AV: More repulsed than attracted

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

I haven’t always been a party tribalist. In the grand scheme of things I haven’t even been a party member that long. But I’ve always known ahead of election day how I’d be voting.

For the first time that looks highly unlikely.

Of course if there were local elections in my area I’d be doing my utmost to support the Labour candidate – but it’s that other election, the one many of my friends don’t even know is happening – that still has me torn.

I’ve gone through my feelings on AV not once, but twice before on LabourList, but I had hoped that by now I’d be able to come down definitively on one side of the argument. It’d be hard to say that I haven’t been exposed to the arguments – we’ve been airing them on LabourList for months – but in reality many of them have repulsed me rather than won me over.

Whether it was Nazi smears (which soon became generic claims from both sides about the BNP) – or the premature baby, the arguments increasingly became smears that left me disgusted and saddened by the poor quality of the debate.

Until recently I still laboured under the impression that I could set aside my problems with both campaigns and my problems with both FPTP and AV (in short they’re both broadly unrepresentative and a bit rubbish) and back one or the other. I’d have a side come election day. I would be my normal self again.

Alas that’s not looking likely. The election broadcasts by both yes and no campaigns have left me cold. Both have gone for anti-politics as the overriding message of their final push. AV is, depending on which one you believe, more likely to lead to untrustworthy coalitions (like, erm, this one, elected under FPTP), or will stop the kind of shameful acts we saw during the expenses crisis (with little explanation of how that makes sense, but lots of shouting).

What is more important than the kind of voting system we have (and won’t be changed purely by the system we adopt) is trust in politicians and politics. All these adverts do is re-enforce negative stereotypes. Both campaigns should be ashamed. They know the reality and they should know better.

A friend, who cares more about this referendum result than I do, said that I sound like the guy in the pub who shouts every time someone talks about the news. He’s probably right. I’m the person who doesn’t care what the result is and would rather everyone spent their time focused on something more important. It’s not a pleasant position to be in. I hope that we never have a referendum with two such poor choices presented again.

It’s no fun to be politically disinterested, that’s for sure.