Yes or No -AV referendum May 2011

[butchersapron]

I know you're not but if you're in a constituency that's 'Labour', which is where a lot of us are, it adds weight to the Labour argument to vote Labour. 'A strong Labour showing is needed to stop the Tories through the cuts'.

Also, as you know, were things to require it, a national government would be formed. The system can't be paralysed by the results of any referendum.

This has happened before in microcosm in the local councils in the 1980s. The Labour councillors - including some very socialist people - had agreed together as a set of a dozen councils to go for deficit budgeting. Then Labour councillors break away from the main Labour groups and ally up with the Conservatives to set the budgets - game, set match.

If we get a national govtgovt we're already in a significantly different area than we are now - a real crisis of the state. I don't follow your wider argument here in all honesty. I'm in a safe labour seat - i try to make clear that an anti-cuts movement needs to be anti-labour, anti-system too it can't just be anti-lib-dem and tory cuts etc

 

[articul8]

They could. That would be labour, tory or lib-dem then.

yes but the basis would there for revealing the true extent of green/left support and help those parties target more accurately for local elections - even under FPTP. And when there is PR for local government - as would almost certainly follow the move (for consistency of voting method if nothing else) the basis would be there for slow but steady gains - not a magic wand but better than keeping FPTP in perpetuity

 

[sihhi]

well we have no way of knowing. Under AV people could give 1st prefs to the party of their choice whilst being sure they could switch to the best placed candidate to stop the tory, or tory/LD. At the very least we would see if that were true or not.

I think the longer term effects of this could be more significant than you're acknowledging

I'm not sure why you're so keen to think the Greens do anything much useful anyway.
Yes we do - we have London Assembly elections under Additional Member. BNP carrying on up onward. Left blasted out of the water.

How is the left perceived? The left is seen, like it or not, as people who stir things up but let others carry the can.

 

[butchersapron]

yes but the basis would there for revealing the true extent of green/left support and help those parties target more accurately for local elections - even under FPTP. And when there is PR for local government - as would almost certainly follow the move (for consistency of voting method if nothing else) the basis would be there for slow but steady gains.

The basis is already there. This is the true extent of support (and i'll not try and drop the greens and left into one (w)hole). And, as argued earlier on london voting evidence, people voted big party first - the small parties 2nd or 3rd if at all.

 

[articul8]

Well leaving aside whatever issues we might have with the Greens in London - they are now a fixture in the capital's politics, and influenced the Labour agenda and messaging to some extent. Obviously, even a PR system wouldn't make up for a Left incapable of getting its act together - look at Scotland. But why can't you accept that there's nothing logically impossible about arguing that AV is a small step forward worth having, so we should back it if its the only thing offered while at the same time attacking the LDs for their role in supporting Tory cuts?

 

[sihhi]

If we get a national govtgovt we're already in a significantly different area than we are now - a real crisis of the state. I don't follow your wider argument here in all honesty. I'm in a safe labour seat - i try to make clear that an anti-cuts movement needs to be anti-labour, anti-system too it can't just be anti-lib-dem and tory cuts etc

You obviously do it better than me!

Do you oppose labelling cuts as 'ConDem' : ConDem cuts (bizarrely Black Hand's magazine's new issue calls them 'the condoms'). Do you oppose subs/donations going on transporting people to lobby TUC events?
How strongly should you argue when you are in a minority - these aren't easy things.

I'm OK-ish at arguing with people saying 'they're just about council workers' keeping clear/not getting involved.

but tactics are difficult.

 

[Streathamite]

But why can't you accept that there's nothing logically impossible about arguing that AV is a small step forward worth having, so we should back it if its the only thing offered while at the same time attacking the LDs for their role in supporting Tory cuts?

because it isn't true PR, which is the only thing worth having and because the diehard resisters in the tories AND Labour would use it to ensure true PR was a long long way from coming. Their line wou.ld be 'you've had your referendum; you said that would be enough; now you're moving the goalposts" And unless the turnout for the referendum was really high, the argument gthat the public aren't hungry for ANOTHER referendum would be very hard to beat down.

 

[articul8]

and if there was a NO vote that would apply tenfold. Yes it would be better if PR was on the ballot. It isn't. So take what's offered and demand more

 

[butchersapron]

You obviously do it better than me!

