Vote LABOUR Vote NO

By John Prescott / @johnprescott

Polls in the referendum on the Alternative Vote are open. We have to make a serious choice for the future of our country and Labour voters need to decide which side they are on.

I am No to AV. AV is unfair, costly but in particular bad for Labour. There’s only one reason we are having this referendum, Clegg. Gordon Brown tried to woo him before the election with the promise of a referendum; Cameron used an actual referendum afterwards to buy his collaboration with the most vicious Tory government in living memory. Clegg sold out his members’ desire for PR by agreeing to AV in exchange for a red box and a ministerial car.

The stakes are high. If we sleepwalk to defeat today we will lose our tried and tested electoral system used by 2.4 billion people in more than 50 countries including the world’s biggest democracy, India, and the world’s most powerful democracy, the USA. Instead we’ll have one that is used by only three countries.

Only the Liberals will always benefit from AV, that’s why liberal-supporting organisations like the Joseph Rowntree Trust and the Electoral Reform Society are pouring millions of pound into trying to install it.

Among AV’s biggest cheerleaders is Chris Huhne, a Liberal member of Cameron’s cabinet. Huhne dares to lecture Labour about left solidarity and how to rid the country of the Tories. What a fraud! If Huhne finds Tories so unappealing why did he agree to serve in a government with them? He claims he wants a progressive coalition. Why then does he make common cause with reactionaries? And why is he still there? If he genuinely wants to undermine Tories, instead of dangerous meddling with Britain’s electoral system, there is a quicker way. He could resign – today – from Cameron’s government and take enough of his Liberal colleagues with him to force a general election. Then we’d find out whether the Liberals are really serious about forming a progressive coalition. Of course, Huhne’s real agenda is positioning himself for Clegg’s job when Liberal activists have had enough of their party behind used as a shield for the Tories.

The Labour Party has no position on AV. We only promised a referendum; we never said we were in favour. The leader of the Labour Party has said he is in favour. In a free vote issue that is his choice. Many others of us take a different view.

The majority of Labour MPs, many more Labour peers, 83% of Labour councillors and, I believe, the vast majority of Labour activists are No to AV. We have conducted ourselves in a comradely fashion, campaigning against AV because we believe it would be bad for democracy and bad for Labour. I am deeply saddened that some of my former colleagues think that their support for AV (also the position taken by our opponent the Liberals, Green and others) gives them the right to insult those of us who seek to defend first past the post by saying we are doing the Tories’ work. Such people need to ask themselves why they want to end the possibility of majority Labour government for generations. They should join us by voting Labour and No to the Alternative Vote system today.