Following defeat in the Alternative Vote AV referendum, Green Party activist Matt Wootton conducts an autopsy into the failures of the Yes! To Fairer Votes campaign.
The noes have it, the noes have it; Matt Wootton, who studies Cognitive Policy with his colleague Rupert Read at the Green Words Workshop, looks at the reasons for defeat
So. We lost. However much we feared this was looming, we were working and hoping up until the last minute that it wouldn’t be so. What is there to say at this point? The awful feeling of Conservative hegemony maintained is depressing enough, without the feeling that progressives, Labour, Liberals, Greens did not do enough to help ourselves.
We didn’t realise soon enough the importance of the referendum on the Alternative Vote, and if we’re going to beat ourselves up about it, as we should do at least for a little while, let’s do it with some analysis.
There are 62 million people in Britain. If just one 30th of those had given one pound the Yes campaign would have had an extra £2 million to spend, right up to their spending limit. How many people in Britain describe themselves as left, Labour, Liberal, Green, or radical? Where were they all?
Say the Labour Party has 200,000 members, and the Liberal Democrats have 60,000 members. If each of those members had given £10 each, that’s more than 2½ million pounds right there. Yet this didn’t happen, even remotely – Labour splits aside. All of the internal party efforts seem to have been lacklustre, barely-funded and voluntary.
By contrast the Tories – who bankrolled to No campaign – lent their phone bank to the NO to AV campaign. And they were raising money even before the bill obtained royal assent, in order to circumvent spending limits.
The Tories aren’t stupid. They had a clear vision from the start how a No vote would benefit them. And they acted like it. It’s almost as if the other parties, most obviously Labour, just didn’t really take seriously that AV was something they had to make happen, not least for their own benefit.
One wonders what proportion of effort was split between the AV campaign and the electoral campaigning that parties had to undertake as usual. One also wonders whether the LibDems, Greens and Labour, having spent most of May 5th splitting each other’s votes, will now have ample time to consider whether they should have taken more time out from politics-as-usual in order to forge a greater joint effort against Conservative minority control, and how they could have communicated that to the public.
The referendum on the Alternative Vote was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to change politics for the better, and to mainstream red, green and liberal politics, and sideline Conservative. But the parties, their hierarchy, their supporters and the British public didn’t treat it like that. The radical left and Labour bickered amongst themselves, to the benefit of only the Tories. And if the communications, advertising and political skills of the official ‘Yes! To Fairer Votes’ campaign represent the pinnacle of those skills in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, then it shows how much those parties rely on tribal voting.
I’ve blogged extensively and critically about the Yes campaign at www.greenwordsworkshop.org; I’ve blogged about emotions, values and ‘cognitive policy’ and how the Yes campaign didn’t seem to know how to use any of them. But now is not the day to criticise them further. They’re feeling hurt too, as well they should be, and despite their shortcomings they did their best.
And the last people who should receive any criticism are all of those hard-working, street-pounding, keyboard-thumping individual people who sweated day after day, to make a Yes vote happen. I’ve worked with you. I’ve respected you. I’m grateful to you.
But somehow, if not individually but collectively, we have failed – even though we know that we are in the majority, and the Conservatives and Conservative voters are in the minority. We have failed. And with the tide now having turned against political reform in this country, we’re going to have several years to work out what happened, and what to do about it.
71 Responses to “A progressive majority has surrendered Britain to the conservative minority”
Ed's Talking Balls
YES!!!!!
Great news. The overwhelming majority comprehensively rejected the miserable little compromise known as AV.
Now we can all enjoy the pathetic post mortem from the so-called ‘progressive majority’ who, once again, were desperately out of touch with public opinion.
Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry, Caroline Lucas, Chris Huhne, Rupert Read….
Your boys took one hell of a beating.
Anon E Mouse
Ed’s Talking Balls – I was in support of AV but once Izzard got involved that did it for me. I really don’t need people using their celebrity to sway my view. How stupid do the likes of these people think we are?
Even in this article the author asks “How many people in Britain describe themselves as left, Labour, Liberal, Green, or radical? Where were they all?”
I would argue that there are way less than the results show since the NO turnout was low because people knew that the YES were going to lose.
What this author doesn’t understand is the reason there is only one Green MP is because no one agrees with their views. It’s that simple. The polls show it and the sooner the likes of Rupert Read and his dishonest cohorts realise that, the sooner they can crawl back under whatever stone they came from and just leave us all alone.
And take that posh boy eco-toff Joss Garman with you when you go…
Simon
A “progressive” minority ignoring the majority (again). So thats “progressive” disconnect with the majority on;
Capital punishment
Immigration
EU membership
Prison sentencing
Abortion on demand
Electoral reform
And thats just off the top of my head. Just what do “progressives” agree with the majority on?
Ed's Talking Balls
Too right, Anon E Mouse.
This article will be one of many, all bemoaning the ignorance of the British public. Sort of a mass wailing session, as these ‘progressives’ are forced to accept that other people are entitled to have a different point of view.
I cannot wait to see Chris Huhne’s face. It’ll be a genuine pleasure. As delighted as I am that FPTP has been retained, I am equally delighted to see the truly pathetic reactions of people trying to explain away the vote.
Put simply: you were wrong, the people knew you were wrong, you wasted a lot of time and money on this silly referendum and there are now lots of toys being thrown out of assorted Lib Dem prams.
Dave Citizen
Mr Mouse and Ed – so much anger. Perhaps you should take posh boy spoilt-toff Cameron’s advice and hug a hoody.