Do you oppose labelling cuts as 'ConDem' : ConDem cuts (bizarrely Black Hand's magazine's new issue calls them 'the condoms'). Do you oppose subs/donations going on transporting people to lobby TUC events?
How strongly should you argue when you are in a minority - these aren't easy things.

I'm OK-ish at arguing with people saying 'they're just about council workers' keeping clear/not getting involved.

but tactics are difficult.

I'm not sure i'm always successful!! There's a wider question(s) here that could be good as a stand alone thread.

 

[redsquirrel]

At the same time AV would spell the end in the longer-term of the armlock Labour has on the left. It would ease the process of seeing forces to its left emerge in greater numbers and help the rebalance the political centre of gravity.

You keep making this claim but provide no evidence to back it up. AV hasn't broken into the ground the Australian Labor party has, if fact it's made absolutely no difference whatsoever to Britain, whichever party eventually forms a government is going to be neo-liberal

 

[articul8]

You keep making this claim but provide no evidence to back it up. AV hasn't broken into the ground the Australian Labor party has, if fact it's made absolutely no difference whatsoever to Britain, whichever party eventually forms a government is going to be neo-liberal

Sorry? One of the principle features of the Australian election has been the emergence of a small but significant Green bloc, exactly illustrating my case - of course there is no guarantee that they can build successfully on this. But there are *opportunities* that wouldn't exist on the same scale under FPTP.

 

[butchersapron]

A green bloc that will act like the cut enforcing green coalition partners in Tasmania. Great stuff. And more to the point it shows that the main two parties are still written into the bloody thing - no govt can be formed without one of them - and this on a more pr based system than AV.

 

[Streathamite]

and if there was a NO vote that would apply tenfold. Yes it would be better if PR was on the ballot. It isn't. So take what's offered and demand more

but 'taking what's offered' may well, in practical terms, make it harder to 'demand more', with any hope of success at least.

 

[articul8]

but 'taking what's offered' may well, in practical terms, make it harder to 'demand more', with any hope of success at least.

why would it?

 

[redsquirrel]

Well for a start that "Green Block" already existed, secondly it's not leftwing and is going to help prop up a neo-liberal Labor party, and thirdly as BA points out the end result of the election is going to be one of the two flavours that have been in power since the war, both in the UK and Aus.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Well for a start that "Green Block" already existed, secondly it's not leftwing and is going to help prop up a neo-liberal Labor party, and thirdly as BA points out the end result of the election is going to be one of the two flavours that we already had in the UK.

Not only that but AV has existed for years and they're just getting their first Green MP ever - the Green senators in the past have all been elected under the STV system (the only one worth a damn frankly).

 

[redsquirrel]

Yep and in all the years that AV (or STV for that matter) have been around no actual, proper left alternative has appeared on the scene.

 

[articul8]

I've never claimed there is some authomatic relationship between any kind of voting system and left wing success. I'm arguing that the *opportunities* are greater, because the Labour armlock of "don't split the vote" stifles just about all alternatives from the start

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Yep and in all the years that AV (or STV for that matter) have been around no actual, proper left alternative has appeared on the scene.

Well to be fair the Socialist Alliance have got one councillor in twelve years.

Which is fewer than England under FPTP but never mind!

 

[redsquirrel]

Well then give us some examples where AV has opened up these opportunities for the left

At articul8

 

[articul8]

It's not AV in isolation that gives opportunities - it is the likelihood that AV would in all probability lead to STV for local government. Which itself is no guarantee - but eg. in Scotland it has led to more Green and Socialist local councillors than were elected under FPTP - and of course would have been more effective is the SSP didn't shoot itself in the foot.

Hardly an example of "left" opportunities I know - but the fact that the Labour leadership contest is using AV makes is making it harder for the most Blairite candidate - D Miliband - to get elected.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Sorry is there any evidence AV will lead to STV at the local level? Because I must have missed it...

 

[Streathamite]

why would it?

