Notably there is no mention of whether it’s the right thing to do. Don’t ignore the obvious while analysing the politics.

@1 – I was about to make the same point.

So the four questions boil down to: what’s in it for us?

I will be advocating a no vote – though I also think there is a case for Labour saying “this internal debate within the coalition has nothing to do with us so make your own minds up”

And while I think it is all a big waste of time and money – surely even those people who still think a yes vote could win (despite the collapse in polling support) must believe it can be won by stating how AV is the right thing for this nation.

Which in many ways it just isn’t.

@3 I wouldn’t say it’s the right thing but it’s far more preferable than FTPT which is manifestly the wrong thing.

@1 – I think you’ll find the question of whether AV is the right thing has been debated elsewhere on this forum. So debating tactics for one party is perfectly fine – I’d be quite happy for a thread exploring whether it is in the interests of the tories to support AV (and I think such a case could be made).

‘I wouldn’t say it’s the right thing but it’s far more preferable than FTPT ‘

Yes, but AV is mathematically inferior to _2-party_ FPTP. It’s only the presence of non-negligible 3rd parties that makes FPTP not work out. In fact, there is a plausible argument to be made that 2-party FPTP is the overall strongest electoral system, just as fair as STV and the more exotic systems, while being simpler and easier to count.

2 options, you vote for one. and if it wins it gets tried. What’s wrong with that? It is certainly greatly preferable than the current 3 options, you vote for one, and if it wins, they immediately do the exact opposite of what they pledged.

So the tactical question can’t be separated from the strategic, and vice versa. Is the reform of the voting system by simply dropping the spurious parties an achievable goal? Or do we have to settle for a compromise like complexifying the ballot paper?

6

You have a very uncritical view of FPTP, particularly in the guise of a straight 2 party competition. The majority of people don’t accept the logic anymore however. Having a choice of only 2 (particularly if they are both as unpalateable as the Tories and New Labour) doesn’t seem to have worked that well over many decades in this country does it?

The problem isn’t “spurious” parties making life too difficult, it is the continual disenfranchisement of large section of the population because either the 2 major parties don’t reflect their views, or because they live in an area where their vote is a waste because it is True Blue or Deep Red.

That (1) and (2) is a very fair point, though the longer post acknowledges it, and agree with (5).

I think supporting Yes is the right thing to do in principle, so I will be supporting a Yes for that reason. My sense is that the best Yes argument across all political perspectives could be something like “vote for whoever you want to” – and an argument that this does something (if not everything) to shift power to voters from politicians.
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/07/case-for-av-vote-for-whoever-you-want.html

These questions were about how the Labour party would itself go about trying to answer Andy Burnham’s (implicit) question:

“What would the Labour Party do (about the referendum) if it wanted to prioritise and maximise support in the Local Council, Scottish and Welsh elections in May 2011?”

Clearly, those who are Yes, No and Don’t Know within Labour do share that objective, so answering will be one important factor to discussing the question of whether or not there is any *party engagement* in a referendum campaign, and what form it might legitimately take.

There will be some disagreement on the issue within the Labour party, on the issue and on the question of party resources and campaigns, and this is opening up the issue of the type of questions that could be used to handle those internal disagreements in a respectful and constructive way. (The argument has been put that “staying out” is the way to keep the party unified and focused, and I am raising some questions about where and whether that is true, and some areas where it might not be).

I also think there will be pressure on Ed Miliband to campaign for Yes, because he said he would, and on other leading Labour figures who said that they support AV.

What Labour does and what Labour people do could well also matter a good deal to all other campaigners interested in this issue to some extent – especially those who want a Yes – since it seems very likely that how Labour voters divide will be a decisive issue, and the ability to reach the undecided Labour voters will matter a lot. Next May, most people expect the LibDems will have somewhere around 10-15% support, and will be 80%+ in favour. Tories may have somewhere between 30-40% (I suspect towards the lower end) and will be 75%+ against. And Labour may well be somewhere around 40% or higher, and is the most evenly divided and most volatile section of the electorate. Others may break pro or evenly, with the Greens and UKIP both in favour, depending on whether the Yes or No pitch best to non-strong party identifiers better.

Having a choice of only 2 (particularly if they are both as unpalateable as the Tories and New Labour) doesn’t seem to have worked that well over many decades in this country does it?

The 2-party system in the UK delivered political progress from an actual literal _slave-holding empire_ to a prosperous European social democracy with universal suffrage and health care. Good ideas worked out, got electorally rewarded, and finally adopted by both sides. Bad ideas didn’t, and got dropped. Things changed over time in a single direction that was almost entirely for the better.

That progress seems to have halted (or greatly slowed) at about the time the SDP appeared on the political scene, enabling Thatcherism to proceed without check or restraint for over a decade. You could vote SDP to express opposition to Thatcher without any risk that would affect your next tax cut. There was no need to actually think about and make a serious decision as to what you were, or weren’t, prepared to have done in the name of your prosperity .

Once you break that feedback loop between ideals and reality, democracy becomes a pointless exercise in self-expression, a lifestyle statement. Go to the supermarket and get to pick from 167 varieties of cheese, then all those choices are still cheese, and none of them will help you with your diet.

In 2010, the Lib Dems are once again enabling those who represent the polar opposite of their stated ideals to do what they want. This time more actively, but it is not like they are honest conservatives, ones who genuinely believe, and more importantly will openly argue, for the things they are doing.

