British House of Commons votes for referendum

A Labour backed bill to hold a referendum on voting reform has passed the first stage on its way to becoming law.

MPs backed the referendum bill by 365 votes to 187 – a majority of 178. If it it becomes law then a UK-wide referendum will be held on October 31st 2011.

The referendum would be framed as:

Do British voters want to keep a “first past the post” voting system or change to the “alternative vote” system? (AV)

Definition of AV by the Electoral Reform Society

The same constituency boundaries are used and voters would elect one person to represent them in parliament, just as we do now. However, rather than marking an ‘X’ against their preferred candidate, each voter would rank their candidates in an order of preference, putting ’1′ next to their favourite, a ’2′ by their second choice and so on. If a candidate receives a majority of first place votes, he or she would be elected just as under the present system. However if no single candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the second choices for the candidate at the bottom are redistributed. The process is repeated until one candidate gets an absolute majority. The alternative vote is not actually a proportional system, but a majoritarian system. It looks most similar to the current electoral system.

Whether the bill actually will pass into law before the election is
highly doubtful, as it seems likely that it will face opposition in the House of
Lords before then.

Call me sceptical, but the Labour Party also promised a referendum on
the European Union Constitution in its 2005 Election manifesto. That
it never materialised once Labour had secured victory is just one more
reminder that what politicians promise when they need your vote, and the reality of what they deliver, are often two completely different animals.

It seems to me that Gordon Brown knows that the writing is on the wall for
his Government. None of the opinion polls are predicting a Labour victory this
year. The best he can hope for is a hung parliament, with a Labour minority
government, which is why he is making overtures to the Liberal Democrats.

They, however are not impressed.

A “source” close to Nick Clegg described the proposals in the Telegraph.

“They are worthless and don’t go nearly far enough”

I tend to agree, and if you look at what might have happened to the 2005
election, via the New Statesman blog, there are real reasons to believe that
nothing much would have changed, at least not under the current proposals – but despite my reservations and scepticism, the fact that the vote even passed is a significant milestone.

Real Reform Now describes it optimistically:

“There was a tremor in the House of Commons
on Tuesday night that may yet be remembered as the start of a political earthquake. For the first time, a majority of MPs agreed that the voting system which gave them their seats is broken, and voted in favour of a referendum on the Alternative Vote. While AV is not a proportional system, change does create opportunities and may well begin to open things out enough for a new sort of politics to edge in.”

Perhaps, though I remain unconvinced.

The Electoral Reform Society welcomed the vote:

“Tonight’s vote marks the beginning of the end of First-Past-the-Post. A clear majority of parliamentarians have
shown they are willing to break with the past and build a better
politics.

We wanted MPs to back the amendment on the Single Transferable Vote. The Alternative Vote will not go nearly as far to deliver a
representative parliament, an accountable government and responsive MPs.

But we finally have movement to a better voting system.

The evening’s Hansard report will serve as a permanent record of the dividing lines between the old and new politics. Tories and Labour rebels will have the opportunity to explain their decision to voters at the coming election.”

Meanwhile David Hughes in the Telegraph calls vote reformers “hysterical and
nasty” (!) while perhaps unintentionally making the more pertinent point that the AV system being pushed by Brown would not be any fairer. On the contrary.

“… these campaigners know deep down that Gordon  Brown’s conversion to the idea of a “fairer” voting system (and Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher debunked the fairness argument in The Sunday Times last weekend) is paper thin and dictated only by his desire to save his political skin?”

Quite.

While something is better than nothing, I would prefer a full debate about all alternative methods of voting systems such as some form of proportional representation that would lead to a more representative democracy.

We need it! Our democracy needs it!

If there is any hope of saving democracy, it has to happen now, for if not now, then when?

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Kathryn Cann
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