I won’t be voting for a hopeless electoral system

By Terence Paul

Some people want a Yes vote in the referendum on 5th May. Others, such as me, want a No vote.

Simon Woolley from OBV made the case for Yes here on LabourList in an article in which he championed “fairer democracy” while decrying his opponents for “banging on”, “peddling”, being “malicious”, delivering “half-truths” and “scaremongering.” The irony seemed a little lost on him. Who wouldn’t want “fairer democracy”? But that isn’t the question on the ballot paper. We’re being asked if we would like to switch to the Alternative Vote method for electing MPs, a system used by only three countries in the world and capable of delivering results even less proportionate than we see now.

The Yes side had been arguing that AV would mean MPs being elected with at least 50% support but Simon Woolley talks of this as an “aspiration.” The Yes side aren’t hanging out a banner saying “we got it wrong” but it is good that they now acknowledge that not all voters would bother ranking candidates on the ballot paper, putting a number against each and every one. It’s a fact of life that some voters only have one preference.

We hear again the argument that candidates would have to work harder under AV, with no explanation why. Take the leader of the Greens, Caroline Lucas. She was elected in Brighton Pavilion last year with a 31% share of the vote. She has a reputation as a hard working MP. She is the party’s only representative in the Commons. She plays a full role in the chamber and on committees; she represents the Greens on television and at conferences and works on the ground for the people who elected her. What more do the Yes people expect from her?

And let’s be straight about the BNP. They have never won a seat in the commons under our current electoral system and they are not likely to under AV either. But BNP supporters would gain more influence under AV. If two thousand people in a constituency voted BNP that would mean two thousand transfers were up for grabs. There would be every incentive for mainstream candidates to chase the racist vote. Which candidate wouldn’t want a good chunk of those two thousand transfers, but how might they demean themselves to get them?

Simon Woolley also speaks of a “hope” of more women and more BME politicians. I share that hope. And that’s why I won’t be voting for a hopeless electoral system.