A referendum on how
the Commons is elected would give fresh legitimacy to Britain's democracy. Tony
Blair should throw all his weight behind the idea
In a week in which media coverage of the Labour Party has
been notable mainly for silly season fantasies about rebellions against Tony
Blair's leadership, one story deserves to be taken very seriously: that of the
drive by defenders of the first-past-the-post electoral system to get Labour
conference this October to ditch the party's commitment to a referendum on
electoral systems for the House of Commons.
With two major unions against the referendum (the Transport
and General, and Unison), a third wavering (the GMB) and Tony Blair, never an
enthusiast for electoral reform, apparently unwilling to defend the existing
policy, the chances are high that the conference will vote for no change. But
if it does this, it will have thrown away Labour's single most important commitment
to constitutional reform and destroyed the credibility of Blair's claims that
he and his party are now committed to pluralism. For his own sake, Blair must
think again – and make it clear that he wants the existing policy to remain.
Of course, it is easy to see why opponents of a referendum
– all of them, without exception, opponents of electoral reform – have made
their push this summer to have the policy reversed. Many in the Labour Party
accepted a referendum on electoral systems as a way of keeping the Liberal
Democrats sweet, when it looked as if Labour would need tactical votes from Lib
Dem supporters, or even coalition with Paddy Ashdown, to have any hope of
power. Today, Labour is riding high in the opinion polls, and it looks likely
that it will be able to form a government on its own. Sops to the Lib Dems seem
more a diversion than a necessity.
It could look very different at the time of the next general
election. As Blair himself has said repeatedly, a massive opinion-poll lead
nearly two years before an election guarantees nothing. Labour could yet find
that it needs Lib Dem supporters' tactical votes or Lib Dem MPs' backing in the
Commons, in which case a decision now to ditch a referendum on electoral
systems will look asinine at best (as indeed will Peter Mandelson's Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election
campaign).
There's also the small matter of what dropping the
referendum policy will do to Labour between now and the election. John Smith
adopted it as a compromise to wind up the Plant commission on electoral systems
and prevent a long and bloody internecine conflict between electoral reformers
and opponents of change – and up to now it has worked a treat. If conference
votes to abandon it, the least that can be expected is widespread (and justifiable)
resentment among the reformers. That is not something to be dismissed lightly –
according to the most recent survey by Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley of Sheffield
University, two-thirds of Labour's new members are in favour of electoral
reform and only a fifth are against it.
But enough of realpolitik. The most important reason for
supporting a referendum on electoral systems for the Commons is not that it
facilitates pre-election Lib-Lab cooperation (welcome although that would be)
or that it prevents acrimonious rows inside the Labour Party. Rather it is that
a referendum would give the British people the chance our democracy needs to
decide the sort of polity in which we live – and thus the chance to consign
the winner-takes-all tribalism of first-past-the-post to the proverbial dustbin
of history.
Put bluntly, the legitimacy of Britain's democratic system
needs to be re-established. Popular disenchantment with the political process,
particularly among the young, is at an all-time high. Politicians increasingly
are seen as untrustworthy and venal, while the system is more and more viewed
as remote and irrelevant.
It may well be true, as the defenders of the status quo
argue, that most people care more about jobs, housing and the health service
than about the electoral system, but that is beside the point. It is only when
the people have a direct say in determining the basic rules of our democratic
process that it will regain the popular support it needs to thrive.
In this sense, the holding of a referendum is more important
than its outcome. NSS is a long-standing supporter of the German-style
additional-member system of proportional representation: we would of course
campaign vigorously for its adoption, and for an end to first-past-the-post, in
a referendum campaign. But if the status quo won, we would have no choice but
to enthusiastically embrace the people's choice.
The first question that must be asked of the cabal trying to
get Labour to ditch a referendum is not why they so like the present system,
but why they don't want to let the people decide.
