Make My Vote Count

The campaign for voter choice and a more representative parliament

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going for principle and pragmatism
Ann Black

For party politicians two considerations determine the best electoral system: is it right in principle, and does it advance their own cause? I believe that for Labour these are not opposed but complementary issues. First past the post may pass the second test, but not the first. However the type of alternative system is critical. The Labour establishment must commit to extending choice instead of tightening its ideological grip through identikit candidates and suppressing dissent. And the party must improve its internal democracy to allow members to debate the questions and determine the way forward.

The principled position says it is simply wrong for governments to exercise untrammelled power on a mandate from one in four electors. For Labour supporters in Surrey and Tories in Scotland to go unrepresented in Parliament, and for people to be forced to choose tactically rather than on their true preference is unacceptable for democrats. Concentrating on a few thousand voters in swing marginals pulls the main parties towards the centre and reduces political diversity. People in safe red or blue seats feel that their vote makes no difference, and the consequent fall in turnout undermines the legitimacy of democracy itself.

From a Labour standpoint many still regard a landslide on a 59% turnout as better than a close result on a higher poll. Experiments in new voting methods - rolling registration, postal votes on demand, extended voting periods, text and internet polling - are analysed according to which party benefits as well as the effects on turnout. The disengagement of youth and the urban heartlands threaten elected representatives with irrelevance and leave a vacuum to be filled by apathy and the far right. Encouragingly the leadership understands that participation does matter, and that Labour cannot fulfill its programme without public support and involvement.

But even pure self-interest demands reform. Eighteen Tory years showed what damage can be done by a right-wing national government lacking majority support. Proportional representation would have prevented rail privatisation, for instance. Labour has won twice, but it takes colossal hubris to assume that the pendulum could never swing back. A credible Tory leader plus a collapse in house prices or some unforeseen crisis could dissolve Labour's majority overnight. We would be wise to take out some insurance.

No party has an incentive for electoral reform while it is in government. The pragmatic trick is to introduce change just before it loses. When the Independent Commission on the Voting System Report was published one minister mused on the desirability of discussing it until 2001, legislating before 2005, and fighting the 2009 election on a proportional system, by which time the gloss could well have worn off the New Labour project and we would need a safety-net.

Westminster may look secure, for the moment. But there are more pressing anxieties in local government, where annual elections are steadily eroding Labour's dominance. The second lesson of the wilderness years is that the collapse of the Tories' council base gave Labour a training-ground and a campaigning culture that kept members motivated and rewarded with success. Recent reforms have put increasing power in the hands of council executives and elected mayors. The corrupting influence of one-party states, local or national, is well-documented. Labour partisans should be concerned that increasingly they will be Tory one-party states, forming the bridge-head for a national Tory revival. So on pragmatic grounds alone, Labour should explore alternatives for local government, and soon.

Both the choice of system and its implementation are important. The debate on options tends to become technical, and restricted to the anoraks. The challenge is to come up with a solution that will work electorally and that is felt to be fair. The Independent Commission on the Voting System squared a remarkable number of circles in maintaining the link between MPs and constituencies while adding a top-up element to give a more proportional overall outcome and some regional representation for all significant contenders.

Since its publication, experiences in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London and Europe have illustrated advantages and pitfalls on the road to Westminster. As someone who joined Labour in the Thatcher years, I consider keeping the Tories out to be the absolute priority. But even the most die- hard Liberal Democrat-loathing socialist must admit that student grants and free personal care for the elderly are clear political benefits gained from coalition within devolved governments.

Shifting to a system where every Labour vote counted, whether in Sunderland or Sevenoaks, would free Labour from the tyranny of the centre-ground, where Middle England switchers in key marginals are wooed at the expense of the traditional core. Scaring doubters into voting for the lesser of two evils would be replaced by positive campaigning. There would be new challenges: Labour would have to respond to pressures from the Greens on environmental issues and from the Liberal Democrats on civil liberties, as well as fending off far-right extremist groupings. The Socialist Alliance would prove itself as a separate force or, more likely, fade away into the margins. Diversity and renewed debate should revive interest and engagement.

The problems for Labour activists are not with external political forces but with internal control-freakery. The construction of regional lists for the 1999 European elections caused deep resentment. Long-serving MEPs were demoted to unwinnable positions, and new candidates chosen in all-member constituency ballots were summarily dumped by Millbank vetting panels. Indeed some conspiracy theorists saw it as a plot to discredit electoral reform for a generation. Selection and ranking of regional and national lists must be returned to individual members, not reserved to the centre. Yes, there should be better gender and ethnic balance, but this can be achieved without enforcing political uniformity and control.

Of course fixing can equally be applied to first-past-the-post elections, as in Wales and in London. Labour continued its unfortunate history of selection not by principle, but by the method likely to produce the desired outcome. Union leaders were encouraged to vote without asking their members, and London MEPs, MPs and Assembly candidates were given one-third of the electoral college despite their lack of formal connection with the post of Mayor. One-member-one-vote, New Labour's founding principle, was ditched as soon as members started giving the wrong answers.

This is where Labour has most work to do, not only in selecting candidates, but also in making policy. And there is no better example than electoral reform itself. The Independent Commission on the Voting System attracted tremendous interest, provoked lively debate and demonstrated widespread support for electoral change, either the proposed alternative-vote-plus or some other proportional system.

Yet members have never been permitted to choose. All feedback disappeared into policy commissions away from public view, and at the National Policy Forum in 2000 tiny cliques of reformers and first-past-the-posters brokered a compromise which kicked the issue into the long grass. This was better than decision by Conference delegates, which would have killed it off and thereby recalled the unrepresentative nature of Labour's former "democracy".

However, if the new policy-making process is to remain Partnership in Power, rather than Discord in Opposition, it must give individual members a real voice. Electoral reform would be an excellent starting-point, both for the party and for the country. We may not have much time.