Reinvigorating Yes to AV

From such a bright start months ago, the Yes to AV campaign has stalled and dwindled. The No to AV campaign are picking up and solidifying their support. Even hardened reformers are having a hard time justifying AV, that “petty little compromise” which has seen many of its supporters swinging to FPTP as the better of two evils, calling for PR thus supporting ‘No’, or throwing their hands up in sheer apathy and frustration. There is more at stake than our electoral future, the Yes campaign needs to be reinvigorated.

The main advantage to AV is that it tackles the democratic deficit produced by FPTP and turns the system from plurality to majority. Instead of politicians being able to be elected with just 20% consent, they need 50%+1. This will hopefully make them go out and communicate with voters more, which is a change needed no matter what electoral system we have. Further, it strengthens their mandate and right to represent. AV may have questionable democratic credentials, but it may act as a trigger for greater democracy, communication and participation in politics.

Under FPTP in 2005 Labour won 55% of the seats with only 35% of the votes. That highlights the essential flaw in FPTP; its huge democratic deficit. AV may be “undemocratic” or “unfair” because it values some people’s second and third preference and others’ first, but the No campaign cannot take the democratic high ground; FPTP is not a model for democracy. Neither system is particularly democratic.

There is no perfect electoral system; every system has flaws. FPTP has a huge democratic deficit, AV has questionable credentials, PR is unstable and breaks the link  between politicians and constituents, STV is confusing, AV+ is even more confusing. No matter what we choose it will be unsatisfying, this is why any change towards democracy must go beyond the ballot box and take politics back to the people. Instead of building a better society for the people, we must build a better society with the people. There is no referendum on that, no legislation necessary. Government is just one tool for improving society and helping people; democracy, literally rule of the people, lies with increasing community participation rather than in electing representatives.

An argument made against AV is that it produces coalitions. As if coalitions are inherently evil. They’re not. This current government “coalition” is flawed because it is not really a coalition; it is a Conservative government with ‘diet Tory’ elements. Coalitions force compromise and moderation, which in our unitary and centralised system is not bad. If we had a coalition government in the 1980s, Thatcher would not have been so destructive. If we had a coalition government in 2003 we would not have gone to war with Iraq. Coalitions prevent ideologically driven individuals from passing whatever they want. Coalitions force more debate and scrutiny of policy which a governing party cannot ignore, unlike the scrutiny from the opposition.  As for the wait between an election and the formation of a government; as long as we do not 'pull a Belgium' – which is exceptional given its division between Francophone and Flemish communities – there is not really a problem. Particularly if electoral reform goes hand in hand with institutional reform and strong regional governments are created, that way it does not matter if the central government is “weak”, as in the case of Belgium again which has strong regional governments in Wallonia and Flanders.

The No side also throw the BNP card. This argument is flawed; even if the BNP won representation they would have no power as no one would form a coalition with them. The Netherlandish and Slovakian far-right parties are at least marginally legitimate; Geert Wilders is Islamophobic and anti-immigration, but more in line with the reason of Fortuynism than the vulgar racism inherent in the BNP. And even if they won representation, that’s democracy. I would much rather live in a society where the BNP has representation than a society that bans such parties from freely running, providing they adhere to regulation (anti-discriminatory, not to condone or incite violence and pro-democracy). I may not agree with what they say, but I will defend their right to say it. The argument against AV on the basis of extreme parties is playing on fears; it has no ground and reverts to typical, and undemocratic, scare tactics.

AV is not so much a reform as a shuffle. It is a signal for the desire to change and have more democratic reform, to get out of this museum of archaic custom called Britain. We must vote Yes in order to instigate democratic reform. If we vote No then it is a real blow to any reform, unless the next Labour manifesto includes them (someone get on the phone to Ed), or the newly formed Democratic Reform Party does well.

True democratic reform is institutional and in attitude. If we want to be more democratic, which is ultimately what the aim of electoral reform is, we need more than just a shift in how we choose our politicians. We need sweeping reform; things as big as House of Lords reform or regionalism to small changes such as committee autonomy, weakening the whips and empowering private members' bills which would shift the balance of power from the executive to the legislative. Such small reforms are not crazy; committee autonomy and powerful members' bills are seen in the Scottish Parliament.

