The dividing lines are getting clearer on democratic reform

By Michael Calderbank

If the Daily Mail is getting apoplectic about the policy of a Labour government it generally signifies that it is going in the right direction. So it is with some gratification that I read their report accusing us of being ready to “ditch centuries of tradition and scrap the first-past-the-post voting system”. But even more reassuring was the source of the story – none other than Jack Straw himself:

“The two-party system of the 1950s is gone for good and the electoral system needs to react to that. There is also a crisis of trust in politics following the expenses scandal. We need an electoral system that secures legitimacy for the public.”

It is surely a measure of the progress that Labour’s reformers have made in shifting party policy that we are now prepared to attack the Tories for their cravenly self-interested defence of the status quo. Even Jack Straw – a long time opponent of proportional representation – now feels emboldened to put forward positive case for scrapping the current system. The few backward thinkers on this question in the PLP – as sadly exemplified by Tom Harris – thankfully appear to be an isolated rump.

Of course, many reformers in Labour might like to extend the range of options put before the electorate in the promised referendum. But it would be churlish not to recognise the significance of the start that has been made in re-aligning our party with the forces of democratic reform. This is not the time to turn inwards. We should welcome the fact that the voters now have a real choice: to elect a government that has opened up a path that might end the stranglehold of the FPTP system, or to elect a Conservative Party whose leader has set his face absolutely against democratic reform.

This is a clear dividing line, and we are right not to be shy of setting it before the voters ahead of a general election. But for our position to have credibility we need to convince the electorate that this is no idle promise. The omission of electoral reform from the Queen’s Speech was a tactical mistake. But with a Constitutional Renewal and Governance Bill set to go on the statue book before the election, there may yet be concrete opportunities to prove our intent.

And let the Daily Mail do its worst. We might just be onto a winner.