Why I support the Yes to the Alternative Vote

By Simon Woolley, director and one of the founders of Operation Black Vote

When the opposition start telling ‘half truths’ – I’m being polite – you know they are in trouble. But having had them shockingly exposed to continue with them becomes malicious.

This can only be the conclusion with ‘No to AV’ advocate Cllr Terry Paul. Last week he came to the ‘Yes to AV’ outreach event hosted by Operation Black Vote and banged on about how the ‘Yes’ vote is what the British National Party want, and it should be avoided to defeat extremism.

So I put it to him if that was the case why is that on their website they state, ‘BNP will urge their supporters to vote No to AV’?

There was an embarrassing silence. He then stated, ‘the BNP want PR’ – which he does too incidentally – ‘I know’ I informed him, ‘but that’s not the choice on offer is it? Undeterred by the facts he continues to peddle ‘half truths’ which is disappointing, but I guess characteristic with the ‘NO to AV’ campaign.

Incidentally, the reason why I think the BNP support the NO vote is because their limited success has almost only been delivered from low voter turn out in local elections using First Past the Post, or low voter turnout in EU elections using PR. The BNP have probably recognised that they would find it difficult to get 50% support for their brand of extremism from any UK constituency.

More importantly, why am I supporting Yes to AV? Well, I’m a democrat who is passionate about social and racial justice. OBV came out of the Charter 88 tradition. We campaigned for devolved governments, a fairer voting system and reform of the House of Lords. The arguments then are the same today. Give ordinary people, all over the UK, black and white a greater say in how our governance is run. During any general election our political establishment only ever concentrates on a small number of seats – about 150 out 649 – those that will decide who wins the election. The rest are largely ignored. I’ve known candidates in the largely ignored seats who never show up in the place they are standing. They are called paper candidates who know they won’t win so they are not talking to anyone. Myself I find this shocking, truly shocking.

But we also should be clear that the Alternative Vote won’t suddenly make things perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it will make our system significantly better. Why? Because any political candidate must aspire to achieve support from 50% of the electorate. That means many more will be forced to work harder, cover more bases, oh, and dread the thought listen more to us. Why? Because their political success depends upon it.

I believe that this latter element will ensure that political parties become more inclusive and I hope more representative; more women, more BME politicians.

Let’s hope in the weeks ahead our opponents drop the ‘half truths’ and scaremongering and engage in a political debate with honesty and integrity.

For me it’s simple: A fairer democracy demands Yes to the AV vote