Referendum this October

The Queen's Speech today promised legislation for a referendum on AV in the coming parliamentary year. According to usually reliable sources, the referendum will be held this Autumn. My fear is that an early referendum may favour our opponents because voters who don't understand AV and its benefits may vote to keep the system they know You may think that is a dastardly Tory plot to defeat us but I could not possibly comment. Be that as it may, we need to start preparing immediately for the campaign. Preliminary work done now won't be wasted even if the referendum is later than we expect.

Clearing the decks

The Electoral Reform Society already plans to clear its decks for the referendum campaign by giving over most of its Annual Meeting to the referendum:
Date: Saturday 26 June.
Place: Central London, details tab.
If you are a member, please show your support by going this year even if you don't usually. If you're not a member at present, why not join now and go? Just click on http://www.electoral-reform.org.auk/join.php and complete the simple form.
Keynote resolution

The ERS Council will propose a keynote resolution at its Annual Meeting in support of the "Yes" campaign. I strongly urge all of you who are ERS members to vote for it. Let's send a strong message that the ERS is united in its determination to win a "Yes" vote.

Write to your MP now!

Obviously, there won't be a referendum unless the legislation for it is passed. In theory, both Houses should pass it overwhelmingly; the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties have undertaken to whip their MPs and Peers to support the Bill, it would be highly shameful for Labour not to support a Conservative/Lib Dem proposal which was in Labour's own manifesto and SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party all support electoral reform.

Nevertheless, let's not take chances. Will you please write today to your MP and urge him or her to support the Referendum Bill when it comes before Parliament. Please do this even if you think your MP will support it anyway or you think they won't whatever you say.

The key arguments are:
A referendum will let the people decide even if your MP opposes AV.
Those of you who are writing to Labour MPs may care to remind them that they were elected on a manifesto pledge to hold this referendum.
Those of you who are writing to Conservative MPs may care to remind them it was David Cameron who said "Let the people decide."
Although we may see AV as step towards STV, it would be better not to mention that to most Conservative and Labour MPs; it would probably be counter-productive, but by all means mention it to Liberal Democrat MPs.

Campaign for STV?

Although I personally would like very much to campaign at every opportunity openly for STV, now is not the time. We must not risk losing the referendum for AV because we had either criticized AV too much for not being proportional or we had over-promoted AV as a step towards STV. Explaining the benefits of preferential voting will help us win the AV referendum and pave the way for STV.

Let's get AV for the Commons and then double our efforts to get STV.

Other elections?

Once the referendum is out of the way and especially if we win it, we must turn our attention to other elections. We would not be asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

We already elect our MEPs by PR, albeit a very inferior form in Great Britain, so all the parties have already conceded that principle. We share many of the objections to regional lists that supporters of FPTP advance and we can point out that STV could help to overcome them.

The Scots and Irish already elect Councillors by STV; only the English and Welsh lag behind. However, rather than going straight for STV for all Council elections, I would prefer to follow the ERS policy of campaigning for preferential voting. That would give us STV where there are already multi-member wards and AV in the rest. We could campaign later for full STV.

The new Government has pledged to reform the House of Lords with members of the reformed chamber elected, which will create opportunities for electoral reformers.

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More STV news

I draw your attention to www.stvAction.org.uk which contains much material relevant to STV not always to be found on other sites. I hope you find it interesting and useful.

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