The real democratic reform is one from Representative Democracy to Deliberative Democracy, and for this to happen the parties need to play an active role in the community. Labour can become a vehicle for deliberative democracy and become an integral part of every community; from Kirkby to St Ives. It does not matter if the slave can choose his master, he is still a slave. But if he can communicate with his master and his master takes his grievances and fixes them and helps in his load, then he is no longer a slave.

The AV referendum marks the beginning of a New Democratic Age. An age where voters are more educated and aware of politics, they no longer automatically ‘belong’ to a party based on class division. The miners have become cabbies and the steel workers have become waiters; birth does not denote worth nor party alignment. The parties need to get back to the people; we can no longer be arrogant and assume that we know what the people want better than they do, and if they disagree they are ‘mistaken’ (thanks Marx). We can no longer rely on a core base. People will not vote Labour ‘because their parents do’ forever. Unless the parties get back to the people, they and parliament in general are doomed.

Unfortunately, I fear this referendum will go the way of the 2003 North East Assembly Referenda where the No campaign simply had more money and the majority of people did not understand or care about the debate. I guarantee that places where there is no local election will see turnout at most 15% unless something happens soon. The debate is not based on the issue but on satisfaction with the government, in this case Nick Clegg. This is precisely the problem with direct democracy; quantity is not quality. If democracy changed anything they would abolish it.

We need to vote Yes on May 5^th to vote for the beginning of democratic reform in Britain; one small shuffle to begin widespread change. This is potentially the start of a new democratic community, of reform which our system desperately needs. The referendum is about more than voting system, it is about intent – the intent and desire for change, the desire to emancipate the people and rebuild trust in politics, the desire for greater deliberation between politicians and people. If this referendum is successful, it can be the beginning of democratic reform. If it fails, we will be stuck in our little museum for years to come. That is why we must support change.

Vote Yes but let’s go further. Go out. Put the demos- back into democracy.

The Big AV Debate in Liverpool

The University of Liverpool Fabian Club was founded in September 2010 with a promise: "We will organise a politically balanced debate on the AV referendum with high profile speakers and rigorous discussion". On the 1st of April that debate was held in the main courtyard of the Liverpool Guild of Students.
 

Both the 'Yes to fairer votes' and 'No2AV' campaigns made early claims which have since been rebuffed: Yes claimed that AV would require the support of 50% of the electorate of each constituency; No claimed that switching to AV would cost £250million. Both of these claims are disingenuous at best, or outright fabrications at worst. Some claims, such as the essentially unprovable Yes claim that it would 'make MPs work harder' or the continuing No argument that 'supporters of small parties effectively have multiple votes' are still being peddled. The Yes campaign has been accused of condescension and having a superiority complex about their 'fair' credentials; the No campaign has been lambasted for its reprehensible billboard advertising effectively claiming that AV would cause an underfunding of children's hospital wards or soldiers' equipment. The whole debate has been increasingly negative and debates up and down the country have had representitives from both sides pull out due to claims of 'bias'.

This is where we stepped in. Thanks to the Fabian reputation for fair and open debate, we were able to interest a range of well respected speakers in taking part in the event. On the Yes side, John Pugh, the Liberal Democrat MP for Southport and Labour's Steve Munby, Liverpool City Councillor for Riverside Ward and City Cabinet member for Neighborhoods agreed to argue the case for AV. Representing the No campaign was Jane Kennedy, former MP for Liverpool Wavertree and Labour Cabinet Minister for Farming and the Environment, alongside 2010 Conservative PPC for Bolton West, Susan Williams, also the director of the North West regional No2AV campaign.

I can only thank all of the members of the UoL Fabian Club for the help and support they offered in the run up and on the day of the event. And thanks too go to Adrian Prandle and Sam Bacon of the Young Fabian executive who have been supportive and helpful throughout. The event was streamed live by the wonderful team at LSMedia and embedded on the Young Fabian website for public viewing, so I believe thanks are in order to Claire French and Alex Baker of the Young Fabians, and the Comms team at LGoS, especially Alan Roberts, Morven Proctor and Josh Wright for helping to publicise the event.

Unfortunately, on the day, John Pugh did not attend, which left us in something of a quandry; with barely 5 minutes left until the debate was due to start I started enquiring of the Yes supporters present if one of them wished to fill the missing space on the speaker's panel. With time running out, and with no volunteers to speak in favour of AV, I took to the platform to take John Pugh's place. As an advocate of electoral reform, and having previously written on my belief that AV is a stepping-stone on the road to a system such as AMS, I felt my views were similar enough to his to give a go of advocating AV.