Are they really solely powered by vanity and self-interest? Can any of them make a positive case for why, if they didn’t exist, it would be worth creating them?

“The 2-party system in the UK delivered political progress from an actual literal _slave-holding empire_ to a prosperous European social democracy with universal suffrage and health care.”

And multi-party systems in europe did exactly the same. Without progress halting when a new party came along. Strangely the other main 2 party electoral system in the western world is even less of a european social democracy than us. And they don’t really have a third party.

To return to Sunder’s questions, you have to be careful with backing the idea. There may be voters who would support AV but would not touch it if Labour come behind it too hard (remember Labour are not electoral gold). I suspect this would be most obvious in London, where Mr Livingstone remains a very devisive character, and where his endorsement may cause people to look at what they support.

Then there is the risk of being seen to be supporting a losing cause (I cannot see a yes victory myself), of being divided as prominent figures go against the party line, and if the arguments against AV go in the way I suspect they will, of being linked with prefering to manipulate electoral results to actually serving the people you represent. The only counter-benefit I could see would be the possibility of backing a winner, so the risks considerably outweight the benefits.

And then there is the stratetigic question of do you really want to climb into bed with the Liberal Democrats on this when you are trying to take votes from them in elections.

To be honest, I would say Labour is best off letting this one play itself out without committing itself – express opinions but do not make it a matter of party policy, allow debate (something Labour is not seen as doing well) and hope that the coalition will be damaged by the campaign.

Notably there is no mention of whether it’s the right thing to do.

Because not every post has to go back to the beginning and start from scratch. The merits of AV have been discussed here repeatedly. Please do a search from the top, thanks.

And multi-party systems in europe did exactly the same.

It is actually pretty hard to find an example of that, and there’s enough countries out there that if it was true, you’d expect to be able to find one. I suppose someone who knows more about the political history of Finland or wherever will have to speak up and provide it.

Pretty much all European countries are in the same basic status quo that war or revolution left them in, in 1945 or earlier. Spain, Israel, Greece, Ireland and Italy all have pretty much the same problems they had when they became democracies. The notable exception is France, which decolonised Algeria. And France is, like the UK and US, heavily 2-party: you have Gaullists and Socialists, and everything else, like le Pen’s mob, is a fringe with little chance of participating in government. In fact, I can’t think offhand of a country with a multi-party system that faced a political problem of the order of say, Civil Rights in the US South, and overcame it.

Not that the US is perfect, but the existence of a significant ‘poor Southern kinda-racist’ party would seem unlikely to improve things.

A multi-party system (with appropriate safeguards against something like 1930s Germany) seems to be good enough for holding together a stable society, but incapable of supporting incremental change over time without violent revolution, foreign invasion or other catastrophe.

I’m open to be convinced that there is a better system out there than 2-party FPTP. How you count the ballots is a detail in the overall framework of who gets to make what decision. If you have some real reform that naturally relies on making the ballot form a little more complicated, that’s going to be a price worth paying.

But in any case, a bodged together setup that seems designed primarily to try and prevent current Lib Dem MPs facing the electoral consequences of their political decisions is not such a system.

I’m open to be convinced that there is a better system out there than 2-party FPTP.

You can have ham or eggs, but not ham and eggs, and certainly not bacon or mushrooms.

13 soru

Your proposed examples simply don’t support your earlier thesis that 2 party systems like that in the UK & USA are inherently more likely to manage the historic transitions you describe. The outcomes for the UK and USA cannot simply be equated to your assertion that they have both had 2 party systems, rather than multi-party systems. The US system has a history of powerful, if short lived, third party movements. Similarly, the UK system has had coalitions and splits in the past, as well as having to deal with a large block of Irish Nationalist MP’s pre WW1 which often complicated matters.

Your example of France doesn’t bear examination either. Giscard D’Estaing became president and was from the Centrist UDF; describing France as a 2 party system a la UK or US simply isn’t accurate- it’s a whole lot more complicated than that.

Saying that multi-party systems are “good enough for holding together a stable society, but incapable of supporting incremental change over time without violent revolution, foreign invasion or other catastrophe.” isn’t a truism because you can’t think of an example, nor is it necessarily true even if there ARE no examples, since a host of other factors may be involved.

For example, the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany is often attributed at least in part to the unstable nature of its multi-paty system; but you simply cannot extrapolate from that and say ALL multi-party systems are incapable of supporting incremental change, as it was only one part of the failure of Weimar.

Indeed Germany since 1949 provides a pretty good example of how a multi-party system can be stable and produce fairly good outcomes, as do a number of other countries such as the Netherlands. You might even argue that Italy, despite a fairly chaotic multi-party system has managed to support incremental change since WW2 without revolution, catastrophe or invasion.

@soru, “France is, like the UK and US, heavily 2-party: you have Gaullists and Socialists, and everything else, like le Pen’s mob, is a fringe with little chance of participating in government”

Not so. Communists participated in government 1981-1984 and 1997-2002. Greens participated 1997-2002. The Left Radical Party did so 1981-6 and 1998-93. Bernard Kouchner, an ex-Socialist, was Sarkozy’s first Foreign Minister, but never joined Sarkozy’s UMP (which is not really Gaullist). Members of the New Centre party have also served in Sarkozy’s cabinets, as have Radical Party members and others; these are admittedly less good examples because the Radicals are affiliated to the UMP – but they were previously affiliated to the old UDF, so this shouldn’t necessarily be regarded as permanent.