Another day, another round of No2AV 'AV/BNP' spin; Left Foot Forward will explain why it isn't the case that AV helps the BNP or makes mainstream politicians appeal to them more.
Another day, another round of No2AV ‘AV/BNP’ spin. So once again, Left Foot Forward will explain why it isn’t the case that AV helps the BNP or makes mainstream politicians appeal to them more. Their latest claim is that the BNP “could get to decide our elections”, that “35 seats could be in the gift of extremists” under the alternative vote system.
Last month on this blog, Sunder Katwala comprehensively demolished the premise that extermists would fare better under AV, explaining:
“BNP votes could decide results under AV only if several extremely unlikely conditions were met.
“They would need to have more votes than the winning margin (which is very rare); their voters would need to express a mainstream second preference (which is unlikely in most cases), and even where they do, those preferences would need to break very unevenly for one major candidate over another to have the potential to be decisive (and there is no evidence that they would do so).
“The electoral geography of BNP support – strongest in heartland Labour seats – makes their ability to affect results even less plausible.
“Pandering to BNP votes would prove a self-defeating strategy under AV. The winning candidate needs to seek 50% of the vote – since the BNP have under 2% of the vote and 80% of voters very strongly disapprove of them, any association with them is going to be toxic.
“There is simply no hard evidence that BNP voters would be more likely to play a decisive role under AV than under the current system, where extremist voters could already decide to vote for one of the likely winning candidates over another.”
The No2AV briefing (pdf) also states:
“Not only does AV give extremists direct influence, but it also creates an incentive for other parties to appeal to extremist voters’ second preferences through ‘dog whistle’ tactics.”
Again, as Sunder explained, such a strategy wouldn’t really make sense – and in any case, as Will Straw pointed out on Left Foot Forward on Wednesday, there are examples of mainstream candidates pandering to extremists under the current system – among them No2AV cheerleader and Tory peer Baroness Warsi, who in 2005, sent out this disgraceful leaflet:
Which appealed to BNP voters with the tagline:
“If you vote BNP you are allowing Labour to CREEP IN with more political correctness and uncotrolled immigration and asylum.”
Labour politicians have also pandered to BNP voters under first past the post, most notably Phil Woolas, whose toxic, dog whistle campaign against a Liberal Democrat candidate saw him thrown out of parliament, having written:
“Extremists are trying to hijack this election. They want you to vote Lib Dem to punish Phil for being strong on immigration. The Lib Dems plan to give hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the right to stay. It is up to you. Do you want the extremists to win?”
Under AV, it will be next to impossible for a BNP candidate to get over 50 per cent of the vote and win – yet under the current system, not only are BNP voters being appealed to anyway, but there is a greater (though still tiny) chance of one getting in, were the anti-BNP vote to split many ways; and as has been widely reported, Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, is against AV and will be voting no in the referendum.
• The AV referendum takes place in just under five weeks’ time, on Thursday, May 5th; if you aren’t already registered to vote, click here.
43 Responses to “Debunked: The latest No2AV ‘AV/BNP’ spin”
Daniel Pitt
Debunked: The latest #No2AV 'AV/BNP' spin: http://bit.ly/fqTDVx by @ShamikDas #Yes2V @YesInMay #ConDemNation
Joe Lock
@monpix https://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/av-bnp/
Peter Roderick
Francis- no, it’s you who is in error. Under AV, there are two final outcomes: either one candidate gets over 50% and the ballot is over, or there are two candidates left and one, logically then ends up with over 50% (or in a statistical anomaly, both have exactly 50%). Either way, mathematically, non-compulsory AV still must produce a candidate with 50% or more. Seems this canard quacks…
Colin Reynolds
The argument over whether a candidate wins with ‘50% of the vote’ under AV is specious. Exhausted votes (ie those discarded because of a lack of preference by the voter) are discounted, therefore the winner wins with 50% of the eligible vote at that stage of the count. It’s disingenuous of the no2av campaign to keep pushing this trite non-issue.
Keith Underhill
Robster : You sent your email after noon on April 1st, but to anyone who had not spotted it this rant is so confused and ignorant that it must have been written by a yes to AV supporter. Shame on you YES campaigners I thought it was the only the noes that used such dirty tactics!
Apparently a fairly small change in the voting system which gives voters more choice is the end of democracy and the end of the Labour party and the end of progressive politics!
In Australia the Labour Party does not exist and was forced to change it’s name to Labor!
If Australia had first past the post they would have had a Liberal Coalition government which is obviously more progressive than the current Labor government.
Using ex colonial English speaking countries as exact models of how thing will go here work for me. In which case we should vote against FPTP which in Canada has produced almost perpetual minority conservative government and where the New Democrats (the closest to Labour) come forth in seats despite being third in votes.
Conservative 38%=143 seats
Liberal 26%=77 seats
New Democrats 18%=37 seats
Bloc Quebec 10%=49 seats
Greens 7% =0 seats
Independents 1%=2 seats
Oh and “Your” as in “YOUR so bloody arrogant” is spelt “you’re” so if you read this comment you might at least have learned some grammar if not any common sense!