The debate was chaired superbly by the University of Liverpool Politics Department's Professor John Tonge, current President of the Political Studies Association UK. Each speaker was introduced and then asked to give an opening statement on why they are campaigning for their position. The level of preparation each of the speakers had put into their arguments was incredible, with pages of notes, quotes and rebuttals prepared well in advance. This was clearly appreciated by the impassioned audience of approximately 70 people; clapping to comments they liked, lots of head-shaking to comments they disagreed with.

Highlights included a comment by Jane Kennedy that First Past the Post is a system which is very like 'the old adverts for creosote', presumably that it 'does exactly what it says on the tin', but an analogy which passed over the heads of many in a room with an average age in its 20s. There were some awkward looks in the audience when Susan Williams chose to disagree with Steve Munby about 'the poor needing politics' - I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt and assume she meant that politics is for all, not just the poor, but coming from a Conservative speaker, it clearly did not sit comfortably with the Liverpool crowd. Having said that, her calm, measured approach to the debate gave her an air of being a 'common sense' speaker. Meanwhile Jane Kennedy quoted at length from Ipsos Mori polls to back up her points, which lent weight to her arguments. 

At one point, a position was put to the Yes team questioning whether AV would disadvantage areas with high levels of functional illiteracy: Steve Munby responded to this with an anecdote about his time as an election observer in El Salvador, where illiteracy is considerably higher than in Britain, but has a comparable turnout, with a much more complicated set of electoral systems.

The No team contended that introducing AV would not be a stepping stone to further reform, but in fact an electoral dead end which would lower turnout and exacerbate the problems of public engagement with politics. This was in response to a question from the floor about a No vote effectively ending the possibility of electoral reforms in areas other than the voting system for a generation.

A straw poll should really have been taken at the beginning, but by the end of the debate a show of hands had the No to Yes ratio at about 3 to 1, although perhaps this was to be expected due to the very few, if any, Lib Dems in attendance, the high Conservative showing in support of their speaker and the split on the issue in Labour circles.

The debate was concluded when the chair gave his final comments and the speakers were applauded off the stage. I had introduced the debate with the comment "some people have suggested that electoral reform is boring, and they may well be right, but it is important". I felt that the attentiveness of the audience and the perceptiveness of the questions from the floor were succinct throughout and all in attendence should be proud that their concentration was clearly maintained for almost two hours on such a dry topic.

I hope that this debate was helpful to those who had yet to decide which way to vote and both demonstrates the ability of Young Fabian members to organise events anywhere in the country with the full support of our elected executive committee, and gave an insight into how electoral reform is percieved outside of the Westminster bubble.

"Greenest Government Ever"

In case it has escaped anyone’s attention, it’s finally spring; beautiful time of year, the sun’s out, flowers are blooming and trees are getting their colour back. At least something’s green.

Remember when the Conservatives promised that this would be unambiguously environmentalist. So how is the “greenest government ever” shaping up? Not great. In fact, it may even be disastrous. How exactly is this government “green”? Have they done anything “green”?

Well, I’m sure we all remember the fiasco over the forest sell-out proposal; I even wrote a blog, was about to publish and then they decided not to do it. A little annoying for myself, but at the same time I was pleased that the proposal did not go ahead. But that is just the tip of the ever melting iceberg.

The Liberal Democrats ran the 2010 campaign on a policy of being staunchly against nuclear power. About a week after forming a coalition, they dropped that stance. Or rather, they agreed that nuclear plants be built ‘provided no public money is spent on them’.

In light of the recent Fukishima plant meltdown, many continental nations have started means testing and questioning nuclear policy. This has even led to the CDU losing a safe state election in Germany. European nuclear policy is safe. We do not have Soviet safety such as Chernobyl (incidentally, the concrete layer over that is cracking and future radiation disaster is imminent; Ukraine does not have the resources to do anything, we and the EU need to step in to prevent a future crisis – you heard it here first), and our nuclear plants are not built on earthquake fault lines like Fukishima. And thus our reaction has been more passive. There has been no call to rethink nuclear policy.

But still, one must wonder; does our government even care about the environment?

