Yes: Edward McMillan-Scott: Are we voting for a better democracy or simply ignoring the real problems?

I was a Conservative MEP from 1984 until last March, when my protest against David Cameron’s new EU allies (a “bunch of nutters, homophobes, anti-Semites and climate-change deniers” as Nick described them, before the coalition) led to my joining the Lib Dems. So I know many of the key players and it has been fascinating to compare how their supporters differ. One factor which the rising political tension has brought forward is Cameron’s clear concern that his attempt to “de-toxify” the Tory brand is being undermined by the acrimony which his right wing is generating.

Coalition Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne – like Clegg, a former MEP – is threatening to sue over what he considers to be grotesque misrepresentations by the No operation. He demanded that George Osborne – on whose election strategy committee I served – should retract exaggerated cost claims for running elections under AV.

For good measure, Chris Huhne’s friend Carina Trimingham, of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), organised the Yes team. I met her last summer when I organised a cross-party seminar on PR, at which Tory backbencher Douglas Carswell spoke of his interest in electoral reform, but he is the only right winger prepared to question First Past the Post.

The ERS, which is financially supporting the Yes campaign, was the subject of an attack by the No camp, which claimed that it would profit from AV, because it has a subsidiary which makes money by organising elections.

The No campaign features Nick Clegg under the headline “AV leads to broken promises”. This personalised campaign is being run by Matthew Elliott, formerly of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, who cut his political teeth as parliamentary assistant to Timothy Kirkhope, a Yorkshire MEP and my chief whip when I led the Tory group in Europe. Whatever their relationship in private, Nick Clegg took the gloves off in an interview last weekend. The Prime Minister, in particular, got both barrels: he was accused of telling “lies” and using big Tory money to fund “the very nastiest reactionary politics”. The Deputy Prime Minister spoke of the “death rattle of a right-wing elite, a right-wing clique who want to keep things the way they are”. 

The No campaign is supported by Rodney Leach, who was given an office in Downing Street. It was thought at the time that this was to allow Cameron to control the operation and to prevent it being too successful: in other words to allow a Yes win.

The task was allocated to Leach by the PM, apparently in gratitude, after the Hong Kong businessman organised right wing tolerance of Cameron’s failure to pledge a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Leach also partly funds the Eurosceptic think-tank Open Europe, which often makes common cause with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Clegg is right: some of the key No people are indeed right wing.

Campaigning for a Yes in Hull last week under the gaze of William Wilberforce, the sunshine seemed to make everyone cheerful, although it was a struggle to get them interested in the referendum. Wilberforce was elected as an MP in the time of rotten boroughs.

Indeed, there is a map in the Castle Museum, York, which shows only a handful of polling stations across the county before the Great Reform Act of 1832. Whatever happens in the May 5 referendum, Cameron’s other coalition commitment towards constitutional change – to be detailed in May – is reform of the House of Lords. 

Not before time, because the last few days have heard complaints from existing peers that Cameron has created 117 since the election – and there is no space left on the red benches. As a long-term supporter of electoral reform, I look forward not only to a Yes win and the beginning of a fairer system of elections, but also a wholly-elected House of Lords and a system of electing MEPs which will not detach them from their electorate.

Before the passing of his Great Reform Act, Lord Grey, a liberal, delivered a warning to the Tories and others who opposed electoral reform: “Do not believe that the desire for reform will abate. You must either adopt this Bill or you will have instead of it a call for something infinitely stronger and more extensive,” he said.

The desire for a better system of elections will not go away. To me, reform is far more important than who is backing the Yes or No campaign, or what they say about each other.

Edward McMillan-Scott is a Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber. He is Vice-President of the European Parliament.