NOtoAV

It is important to remember this referendum is about the Alternative Vote system. NO to AV does not take an official position on proportional representation.

Some of our supporters back PR – such as Labour MP Margaret Hodge and Conservative MP Douglas Carswell– while others prefer the current system.

There are strong principled arguments for and against PR, and it's a debate worth having. The Alternative Vote, however, is a step backward rather than a step forward.

AV combines the weaknesses of both systems; it isn't proportional – three out of the last four elections would have been more disproportional under AV – and leads to more hung parliaments and political deals. AV ensures that the BNP will get more protest votes, giving them more legitimacy, but won't help legitimate small parties like the Greens win more seats (the British Election Study, for example, showed that the Greens would not have won any additional seats under AV).

Before it became the principal financial and logistical backer of the Yes to AV campaign, the Electoral Reform Society (who were previously called the Proportional Representational Society) said of AV:

"AV is thus not a proportional system, and can in fact be more disproportional than FPTP... It does very little to improve the voice of traditionally under-represented groups in parliament, strengthening the dominance of the 'central' viewpoint."

This is the wrong referendum at the wrong time, and risks saddling the UK with a system that even the supporters of the Yes2AV Campaign don't want.

Nick Clegg has acknowledged that there won't be another change in the voting system in the foreseeable future, saying:

"you can't constantly ask people. Referendums have a fairly definitive feel to them...I wouldn't be expecting another one."