Because in this politically slow-moving, conservative country, the argument "we've just had one major change to the way we choose governments in this country - THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN! we do not need another; it is simply irresponsible and frivolous. Let us make this system work first, and let us get accustomed to it" will prove enormously seductive and persuasive, to an electorate not known for huge turnouts.
It will also be made by all those who are most resistant to change and pro-status quo, and they have far more powerful propaganda heavy weaponry (resources,meejah muscle etc) than those wanting the greatest degree of change.
Finally, the only way you can make the case for 'true' PR, as a second stage of the process, makes you look as cynical, dishonest and shifty as the whole cookup that has resulted in this mooted referendum: "we really want something else, but we'll grab this wholly unsatisfactory substitute in the meantime and soften you up for the second stage". Leaving all other considerations aside, the voters won't take kindly to that one; they'll think you're taking the piss a bit.

 

[Streathamite]

Sorry is there any evidence AV will lead to STV at the local level? Because I must have missed it...

moi aussi, mon brave...

 

[articul8]

Sorry is there any evidence AV will lead to STV at the local level? Because I must have missed it...

Any argument about what happens "if" something else does is obviously conditional and speculative and not something you can determine with empirical proofs. That said, the experience in Scotland was that electoral reform at one level (the Parliament) led in fairly short order to reform in local government level. Given the fact that the LD representation would be greater under AV than under FPTP - and the LDs are the strongest advocates of PR for local government it stands to reason it is more rather than less likely.

If we had preferential voting for FPTP there would be an obvious logical case for consistency with the form of voting for locals - particularly as Scotland and N. Ireland already use STV for locals. THere is also the question of what happens to the Lords - the Queens Speech said it would be a form of PR.

 

[articul8]

Because in this politically slow-moving, conservative country, the argument "we've just had one major change to the way we choose governments in this country - THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN! we do not need another;.

Well given that the Electoral Reform Society has been waiting since 1884 to get any kind of say in the way we elect MPs - even AV would finally send the message that FPTP is broken and we don't want it. For FPTP to win would send the message that people don't want change.

In terms of moving on from AV, it would be very difficult to reverse back to FPTP after it had been rejected. But it would only take a couple of disprortionate results under AV - particularly a "wrong winner" - for people to decide that further reform is needed. It wouldn't necessarily require a further referendum - to introduce a top-up element (go to AV+) would just be to straighten out the deficiencies and make AV work. Alternatively simply moving to multi-member seats would deliver PR but isn't really a change in system at all. AV just means STV in single member contests.

 

[Streathamite]

Well given that the Electoral Reform Society has been waiting since 1884 to get any kind of say in the way we elect MPs - even AV would finally send the message that FPTP is broken and we don't want it. For FPTP to win would send the message that people don't want change.

In terms of moving on from AV, it would be very difficult to reverse back to FPTP after it had been rejected. But it would only take a couple of disprortionate results under AV - particularly a "wrong winner" - for people to decide that further reform is needed. It wouldn't necessarily require a further referendum - to introduce a top-up element (go to AV+) would just be to straighten out the deficiencies and make AV work. Alternatively simply moving to multi-member seats would deliver PR but isn't really a change in system at all. AV just means STV in single member contests.

and the ERS has how many members? and are how representative of the UK electorate? 'people' would not decide what you suggest at all, and they never have done; by your logic and the historical facts of it,they'd plough on bovinely with 'the devil we know' for an awfully long time to come.

 

[butchersapron]

The ERS is a lib-dem fabian type set up that thinks the political system is the problem. Not sure we should be guided by their interests.

 

[articul8]

I wasn't suggesting otherwise. Just saying that people have been trying to change the electoral system (including Keir Hardie - a member of the ERS's forerunner body, and the British CP) for a hell of a long time and at no stage previously have the public had the opportunity to actually deliver any progress whatsover. So for people who want PR to say we should throw this out as not going far enough is mental. Of course, if you don't give a shit about electoral politics at any level as a point of principle it's consistent. But if you back small formations that stand candidates it is somewhat self-defeating.

 

[butchersapron]

Only if you establish that a vote for av would be a clear unambiguous advance - as said earlier, I haven't found the arguments you put forward that it will be to be unconvincing at all and they are easily outweighed by the potential damage that could be caused to the coalition and other tactical considerations. We've gone over why a yes vote might well be the end of the road for pr - it could be argued that a no vote will show that people are not prepared to endorse a change short of full pr.