IN SETTING a date for the United Kingdom’s promised poll on electoral reform, Lib Dem deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has launched what is set to be a fascinating but toxic parliamentary debate followed by an even more bitter national campaign. Both are likely to test severely the mutual goodwill holding the coalition together. The proposed May 5th referendum on replacing first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting represents the single most prized concession from the Tories that secured the coalition agreement, although the latter’s free vote on the referendum Bill means a vigorous backbench Tory campaign against is guaranteed.
Ironically for a cause generating so much heat, the proposed replacement, the Alternative Vote (AV), is only the most halfhearted step towards the proportionality of the single transferable vote (STV) system used here and which is the Lib Dems’ real favourite. AV is the system used in Irish presidential elections – a transferable vote in single-seat constituences. In truth, had it been used in the UK general election it would have resulted in only a minor reallocation of seats. The Electoral Reform Society estimates the Lib Dems would have gained 22 seats, and the Tories lost 25, while STV would have nearly trebled Lib Dem seats to 169.
A sweetener for Tory backbenchers has been offered in a simultaneous commitment to a radical boundary review that will reduce the Commons from 650 to 600 members, crucially by ensuring that each MP represents roughly the same number of constituents. Large-population Labour seats will be hard hit in favour of the Tories’ rural base, compensation, at least partially, for the seats that the latter are likely to lose from an AV system.
Not surprisingly, although it had a manifesto comitment to a poll on AV, Labour is less than enthusiastic about taking a double hit. The opportunity to play up divisions between the government parties may also be irresistible, and so it is by no means clear that the party will support either the referendum Bill or AV when it comes to a vote. Even at the price of losing electoral reform. The failure of the Lib Dem leadership to secure either vote would inevitably put huge strains on the coalition from the party’s rank and file.
Yet, although inadequate, AV would represent an important step towards fairness and, particularly in the context of three-party politics, away from the iniquity of the FPTP system. Labour should put that reality, and its own long-term electoral interest, ahead of short-term political opportunism and back reform.