Why I’m saying Yes to AV

By Ben Bradshaw MP / @BenPBradshaw

Next year the British people will have a unique opportunity to change our out-dated and unfair parliamentary election system.

No voting system is perfect, but first past the post is the least perfect of all. A few thousand voters in a handful of “swing” seats decide the election. Parties concentrate their time and resources accordingly – ignoring the majority of constituencies that never change hands. Voters in these safe seats are in effect disenfranchised, unless they support the party that always wins.

AV is the system Labour uses to select our parliamentary candidates and elect our leader and deputy leader. It would mean candidates and MPs having to work to win a majority of first or second preference votes they need to win – reaching out beyond their most loyal supporters. It would give more power to the voters and make it less likely that parties would tolerate underperforming MPs or candidates. Labour supporters in many parts of the country who currently feel under pressure to vote tactically to “keep the Tory out” would be free to vote Labour.

The last Labour cabinet, led by Gordon Brown, agreed unanimously to support a referendum on AV. Labour was the only party at the election to include that pledge in our manifesto. Gordon himself was a genuine convert from first-past-the-post. He came to see AV as an essential part of the political reforms that Labour should support to help restore public trust in politics in the wake of the MPs’ expenses crisis. Four of the contenders for the Labour leadership, including Ed Miliband actively supported AV. Most of the shadow cabinet support it and none has come out for the No campaign.

AV unites former first-past-the-posters like Jack Straw and advocates of a more proportional system like Alan Johnson. It retains the constituency link, increases the “legitimacy” of the winning candidate because of the need to win the support of more than half the electorate and challenges the complacency of safe seats/jobs for life.

Many Labour members and supporters may feel queasy about campaigning or voting for reform on the same side as the Lib Dems, not least when we may be fighting them at the same time in elections in Scotland and Wales and local elections in England. Labour is against holding the referendum on the same day as May’s elections.

But if that is to happen, we shouldn’t allow the anger we feel towards Nick Clegg and the rest of the Lib Dem leadership to blind us to the bigger goal of a fairer, more progressive voting system. The Tories, our main enemy and the party we need to beat to get a Labour government back, hate AV. First-past-the-post helps the Tories and works against the progressive majority. Analysis of the 2010 election suggests Labour would have done better under AV and the Tories worse, tipping the balance of seats towards a “progressive” coalition. Across Britain as a whole Lib Dem second preference votes fall two to one to Labour.

So I hope you will get involved with the Labour Yes campaign which launched today with support from Peter Mandelson to Tony Benn, including a number of the ‘next generation’ intake of new Labour MPs and Labour veterans such as Chris Mullin and Neil Kinnock. Labour should be firmly on the side of progressive change like this. If electoral reform is voted down next May, the chance will not come again for a very long time.