countries.

Keeping those things requires us to keep our electoral system and it requires us to vote no Thursday.