AV: a majority for every MP
Comments on socialistresistance.org2010sTwo comments by Alan in the thread under “Why it is wrong to call for a NO vote on AV” on socialistresistance.org.
The publication's own web text.
Editor's note. Posted under Alan's own article Why it is wrong to call for a NO vote on AV, before the referendum of 5 May 2011 on the Alternative Vote. A reader, Simon, had argued that AV was no use to parties to the left of Labour, which could never clear its 50 per cent bar, and that it was less proportional than first-past-the-post: “What makes AV more democratic?”
26 April 2011
Simon: On your first posting I would have thought it was fairly obvious that a YES vote would show an appetite for change whilst a NO vote would show an appetite for the status quo. Most of those supporting a YES vote (including most Lib Dems actually) see AV as inadequate and want to go further towards a PR system. In the event of a NO vote those who have won it (and in that sense own it) will be supporters of FPTP and will regard it and use it to defend the existing system. Any mention of electoral reform would in future be met with the stock response that “we have had a referendum and that is the end of it”.
For an MP to need (as with a government) to win majority support would be a progressive reform and we should therefore support it even if it would prevent very occasionally a left-wing candidate being elected in a split, and therefore minority vote. Though whether this would actually happen under AV would depend on the distribution of other preferences. We should not argue for a less democratic system in order to benifit the left. The way to redress injustice against small parties in the electoral system is not to protect an undemocratic practice but to fight for a democratic system. In any case there has only been one (or two depending who you count) left party which has won a Parliamentary seat in this way (on a majority vote) in the last 60 years — not a particularly regular event or rapid way forward.
AV would clearly benefit left parties at local level because voters could vote for their preferred (left) candidate as well as voting against their worst option to keep them out. It would mean that the full left vote could be registered as left voters would not face a pressure to use their single vote to keep out (probably the Tories) rather than vote for their preferred left candidate.
AV is not a less proportional system it simply does not address proportionality at the Parliamentary level because its effects are confined to constituency level.
Editor's note. Simon answered that AV's effects “are not confined to the constituency level”: by filtering out candidates who deviate from the centre it would give a Parliament even less representative of the electorate than the present one.
27 April 2011
But surely the only impact AV has at the Parliamentary level is that it sends MPs to Westminster who have been elected in their constituency in a more democratic way.