Friday, May 7, 2010

What now for electoral reform

Cameron seems genuine in his offer of coalition negotiations to Clegg. That is encouraging, we'll have to see if the Conservative Party is going to negotiate in good faith. The question remains whether electoral reform is a sticking point.

The Conservatives have offered an all party committee on electoral reform, but this seems like a negotiating tactic to me. Remember what Cameron is offering is the basis for negotiations, and Cameron did hint during the campaign that electoral reform was not entirely off the table, though he did spend a lot of time subsequently attacking PR.

So what could we end up with? The Lib-Dems could do a lot worse than propose Roy Jenkins' AV+ electoral system as a compromise. It has elements that the Conservatives would probably like, and it meets some of the Lib-Dems requirements. The Tories will like the fact that the overwhelming majority (80-85%) of the constituencies (or electoral districts) are single member districts (though they are elected by the alternative vote (IRV)). The Lib-Dems will like the fact that there are electoral regions (comprising 5-10 constituencies) which each will have one or two top up members, this top up member will likely be a Lib-Dem in most regions in most elections.

The system will not prevent single party rule if a party gets a good vote share, but when elections are tight then it will be unlikely that any party gains a majority.

That is the sort of compromise coalitions are built on. The Lib-Dems should seriously consider proposing this to Cameron as a compromise electoral reform that both parties can back in a coalition.

Labour's offer of AV was always a non-starter for the Lib-Dems. I'm very surprised that Brown seems to genuinely believe that the Lib-Dems would go for it, AV is not a proportional system, and there is no evidence that it will help the Lib-Dems whatsoever. When Brown asked Clegg in the first debate whether he (Clegg) supported AV I was shocked, Brown seems to have totally lost touch with reality if he thinks this is something the Lib-Dems would go for.

1 comment:

  1. I agree on AV. As most safe seats are built on an existing 50%+ share anyway it wouldn't help things. With the 15-25% top up of AV+ it still doesn't provide proper proportionality but looking forward it's the sort of system the british could get on board with. There's so much discussion going on about how people don't like the fact that the parties are having to work things out, that a system that may produce a majority government once in while would sit well with people. Let's not forget, once the system was introduced and people can see that voting for smaller parties does make a difference, then they may be more inclined to vote for them and the number of 'safe' seats would gradually decrease. In a referendum on introducing PR we still have to convince a great number of people that a system that would produce hung parliaments more often is worth voting for.

    ReplyDelete