Leading Tory raises spectre of BNP success in AV polling

SWITCHING to the Alternative Vote for Westminster elections would give more power to fascists, Conservative co-chairman Baroness Warsi has warned.

Dewsbury-born Lady Warsi yesterday said that AV represented “a serious danger to our democracy” and urged voters to reject it in the nationwide referendum on Thursday May 5.

Ditching first-past-the-post for the AV system, under which voters rank candidates in order of preference and votes are redistributed as the least popular are eliminated, would “reward extremism and give oxygen to extremist groups” like the British National Party, she said.

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But supporters of AV dismissed her claims, arguing that it was be “the most extremist-proof of all electoral systems” as it requires the eventual winner to secure the support of 50 per cent of voters.

The Muslim Council of Britain and the Operation Black Vote campaign pointed out that the BNP are campaigning for a No vote, and argued that AV will force candidates to “reach out” to a broader constituency of voters.

Denouncing AV as a “disastrous, discredited and unfair voting system”, Lady Warsi said it would encourage mainstream candidates to pander to supporters of fringe parties in the hope of benefiting from their second preferences once their first choice is eliminated.

Voters would feel free to give their first preference to extremists as a protest, secure in the knowledge that it would be transferred to a mainstream candidate in later rounds, giving parties like the BNP “more votes and more long-term legitimacy”.

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And with hung parliaments more likely under AV, smaller groups would often hold the balance of power and enjoy “greater stature and credibility” as they were courted by the leaders of larger parties seeking to form a coalition.

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