IT SEEMS IT was too good an opportunity to miss, whatever the price. And anyway, as Randolph Churchill insisted, “the duty of an opposition is to oppose”, irrespective, or so the often perverse logic of politics goes. The British Labour shadow cabinet has calculated that it may be able to inflict a first parliamentary defeat on the coalition government by opposing its Bill for a May 5th referendum on the introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV) system. In the process, in an unholy alliance with at least 45 dissident Tories, it can sow seeds of doubt and division in the bankbench ranks of the two governing parties on an issue that is an essential ingredient in the glue that binds them. It is difficult to see the Tory/Lib Dem coalition lasting if the poll itself is not held or if the result is a No vote.
But this is an approach Labour may well rue. A knee-jerk approach to opposition in the interest of embarrassing and dividing the government in the short term may jeopardise a once-in-a-generation opportunity for electoral reform. AV is the system used by Ireland in byelections or presidential elections, and to which Labour was actually pledged, albeit half-heartedly, in its general election manifesto. Although not proportional, there is wide acceptance that it is a much fairer system than first-past-the-post.
For Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg there was always a danger in agreeing a deal with Tory counterpart David Cameron on electoral reform that involved both a free vote for the sceptical Tories and a simultaneous constituency boundary review. The latter, aimed at equalising the population in constituencies, is completely anathema to Labour which could see the disappearance of many of its smaller urban fiefdoms. Some Tories also oppose the likely loss of constituencies linked to old countryside boundaries or counties. The deal was always a car crash waiting to happen.
Labour, while ostensibly retaining its commitment to AV, will propose an amendment to the Bill attempting to divorce the voting system change from the boundary reform. And disaffected Tories are also trying both to shift the day of the referendum from that of local elections, and to suggest a minimum turnout threshhold for the electoral change. Both the latter changes are seen as likely to make a Yes vote significantly more difficult to achieve. When local elections have been held on their own in recent years turnout has hovered around 36 per cent, and a referendum on its own is unlikely to generate even as much interest. The prospects do not look good.