It has taken time but the campaign to get the public engaged in the May 5 referendum on voting reform — the switch to the alternative vote (AV) — is finally warming up. Voting papers are being delivered to homes and publicity is being cranked up amid fears of a dismal turnout.
Yesterday saw the official “politician-free” launch of the yes campaign led by Eddie Izzard, the comedian, flanked by the likes of Kriss Akabusi, the former athlete. Messages of support were sent by entertainment royalty including Stephen Fry and John Cleese.
It would be easy to mock, but while the margin in favour of AV has narrowed, polling for this newspaper suggests the public favours change. Those wanting a switch are more likely to turn out and vote, so this referendum should be taken seriously.
The AV plebiscite is more of a headache for David Cameron than it is for Ed Miliband, the Labour leader. If the vote goes against AV, Mr Miliband can console himself by arguing that it was scuppered by the unpopularity of its leading proponent, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister. For Mr Cameron, however, there are few consolations. Thanks to coalition politics, he finds himself at the head of a government holding Britain’s first national referendum for 36 years. Prime ministers normally consult the public over changes they want made. Mr Cameron is hoping this is one change he will not have to implement.
That is why on Friday he recalled Mr Clegg’s description of AV as “a miserable little compromise” and Winston Churchill’s dismissal of it in 1931 as “worthless votes being given to the most worthless candidates”.
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“It is a system so undemocratic that your vote for a mainstream party counts once, while someone can support a fringe party like the BNP and get their vote counted several times,” Mr Cameron said. “A system so obscure it is only used by three countries in the world: Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Our system is used by half the world.”
Even supporters of voting reform would concede that AV is a pretty hopeless system. Although the “decisive outcome” argument for first past the post has superficially been weakened by the fact that we are living under coalition rule, AV would turn the occasional outcome of British general elections into a permanent feature. Anybody who genuinely favours proportional representation would not choose AV. On the one hand there is the danger is of over-representation by minority centre parties, and on the other perversely huge swings that could wipe out the losing party as an effective opposition.
The prime minister, having conceded an AV referendum as part of the coalition agreement, is constrained from saying it is not appropriate to be wasting time and money on an unnecessary vote when there are more pressing issues.
However, Mr Cameron has to be careful. While Mr Clegg has been the lightning rod for discontent with the government, there is also a danger that Mr Cameron’s identification with the no campaign could backfire. Anger over the cuts and a belief that the prime minister is sabotaging a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the voting system could increase support for a yes vote.
Over the coming weeks the public will hear a lot about the pros and cons of AV. Voters should of course hear them out, but we believe that first past the post is the better system. For ministers, the big danger is that the AV vote will be a referendum on one of the parties in government. That could go either way.