Martin Thomas opens a debate on the Alternative Vote referendum due on 5 May.
The division among Labour MPs cuts across the usual left/right lines.
On the left, Katy Clark, Kelvin Hopkins, and Ronnie Campbell, are against AV; John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn for. Tony Benn, no longer an MP, backs AV. Hard Labour right-wingers are also to be found on both sides. Ed Miliband is for AV.
Unite and the GMB oppose AV.
AV means that you vote not just for one candidate but also for second, third, fourth, etc. preferences. Preferences are transferred from losing candidates until some candidate, with the help of transfers, tops 50% of the vote.
The broad idea is similar to the two-round voting system in France and other countries, but the detail has important differences. The main country where AV is used is Australia — for the federal House of Representatives and all state elections except in Tasmania.
I don’t think we should back it.
On the face of it, AV would make it easier for small left parties to gain votes (by pledging second preferences to Labour). Experience from Australia indicates that it would do that very little, or not at all.
In Australia the Socialist Alliance and, over history, quite big minority parties — the Communist Party of Australia in its heyday, the Australian Democrats, the Greens, the Democratic Labor Party — have done badly under AV, worse than minority parties in Britain.
Proportional Representation is more democratic than First Past The Post. But a change to AV would be likely to gazump PR. No new pressure for electoral reform could have effect until after AV had become discredited, which would take at least a few general elections. And AV could be stable. It is in Australia.
In Australia AV pushes parties into alliances based on agreements to exchange second preferences, polarising politics into a bloc dominated by Labor and one dominated by the Liberals (Tories).
At polling booths the parties distribute “how-to-vote” cards advising their supporters how to use their second, third, etc. preferences. Voters in Australia generally follow that advice (even when you’d think they wouldn’t).
It seems this is what Ed Miliband hopes for from AV — a future where a semi-permanent Lib-Lab coalition could dominate parliament.
In the short term, AV would give the Lib Dems enough extra seats to “win” the next election however we vote, short of an electoral earthquake. They will be able to decide the government, either by a pre-election deal to swap preferences with Labour or Tories, or by a post-election coalition deal with one or the other.
Longer-term, AV could marginalise the Lib Dems, reducing them to a junior partner of one or another of the bigger parties, as the Nationals in Australia have become a junior partner of the Liberals.
That depends on how the Lib Dems choose to play the system (a semi-permanent preference-swap deal with Labour or the Tories? National preference-swap deals decided election by election? Locally-decided preference-swaps? No preference-swap deal?) and how the electorate responds to that choice.
This murkiness is not a gain for democracy.
The AV referendum is also likely to be, to some degree, a referendum on the coalition government.
The Lib Dems are likely to campaign hard for AV. They want to have something to show from the coalition. The Tories will oppose AV, but quite likely in a low-key way. Labour’s anti-AV contingent is likely to be more vocal than its pro-AV section.
Comments
Two points
Is AV slightly more democratic? That is not clear to me at all. So far as I can see, depending on the way the big parties "play" it, and how the electorate responds (the same as in Australia, or different?), it could be slightly more democratic or slightly less so.
AV can produce odd results as FPTP can, though in different ways. For example: Australia's Democratic Labor Party, a mid-50s right-wing split from Labor, never did well for first preferences under AV, not even to the degree that the SDP in Britain performed under FPTP. However, the fact that it was able to direct the second preferences of a chunk of ex-Labor voters to the Liberals (people who were unlikely to give first preferences to the Liberals) meant that it secured right-wing government federally and in some states for a long time.
There is widespread discontent with FPTP, right in the heart of mainstream politics. A defeat for AV would quiet that discontent for a while, but only a short while. Soon the voices would be raised again saying that we need a replacement for FPTP, but a better one than AV.
But if AV is voted in? Then, unless it produces some glaringly weird result in a general election sometime soon, AV is bound to be "given a chance to prove itself". Discontent is unlikely to get anywhere near forcing change until after several general elections.
Even if AV is no more democratic than FPTP, it is a bit more plausible-looking. Thus, in Australia (federally and in the states), despite disgust with the political caste ("the pollies") as strong as in Britain, there is no push at all to replace it.
Yes, we should back AV
The fact that AV is slightly more democratic than FPTP means that socialists should vote for it in May's referendum, while making many of the points Martin outlines above.
I disagree that AV will block a move to PR. On the contrary, although only a small step forward, replacing FPTP with AV would I think open up the debate on electoral systems. On the other hand, a No vote in the referendum would cement FPTP in place and mean the end of that debate.