My line with nuclear energy reflects Labour’s line (no, I am not a slave of the party line). Nuclear power is an unfortunate, practical and temporary necessity. We should stress the last word; temporary. One day we will get our energy from renewable sources, but we have to wait for the technology that can yield enough power from renewable sources and can transport that energy efficiently. One day electric cars will be the norm rather than the exception, but we have to wait for the technology to be more efficient and for the manufacture not to outweigh the gains. Investment in green technology is absolutely vital to shaping a sustainable future, and Britain could potentially play a leading role in green technology research and innovation. This government has unfortunately not lived up to its own billing and has so far failed to invest enough in green technology.

During the end of the Labour Government, a multi billion pound offshore wind farm for the North East was proposed. It was one of the first things scrapped by the government without so much as a “maybe some time later”. A few months later, a £30billion tidal energy scheme on the Severn which would have produced up to 5% of the UK’s energy was also scrapped. Alright, they were expensive, but it was an investment worth making; not only is it green but it would have created jobs in poor areas. These are the kind of innovations the green movement needs. The private sector won’t do it; there is no or minimal profit thus no incentive to do it.

And now we have this; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566 . The UK government has rejected EU calls for a city centre ban on petrol cars by 2050. Will there even be petrol or diesel by 2050? Who knows. But why reject it? I thought this government was ambitious about green policy? Did they reject it ‘out of principle’, because it’s EU legislation? The environment, if it is such a huge issue, should surely go above petty EU-phobia. 

The UK government “insists that the commission should keep its nose out of individual cities’ transport choices” with the Transport Minister saying “We will not be banning cars from city centres any more than we will be having rectangular bananas” (EUObserver). So no banning cars in city centres, not even in 40 years time. Good to see the Conservatives are ambitious about the environment.

But therein lies the ideological problem between Conservatives and conservationists. They are ideologically opposed. The Conservatives favour the small state and limited government interference, but environmental protection requires government interference, regulation and centrally planned targets. Of course it also requires individual initiative. The Conservatives cannot cut emissions without the central government playing a central role. What’s more, EU co-operation is a useful tool for environmental policy; reform in Britain must be mirrored by reform in Europe.

The vulnerability of Britain’s oil policy has been born out in Libya. “Never rely on what one cannot control” to echo Machiavelli’s maxim; whether that is a nation led by an unpredictable dictator or the open markets, it is a good maxim for government. Green technology would make us less reliable on such nations as Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Generating our own energy, or energy from our European partners who we can trust a bit more than Libya, will make us more self-sufficient and less dependent.

What are they doing? A minimum price for carbon and more cash for the Green Investment Bank (GIB) are among the Budget's tools to encourage a UK green energy expansion. But speaking of the budget; “There’s almost nothing in this budget to protect the environment and spark a clean-tech jobs boom. As things stand, Cameron will leave office with Britain still hooked on oil and China and California surging ahead in the race to build the low carbon technologies that should be developed here at home” – Executive director of Greenpeace (the not extreme green movement), John Sauven.

And credit where credit is due, they are investing £100million extra for “science”. The bad news is that by “science” they mean space technologies and three new instruments at the Isis neutron source, and not in green technology investment.

There are some incentives to boost green technology, but progress is incredibly slow, no more so than because green energy is more expensive and thus harder to sell. More subsidies, more incentive; that is what is needed – but then every sector will be saying that about their own departments.

What is to be done? First off, signing up to the EU 2050 agreement, a fairly un-ambitious plan in itself. Investment in green technology is a fairly obvious step, and as much as I would like to see Britain play a leading role, under current conditions that might not happen; there are other things to spend money on (education, health and security). How about this fairly innocuous suggestion; if you’ve ever been in a city centre at night most of the shops have their lights on. While we are being told to turn lights off when we leave a room and never use stand by on our TVs, shops are leaving lights on throughout the night. A simple solution is to force them to turn their lights off at night. Not massive, for sure. We need innovation and individual initiative, but also central regulation and limits. The government cannot change people’s lifestyles so it has to find other ways of tackling imminent environmental problems. Or, to hell with it; we’re all going to die anyway.

This government, simply put, is not green. It is falling way short of its own ambitious billing, which is the only thing that has any ambition with regards to government policy on the environment. Ideologically the government is in a contradiction with itself and so it has fallen upon the EU to direct our green policy and targets, and naturally that does not sit well with the government. Still, it has four more years to change all this, and who knows, maybe it will implement some green policy, maybe it will make Britain more reliable and self-sufficient, maybe we will lead the way for green technology and be the envy of others.

Until then, it’s going to be a very grey spring...