The Guardian is reporting today that the Labour ‘Yes to Alternative Vote campaign’ is calling on Nick Clegg to stay out of the campaign. Unsurprisingly he is a negative not only on his party but the effectiveness of the campaign, which the paper says “voters may be willing to back electoral reform in next year’s referendum”. The last couple of polls have put the yes campaign ahead.
The AV system is a third rate option for electoral reform and backing it is a serious mistake. That should be reason enough to abandon support for the Yes campaign. If you needed more then look to Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. I’m sorry, but people who try to ignore the fact that AV is now the political baby of Clegg and the Lib Dems are deeply misguided and live in political la la land. Whether the Labour Yes campaign likes it or not supporting the AV referendum gives succor to Clegg and his band of Tory supporting Lib Dems, which that includes Vince “I prop up the government, but I could bring it down” Cable. Who has proved that only his mouth is bigger than his ego.
It doesn’t matter if they say that Clegg is not the reason they are supporting AV. It is the unavoidable end result. You can not escape it and you get around it. There is no other way to spin it. Clegg must be laughing his arse off at people like Jessica Asato, who is heading up the Labour Yes to AV campaign, as she comes out with lines like this:
“Our aim is to keep politicians out of the campaign, but the single politician we would like to stay out is Nick Clegg.”
Keep politicians out of the campaign? You have the backing of Ed Miliband and you can not divorce Clegg and the Lib Dems from the campaign. If the Yes campaign succeeds in winning they will be delivering a victory for Clegg and the Lib Dems and not one for democratic change.
AV is not going to deliver a better voting system. It isn’t close to being proportional representation or going to make a major difference to the imbalance of the current voting system. That’s why we should all oppose it.
