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.
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