Labour should campaign on AV

Andy Burnham says "It would be a recipe for chaos and confusion if Labour candidates were also supporting AV in their literature." He's wrong - the party should campaign for AV.

Late on Friday afternoon, the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour revealed that Labour would not be campaigning in the alternative vote referendum. Aside from John Rentoul’s Independent on Sunday column, which lamented the death of electoral reform, the story sunk without a trace. The media may not be interested but progressives should urge Labour’s leadership to have a rethink.

The Guardian quoted Labour’s election coordinator, Andy Burnham, arguing that:

“The referendum should have been held on its own day, when the yes and no campaigns could have argued it out. Our sole priority has to be, and will be, winning in Scotland, and Wales, and doing well in the local elections.

“It would be a recipe for chaos and confusion if Labour candidates were also supporting AV in their literature. The election and referendum campaigns have to be separate and distinct.

Burnham’s pronouncement is counter-productive for five reasons.

First, it belies the spirit of Labour’s existing policy at a time when the party is (rightly) criticising others for veering from their previous objectives. Labour’s manifesto said:

“To ensure that every MP is supported by the majority of their constituents voting at each election, we will hold a referendum on introducing the Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons.”

During the leadership campaign Ed Miliband went further and told Left Foot Forward, “I support AV for the House of Commons and will campaign for it.” Little wonder, when the system worked so well for him during his own leadership contest. Reversing this position now will look to political and constitutional reformers like rank opportunism.

Second, given the likelihood of future hung parliaments (perhaps even next year in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly), Labour has to show that it can work across party lines on areas of shared interest. Labour’s new leader recognised this during his conference speech so it seems odd that he should abandon this position at the first significant opportunity presented to him to work with Lib Dem colleagues.

Third, there is no obvious reason why Labour can’t, in LBJ’s words, “walk and chew gum”. Why shouldn’t Labour’s candidates support AV in their literature? After all, there is no additional cost to including a line in a direct mail or leaflet that is already paid for. While the party can be excused for prioritising victory in Scotland and Wales, campaigning for AV need not be a huge drain on resources or time.

Fourth, from a narrow party interest perspective, AV is in the Labour party’s interest. A projection by the Electoral Reform Society suggested that Labour would have won four more seats in 2010 under AV while the Tories would have won 26 fewer seats. Analysis from the BBC suggests that Labour would have won more seats in 1997, 2001, and 2005 (although it would have had fewer seats in 1983, 1987 and 1992).

Finally, those hoping that the defeat of the AV referendum will deliver a hammer blow to the Coalition are misguided. Nick Clegg has already told activists that he will remain Deputy Prime Minister regardless of the result. Clegg, as has often been observed, looks comfortable with his Conservative colleagues. Hours spent sitting around the Cabinet table adjudicating on the cuts has left a strong bond between the Lib Dem leader, Danny Alexander, George Osborne and David Cameron. A “little local difficulty” in May’s elections will hardly puncture those relationships.

NB: I look forward to Tom Harris’ fisking!

121 Responses to “Labour should campaign on AV”

  1. Michael J Shepherd

    RT @wdjstraw: 5 reasons why Labour should campaign on AV (as @Ed_Miliband said they would) http://bit.ly/c7psx3

  2. merthyr_bill

    Ed M is keeping quiet because every time he does something he ends up on the wrong side of the argument/sanity.

    He wants multi-millionaires to get child benefit. Him and his friends wailed with the unfairness of capping housing benefit at 21k per year. They gnashed their teeth when middle class students had to pay for their own education rather than poncing off the working class. When it was considered that the long term unemployed may benefit from 30 hours of work, 4 weeks a year they uncontrollably wept at the unfairness of making people get out of bed before lunch. And when the government addresses the question of why 1 in 10 of working age people is too disabled to work (30% here in Merthyr) I assume the opposition will have a seizure at the idea of cancer patients and those in comas being forced into foundries or down the mines.

    They are either opposing for its own sake or they are mad.

    And EdM looks and sounds like a Mongo.

  3. Nick Charsley

    RT @wdjstraw: 5 reasons why Labour should campaign on AV (as @Ed_Miliband said they would) http://bit.ly/c7psx3

  4. william

    Anon E Mouse.Phil Woolas.A Scottish MP that commited suicide.A democracy requires an opposition whose integrity is above board,whose opposition is reasoned ,not tribal,and is not obsessed by class, which is all I get on Labour uncut.Perhaps E Miliband will have a chat with Kinnock about laying the foundations for a future victory,as Tony Blair is too busy.

  5. David

    Should be pretty easy for Labour to win the next election. After all, the Coalition are getting blamed for the deficit/cuts and Labour could lose by 5% and still have more seats (Ashcroft’s millions aside) due to the bias that won’t be corrected by the boundary changes.

    Following in Blair’s footsteps, Labour are taking a short-termist selfish view where grabbing power is the only thing that matters. Cameron, I hate to say it, nailed Ed with “Mili-bandwagon.”

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