Vernon Bogdanor, a frequent contributor to the NS, delivers a paean of praise to the Alternative Vote in today’s Financial Times. AV, he writes, “opens the door to a new political world in which coalitions become the norm, and single-party majority government a distant memory”.
One should qualify Bogdanor’s excitement by noting that, in some circumstances, AV can produce even more distorted outcomes than first-past-the-post. For instance, the Jenkins commission found that if the 1997 election had been held under AV, Labour’s majority would have ballooned from 179 to 245, with the Tories reduced to a rump of 96 seats. So introducing AV would by no means consign single-party government to the dustbin of history.
As things stand, however, it looks like we won’t get a chance to find out. The odds have shifted significantly against electoral reform in recent weeks. Here are four reasons why.
1. Public support for AV has plummeted
Three months ago, a ComRes poll showed that AV enjoyed a healthy, 27-point lead over first-past-the-post, but the most recent YouGov poll suggests this has shrivelled to just 5 points. The referendum may not be until May (or September, if the Tory rebels and Labour succeed in delaying it), but this is not encouraging for the Yes campaign.
In addition, the psephologist Rob Hayward recently told the FT‘s Jim Pickard that currently half of Conservative voters polled by YouGov are in favour of AV. That is likely to change once leading Tory politicians swing behind FPTP.
2. Labour’s decision to oppose the Electoral Reform Bill
Labour’s decision to oppose the Electoral Reform Bill over the coalition’s proposed boundary changes caught the Lib Dems off guard. The bill is still likely to squeak through, but the row over Cameron’s alleged gerrymandering has, as David Miliband put it recently, “poisoned” the debate.
If Labour does campaign in favour of AV (and some in the shadow cabinet are agnostic on the question) it is likely to be only half-heartedly. As well as those in the party who have never supported electoral reform (the Prescott tendency), a significant number of MPs would now like to see AV rejected, in the hope that the coalition will fall.
3. Voters are disillusioned with coalition government
Today’s Independent/ComRes poll found that only 36 per cent agree with the statement “Britain is better off with a coalition government than it would have been if either the Conservatives or Labour had won the election outright”, compared to 45 per cent two months ago.
As I’ve explained above, AV doesn’t always lead to coalition governments but, based on current voting intentions and second preferences, it would. We can expect this to be a key weapon in the No camp’s arsenal.
4. The No campaign is better organised and better funded
The No campaign already has an experienced team in place, including the Australian pollster Lynton Crosby (who masterminded Boris Johnson’s election), two Tory MPs, Bernard Jenkin and George Eustice, as well as James Frayne, former campaign director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, who led the successful referendum campaign against a north-east regional assembly.
As today’s Financial Times notes, the No camp can also count on backing from wealthy City donors fearful that AV would lead to a succession of hung parliaments. The Yes camp has neither the organisational nor the financial might to compete with this.
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