The demands for electoral reform continue apace even if the Take back Parliament campaign isn’t really a grass roots campaign. Apart from the groups acknowledge as being behind it on the website a quick whois lookup shows the campaign is being handled by Blue state digitial which must be costing someone a pretty penny. But that aside a campaign for electoral reform is a good thing, though purely electoral reform without more general parliamentary reform is going to leave things really quite messy. As I muttered earlier I’m against any system (such as the currently mooted AV) which either breaks the constituency link or makes it more difficult for small parties or independent candidates to win seats. Due to the horror of the BNP maybe getting a few seats under some hypothetical PR system some people have proposed that the thresh hold to getting seats be set above the level they currently achieve (so about 10%) which would do in almost all new entrants to the political system just due to finance alone – starting in just one place wouldn’t really be a viable option anymore.
Despite all the campaigning what I can’t seem to find anywhere is an explanation of just what counts as “fair votes”, though someone did suggest it was “when the one you are cheering for wins“. I’m not actually sure which system will allow for everyone’s vote to count any more than it does now – other than the electorate as a whole suddenly waking up and not voting tribally. As I don’t expect that to happen any time soon I think I’d rather leave things as they are, unless we can have a very thorough and open debate about the matter -with all the pro’s and con’s of the various systems explained after which a referendum can happen and the electorate will vote as tribally as ever for the system that most favours their party. Which in almost every case will mean goodbye small parties and independents. As an aside, what method do you use to choose a new method of voting, as inherent in the question is the assumption that the current method is broken so it would be perverse to use the broken method to choose the new method.
In the meantime all the various parliamentary reforms are at least uniting both labour and conservative bloggers in condemning the new “55% to dissolve parliament” rule that the ConDem coalition seems to be terribly eager to push through. As blogged elsewhere and vaguely commented upon myself it seems that without asking the country the ConDems are planning to fix the term of parliament at the maximum allowed of 5 years – rather than the more normal 4, and whilst leaving the vote of no confidence the same same introduce the 55% rule for actually changing our Parliament. So that’ll be 5 years of musical chairs as can you really see 55% of our honourable representatives ever voting to have to try to get re-elected again earlier than they have to? After all why risk all those lovely allowances and final pensions when with enough no-confidence votes you may get a chance to get a cushy ministers job without any danger of losing your seat.
What currently worries me most is that the public campaigns for “reform” will allow the new boys during their “can get away with more” phase, to push through some very unwelcome parliamentary reform and then “graciously” give in to public opinion and give us a choice between the status quo or some new system which makes the grip of the incumbents on the levers of power even stronger and harder to challenge. Campaigning for reform is a good thing(tm) and I’m quite heartened by people increasing interest in what our Parliament is doing and how it operates, but before throwing away hundreds of years of history it would be nice if someone stopped to thing about how the whole mess hangs together and then asked the public at large just how we’d like things to change. Rather than the far more likely, I fear, option of a headlong rush to “do something” pushing in an even less representative system that we’re then stuck with for several more generations. Oh and if they could spare some time from “looking” at electoral/parliamentary reform to sort out that rather huge deficit that none of them really seem to want to talk about – well that’d be nice.
Blue State Digital, the political lobbying firm which claim much credit for mobilizing support for Obama, were hired by Labour – and paid for by us – to run the “Hope not Hate” campaign which targetted the BNP and its supporters. This was effectively the ruling elite using public money to try to undermine its competition, instead of sticking to party funds. Yeah, I know, that was their whole political M.O., to use public money to try to achieve partisan electoral success, but there was something even more underhand than usual in their actions.
Who is paying BSD now? Looking at the “coalition” list at the bottom of their page, it yields a list of organizations to whom public money can be cut immediately, if they are receiving any, as presumably they are handing over money which was intended for their own use (and shouldn’t have been given to half of them in the first place).
Some, like Greenpeace, are not receiving public money, but it needs to be shown up that Greenpeace are in fact pushing a campaign to change our electoral system when there is no such citizen as “Greenpeace”. Why should anyone who isn’t a UK voter be allowed the slightest influence in the matter. It is for UK voters, on impartial advice, to make that decision, not self-appointed ‘organizations’.
The quicker we kick out US lobbying luvvies, the better. As far as I’m concerned, if interfering and partisan Yankee BSD are pushing it, then I definitely don’t want voting reform and will be ticking the box for “FPTP” for that reason alone.
If UK voters want to run their own campaign, they can start a blog and/or petition and then at least we will have a genuine sample of public opinion.
It’s not reassuring is it a US lobby firm that was being paid to silence one political party now suddenly cropping up behind a fully fledged campaign to change our electoral system. Despite what OH says about not caring who’s behind it, I think it’s vitally important, as when the government “gives in” and listens to the people on reform they’ll be talking to BSD, Greenpeace and all those others behind the “take back parliament” campaign and we’ll have handed our voice over to them.
I’d support a genuine grass roots campaign with real discussion, but yeah till then I’m against changing a damn thing. If we can’t have a full debate and the length of discussion this needs then lets stick with a few hundred years of history even if it does do odd things now and then.
Mind I am going to write to Greenpeace to ask just how this new campaign ties in with their stated environmental goals. I’d have thought electoral reform was rather outside their remit.