AV must look pretty good in hindsight for the Tories

Full disclosure: I voted "yes" in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011. Not only did I vote "yes" but I volunteered for the "yes" campaign, making phone calls to random sections of the London electoral roll, wearing a little purple "Yes!" badge and defacing any misleading NO2AV ads I saw in free newspapers on trains.

And we got absolutely crushed. Seriously. The final result was more than 2:1 in favour of the status quo (an example of the 'Smithson rule' for referendums in the UK favouring the status quo), the image at the end of this (after the jump) shows the areas which voted "yes" vs. those that voted "no" and it's entirely red.

The reason why I bring this up though is because the recent UKIP surge has got some Conservative commentators talking about how the right will be divided in 2015 and Nigel Farage's success will probably cost the Conservatives some seats. Even if, as seems likely, the surge peters out as we draw closer to the 2015 election, they only need to win around 6% to cause decisive damage to David Cameron.

If only there was a voting system that would save them from this?




Obviously I'm aware that UKIP supporters aren't all former Tories (there are significant numbers of Labour supporters among their number and former Lib Dems) but they do disproportionately draw support from the Conservatives and, if the 2015 election were operating under AV, then it seems likely that the second preferences of most UKIP voters would go to the Conservatives. In the 2012 London Mayoral election UKIP urged supporters to give their second preferences to Boris Johnson and after the 2010 and 2005 general elections UKIP boasted of denying seats to the Conservatives precisely because their supporters would otherwise have voted Tory.

As George Eaton appropriately puts it, the best way for David Cameron to have killed off the UKIP threat to his party would have been to pass AV but, alas, they didn't. Even though I disagreed with them, I completely understand the reasons for the Conservative party (and to a lesser extent the Labour party) opposing AV. First Past The Post works best in a two party system and the two largest parties would be the biggest losers under a change to a more proportional system.

The reason why I liked AV though was that it seemed like the perfect, stereotypical British compromise. People have been drifting away from the two main parties for decades, beginning in earnest in the 1970s before dipping during the 1980s and 1990s then reemerging in the 2000s. In the 2010 election the non-Lab/Con share of the vote was 34.9%, more than Labour's 29% and nearly as much as the Tories' 36%. By comparison Labour's losing share in 1955 was 46% so things have clearly changed.

However, I don't think the UK is ready for a true multi-party democracy as we see in most European countries. Despite no party achieving an absolute majority of votes  it's still generally accepted that the party with the most votes and seats should provide the Prime Minister. In 2010 the Lib Dems felt obliged to say that they would support whichever party had a 'mandate'. Mandates are fictional but clearly fit with the idea of each election having a clear "winner" who deserves to govern. It's only fair.

So the good thing about AV is that it allows those who want to support parties other than Labour or the Conservatives to express themselves without the worry that they're wasting their votes and acknowledges the general change in voting behaviour mentioned above. But at the same time, it doesn't make hung parliaments inevitable or coalitions inevitable and allows a party with a strong coalition of voters behind it to secure a majority. Under AV Labour would still have won a big majority in 1997 and 2001.

Unfortunately everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The debate became one about cost (and really any country deciding their political system on the basis of cost deserves everything they get) and whether the BNP would be likely to get seats (again, an electoral system should reflect how people vote, regardless of who it is for).
Countries that are serious about changing their system have two referendums, the first on whether to keep or ditch the current system and the second to decide what to replace it with. This allows the first referendum to be about the pros and cons of the existing system rather than allowing vested interests to demonise the 'other' and it's what New Zealand did in the 1990s.

The No campaign had the support of most major newspapers, the Conservative party, half of the Labour party while the Yes campaign was spectacularly poorly run and failed to come up with a simple compelling reason to vote "yes" that would resonate with people. UKIP weren't as strong in the polls in 2011 as they are now but they supported the change and were turned away, ruining a great chance to help the wooly, metropolitan-heavy Yes camp appeal to a broader range of people.

So it's hardly surprising that this happened:

Look at that.

In 2011 the AV result was seen as an impressive victory for David Cameron. In 2015 it may seem like a spectacular own goal.