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”
Graham Edensounds
It might also have had something to do with the fact that people simply didn’t want AV or FPTP at all. The vast majority of eligible voters didn’t vote for either of them. While there was plenty of energy emanating from both camps, the bottom line is, neither of these systems is particularly good, and they certainly won’t make one iota of difference to the way governance takes place in this country. just because it’s there, that doesn’t mean you have to vote for it or approve of it. You can lead a horse to water, and all that… And in this casse, both campagins failed to lead close to 60% of the electorate anywhere. It’s not that people don’t care. they’re just not that dumb. Coke or pepsi? what a choice…
Ed's Talking Balls
And there was me thinking that the Milibands come from a very rich family and have benefited from a substantial inheritance. I must be wrong about that, and wrong too to think that Ed Balls went to private school and that Diane Abbott sent her son to one.
Dave Citizen
That’s more like it Ed – now you’re focussing on the distortions and imbalances that hold this country back – there’s hope for us yet.
RedCurrent
Regardless of the systems and their merits, and those who have advertised them, one issue hasn’t been explored en-masse. We should be asking what it is the British public actually want from avoting system – whether AV, FPTP or even the Lib-Dem’s not-so-subtle long-term aim of PR.
If Brits want democracy, then surely we want Proportional Representation, the crudest form of “one man, one vote”. If it is practicality and pragmatism we strive for, then FPTP serves perfectly with its constituency-tailored constitution and easy way of electing MPs. If it is somewhere in between, the solution is not so clear. Additionally we have a significant moral issue to deal with. Is it “right” to want a system that ignores the majority of people’s opinions in exchange for one well-liked, strong candidate? In 1951, Labour won 600,000 more votes, yet lost 20 seats and their majority. Then again, in the case of AV, it is hardly “right” to use a pseudo-plural democracy where voters could get an extra vote for every ‘loser’ party they vote for either. One must consider whether PR be considered morally justifiable as well. Fringe candidates often decide the balance of power, the ramifications of which well outweigh the number of votes they ever received. Israel’s PR system for example, allows ultra-conservative Shas Party to win just 11 of the 120 seats, yet gain 4 major cabinet positions. Essentially, should this referendum be a moral choice – even if the less efficient system is the outcome? Or should it be one based on practicality? Ideally, we would choose both.
Indeed, it is undecided which system best combines true democracy and practicality – or if there is one at all. Winston Churchill said that democracy “is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time”. That is undeniable, and of course democracy is secure as the UK’s governing system. However, the way in which democracy is orchestrated won’t be totally secure until a satisfactory system is found and refined – one that eliminates the undemocratic elements of FPTP and the unfair elements of AV. I doubt that we’ll see it in David Cameron or Nick Cleggs’ lifetime. Hopefully though, the referendum will take us in the right direction.
Ed's Talking Balls
Yes, like you Dave I’m keen on making life in this country fairer. Clearly, we differ regarding what methods we believe appropriate to achieve that end, but I would imagine that there are a number of things we’d agree on.
I do feel that we should be careful of painting a Tory bogeyman when it comes to wealth and greed, however. There are plenty of creeps right across the political spectrum and we shouldn’t just focus on some because they belong to a different political party.