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Janice Small: Let's have the debate before we act on electoral reform
SO Gordon Brown wants electoral reform with the Alternative Voting system (AV). But let's have the debate first. We Tories have nothing to fear from electoral reform – don't call it PR (proportional representation) as that is red rag to a bull.
Across our party, the debate is being had on electoral reform. I belong to a think tank, Direct Democracy, with MEP Dan Hannan and MP Douglas Carswell, promoting multi-member constituencies for more accountability, representation and an end to "safe" seats.
We also go further and call for open primaries for all sitting MPs and PPCs, so that not just the Conservative Party "selectorate" get to choose their candidate but the voters can choose the best Conservative candidate.
We also admire the Single Transferable Voting system (the most proportionate system) in Ireland which makes their elected representatives campaign very hard for their votes. Our new Shadow Leader of the House favours STV for the Lords as does William Hague and Ken Clarke. The debate is being had. We should not be bounced into hasty reaction just because Labour might be having another leadership crisis.
Gordon Brown, the most unpopular Prime Minister of modern times, dithers with electoral reform with a deathbed conversion. Desperate to cling to power, he seeks backroom deals with the Liberal Democrats by gerrymandering without giving voters a choice of voting systems or correcting anomalies in the present system.
AV is not, however, a proportional system. In some elections it could even produce more distorted results than our present first-past-the-post system. AV would not guarantee a more representative parliament or one better able to hold the government to account. Brown is supporting this as a desperate attempt to show that he is taking the initiative on reforming Parliament. The public will not see this as correcting a broken system, most agree that the system is broken because of MPs' expenses, lack of accountability and a Government that makes up legislation as it goes along rather than getting to grips with the real problems of a broken economy and a broken society.
David Cameron's proposals for a 10 per cent reduction in MPs, and more proportionate constituency boundaries, has more resonance with the public. If we are to have electoral reform then the various voting methods should be put to the public and debated on their individual merits, not shoe-horned in by a Government in its last days of power.
Reforming the anomalies of the present system would be a start. We should be reforming the European Parliament closed list voting system.
This system, rushed in by Tony Blair by pandering to Euro-creep legislation, is a gift to the main political party managers, not a gift to democracy. Rather than seeking an opt out of the Amsterdam Treaty which forever more tied us to a PR system, we should be re-negotiating this element for a system that the public chooses, not what the EU or New Labour wants.
The only reason that Labour is now proposing the Additional Voting system is because they see electoral advantage in it, as they did in 1997 in Europe.
This system can generate a less proportionate outcome than first-past-the-post so Nick Clegg should think long and hard before agreeing to prop up a failing, desperate Government.
Clegg should also consider whether they are abandoning their principle of supporting STV to get into bed with Labour. This will be unpopular with his voters and leave the electorate with a very sour taste in its mouth if we are in hung Parliament territory come the General Election.
And before Conservatives get hot under the collar about PR, they should consider a few facts. At the last General Election, the Conservative Party polled 65,704 more votes than Labour in England, but ended up 92 seats behind.
In Wales, the Conservatives received more than a fifth of the votes (297,830 or 21.4 per cent) in the 2005 General Election, and won just three seats. In Scotland, we received 369,388 votes (15.8 per cent) and a single seat. Boundary changes would go some way to ameliorating this.
Without the proportional element from the Scottish Parliament vote, Conservatives would have four rather than 17 MSPs (based on 2007 election). By the same principle, we would have five rather than eight AMs in the Welsh Assembly (2007 Election). Conservatives will remember our wipe-out in 1997.
The advent of PR in Scotland prompted Conservatives to put up nearly a full slate of candidates in the mainland, including candidates in many areas where they had never previously contested elections. The Conservatives were the party that saw the biggest expansion in its reach in 2007.
The only reason that Labour is now proposing reform is because they see electoral advantage in it. Let us have a proper debate on the different systems, finish Lords reform and abolish the undemocratic closed list system for MEPs before changing the Westminster system otherwise it will just be seen as cynical gerrymandering.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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