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The Guardian, 29th May 2009
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/28/electoralreform-constitution
The grubby, self-inflicted disrepute into which Parliament has fallen demands, not just cleansing MPs' expenses of duck islands, luxury lifestyle items and second home 'flipping', but wholesale constitutional reform to create a politics which is genuinely pluralist and empowering.
The first-past-the-post electoral system was perhaps appropriate for an era of two party dominance, like in 1951, when Labour and Tories together polled fully 96.8 per cent of the vote. But their share has fallen remorselessly, to just 67.6 per cent by 2005.
Turnout has also fallen sharply so that, even more starkly, the two major parties captured 79.2 per cent of the electorate in 1951, but barely half that in 2005 – an embarrassing 41.4 per cent. Next week's European elections could see Labour and Tories humiliatingly poll under one fifth of the electorate between them.
But the fatal defect of proportional representation options is that power is sucked upwards to regional or national levels of party structures, with the single member constituency, such a cherished feature of British parliamentary democracy, abolished.
The Liberal PR favourite, Single Transferable Voting, with on average five MPs in each ‘multi-member seat’, would mean monster constituencies (some covering hundreds of square miles), so breaking the historic link of democratic accountability to the local electorate and preventing voters sacking their MP as some may now wish to do.
List PR systems favour candidates approved by central or at best regional party machines, with local parties losing virtually all influence and candidates often parachuted in, as happens for example in France. The most proportional PR version of all is in Israel where there is a national list leaving governments in hock to the vagaries of tiny and often extreme parties. And how many know who 'their' MEP is?
A 'Jenkins' type Additional Member system, recently advocated by Nick Clegg and Alan Johnson, requires two classes of MPs, some constituency based, the others coming from Lists: constitutional ‘free loaders’ without constituency responsibilities or voter accountability.
A far better option is the Alternative Vote under which voters are allowed to vote 1,2,3 etc if they wish, with bottom candidates dropping out and their subsequent preference votes allocated to those above until someone wins an overall majority.
The winner has to have more than 50 per cent of voter support; just a third of MPs currently do so. AV retains accountability through the single member seat and produces a better relationship between votes cast and seats won than the existing system.
AV is much fairer, and there is less scope for ‘wasted’ votes as electors can express their first preferences which might encourage turnout. And it is simple – a contrast with the unfathomable complexities and anomalies of PR options.
It is also by far the most practical and could be introduced quickly in time for the next election, with no boundary changes taking years required. And it is the only option the Commons has either ever voted for (in 1931), or would now do so because MPs are unlikely to vote themselves out of their seats as would certainly be required for PR.
There is one other important plus. Because the AV is an adjustment to the current system, not (like PR) a wholesale change involving abolition of parliamentary constituencies, there is no case for the referendum rightly promised over PR. Electors would hardly thank Parliament for indulging in all the costly paraphernalia of a referendum which invited them to state whether they wanted to confine their vote as now to 1 – or have the option of voting 1, 2, 3.
The evidence suggests Liberal second preferences would break pretty evenly, in the current political climate possibly more so to the Tories, so Tory opponents could not claim AV as a pro-Labour device. As the Australian experience shows, the case for the AV is not that it would necessarily favour or disfavour any one party, but that it is a more democratic system.
First-past-the-posters in Labour can live with the AV. So can Labour’s PR advocates like Alan Johnson. Liberal Democrats wouldn’t champion it, but would probably back its parliamentary passage.
There is now a window of opportunity for a Great Reform Bill which may not come around again for a generation, if ever. It should introduced this autumn and taken through in the coming parliamentary session so that it is in place before the next election.
Labour should seize this moment now, ideally with all-party support, but if not, then so be it. Our system is broken and, if traditionalist MPs in all parties are allowed long-grass reform yet again, citizens really will not forgive us.
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