We should unite in supporting the Alternative Vote

By William Cross

Now that we have elected our new leader, Labour will be coming together behind Ed Miliband – but so too should we unite in supporting the Alternative Vote in May’s referendum. Thanks to the AV system that Labour uses, we as members can go forward with the utmost confidence that our leader has the broadest support – that of more than 50% of voters. But MPs should also have broad support, from their constituents.

There are many benefits to AV. In election campaigns there’s little more irritating than the struggle to get constituents to vote tactically for Labour. Where I live, we spent so much time handing out “two horse race” leaflets that we had hardly any time to campaign on the real issues. Not to mention the dodgy Lib Dem bar charts, used by the party to wrongly suggest they can win in a given area – these strategies will be a thing of the past under AV, which eliminates the need for tactical voting. Another benefit is that it makes it even harder for extremist parties, such as the BNP, to get in.

The voting reform bill has been tied to shameful gerrymandering, but the referendum itself will be on AV alone. Labour has a manifesto commitment to AV, our MPs voted for it before the dissolution of parliament and most importantly, it is a better system than First Past the Post.

Being party members, we all know who our first preference would be, but many voters have not decided, and it will be a good thing to be able to pick up other parties’ second preferences – be they Greens, nationalists or Lib Dem voters wary of their party’s links to the Tories.

Many of you will be campaigning locally to throw out Liberal councillors. We are winning the argument against Clegg’s party, as shown by the opinion polls, but we must not vote against AV, a policy that our party backs, just to spite the Lib Dems. Because they’re not the main enemy here, they are just lackeys, drafted in by the Conservatives to give cover to their savage ideological cuts. And if Labour and the unions oppose AV, we will be siding with the Tories, the Tax Payers’ Alliance and the right wing press.

We as Labour supporters can’t forget our commitment to fairness, including in our voting system, so please back a “Yes” vote in the referendum by attending our fairer votes rally in Manchester Town Square at 6.00pm on Tuesday with Billy Bragg, Neal Lawson, Billy Hayes and Fiona MacTaggart MP. We will be turning the town centre purple – the historic colour of democracy and the franchise – and calling on the party leadership to support reform.