UK AV Failure

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Can't rap my head around this one. I've read quite a bit of commentary on the defeat for the AV system, mainly from the Guardian, and they hint at several different issues.

However, I can't understand why AV failed practically everywhere in pretty grand fashion. I mean, it was like, "You can have more choices and a govt more in line with popular sentiment, removing first past the pole" and people gave a resounding "No."

Was there a "dirty" campaign, designed to confuse voters? (I've heard of commercials in which celebs urge to vote No and keep it 'one person won vote' which no matter ones opinon on AV is quite stupid)

Was there a large group who voted no on AV because it falls far short of Proportional Representation, the thinking being getting locked into AV isn't worth it? Was AV just viewed, across the board, as a pretty dumb idea in general?

Or is it what much of the commentary says, not only from the guardian, that it was a referendum on Clegg and the Lib Dems, and their inability to really stand up and explain how the tories were wrong on the issue?

Or I am way off and none of these things truly mattered?

[hatzel]

Was there a "dirty" campaign, designed to confuse voters?

In a word...yes...it was pretty much just "if you vote yes, the Lib-Dems will be in 'power' more often, and that would be shit, therefore vote no." Given the fact that the Lib-Dems are hugely unpopular at the moment, and the sheer concept of a coalition government strikes fear into the hearts of...well, everybody, it was inevitable, with such a campaign, that there would be no change in the system :)

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

What are the big things driving the anger towards the lib dems? They, "disillusioned liberals," are oft being coted as a key group that gave the SNP the election victory in Scotland, for example.

I draw the conclusion that they are tied to the Conservatives austerity measures, yet their constituents do not support these things like tories do ideologically so to speak. Does that seem at all accurate?

[hatzel]

Something along those lines. At the moment, they are considered to be the ones who pretty much just abandoned all their policies to go into the coalition, and are therefore blamed for...letting the Tories do what the Tories wanted to do and would have done had they secured an absolute majority. But it's the Lib-Dems who are to blame, of course, because they didn't stop the Tories from doing so...sell-outs, really, they're seen as sell-outs...

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Exactly, you can't blame a conservative for being a conservative (even if one opposes their BS on all fronts), but a moderate or even leftist (of the reformist type of course) who abandons their values in order to try and get into/hold on to power is a whole different beast.

A similar thing happened here in the 2010 midterms. Some would have you believe that the tea party movement secured victory for the GOP crazies, but just as much the democrats gave it away. I've said it before, nobody is going to show up and vote for a progressive party is everything they do that is even mildly progressive is watered down to the point of being a corporate subsidy and presented to the voters as being a mistake. Obviously not directly, but when you do something like healthcare you need to be bold, not presenting a plan with the look of a dog that shit on the carpet and new it had done wrong.

Of course, the parallel is not perfect, but somewhat considering the shared power but not shared blame. Republicans are going to show up to cut the budget and punish working class people everytime, but when Democrats start saying things like 'everyone agrees the budget needs to be drastically cut' they are writing their own epitaph of even being viewed (mistakenly) as a working class party.

[Dr Mindbender]

The problem is the largest part of people who turn out to vote come from the home counties ie. middle to upper class traditional conservative voters.

[Dumb]

AV is almost as disproportional as FPTP; like FPTP, AV is a winner-take-all system that favours the bigger parties at the expense of the smaller parties.

In a theoretical sense, AV ensures victory for only the candidate acceptable to the most people; this breaks down, however, when all the options stink, as is the case in the UK where Labour still hasn't recovered from Blair/Brown, the Tories have dragged themselves down, and the LibDems have gone down right along with them.

In a more immediate sense, it was always known that only the LibDems would benefit from AV. Perhaps there would have been more support for a reform that would do more for smaller parties; I don't know.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Regarding parliamentarian politics, nothing can beat proportional representation imo, and av is a far, far cry from that.

[Demogorgon]

There was an extremely dirty campaign. I doubt many people voting even knew what they were voting on and instead had only heard scare tactics.

That being said, hardly anyone wants AV. Those who want electoral reform want Proportional Representation. AV is no more proportional than FPTP, sometimes less so, so it is hardly that appealing.

I did put a cross in the "yes" box because I could not vote for anything supporting FPTP, but I also wrote on the ballot paper that I wanted proportional representation so my ballot may well have been counted as spoiled.

[progressive_lefty]

In Australia we have preferential voting and thank God for that. But we also live in a country dominated by two very closely aligned political parties, and there aren't as many small parties. The Australian Greens have benefited from the preferential voting system though and have a respectable presence across the country - on a state and national level.

[ComradeMan]

I've been following this issue with curiosity. It's ironic in a sense that a referendum on AV voting, i.e. alternatives, was only a simple plebescitum with yes or no- and no other alternative. Surely it would have been better to say something like:-

Yes for the AV system proposed
No to the AV system proposed
Yes to an alternative review of the voting system
No to any kind of electoral reform
etc.

At the same time- as far as some comments here- well, if people do not use their mandate and vote then that's their own problem in my opinion. You can't blame democracy when you don't get the result you want.

I agree with Rabbi K's points about the popular perception of the Lib-Dems- but then welcome to continental style coalition politics! The UK is not used to having coalitions really and this is one major flaw with coalitions in my opinion- too many policies are sacrificed and promised broken in order to maintain a position in government.

[Demogorgon]

I've been following this issue with curiosity. It's ironic in a sense that a referendum on AV voting, i.e. alternatives, was only a simple plebescitum with yes or no- and no other alternative. Surely it would have been better to say something like:-

Yes for the AV system proposed
No to the AV system proposed
Yes to an alternative review of the voting system
No to any kind of electoral reform
etc.

At the same time- as far as some comments here- well, if people do not use their mandate and vote then that's their own problem in my opinion. You can't blame democracy when you don't get the result you want.

I agree with Rabbi K's points about the popular perception of the Lib-Dems- but then welcome to continental style coalition politics! The UK is not used to having coalitions really and this is one major flaw with coalitions in my opinion- too many policies are sacrificed and promised broken in order to maintain a position in government.
There should have been multiple options and some MPs tried to amend the bill to allow for that, but the Conservatives were absolutely adamant that people should not be offered the slightest possibility of proportionality so no choice was offered. I still wrote it onto my ballot paper, but it didn't count of course.

As for what you say about coalitions, that is much less to do with the electoral system than what people think. Scotland adopted PR for the Scottish Parliament and the first two Parliaments had coalitions, but then the SNP won in 2007 and governed as a minority and on Thursday there they incredibly won an absolute majority (which incidentally shows that social democrats win big when they are unashamedly social democrats and don't insist on moving to the right). The success of the SNP minority Government means both Labour and the SNP are unlikely to bother with coalitions from now on in Scotland and despite proportional representation we will probably always have single party government.

By contrast much of Europe, and Italy in particular would have coalitions no matter what electoral system were used.

[Sam_b]

I had absolutely no problems going into the ballot and voting 'no' to AV, and frankly it was weird that so many of the left in the UK ended up to some extent backing the 'yes' vote. Aside from AV being a shite system (it's taken Australia the same time to make gains into Parliament from the Greens, for instance; the system only benefits Liberals, maybe UKIP etc etc) there was more at stake here.

This was Nick Clegg's big compromise at work, the modus operandi for being in an alliance with the Tories, and crucially, the trade-off with him voting for the hikes in tuition fees that sparked the student rebellion. A victory for AV was Clegg's big chance to try and 'win back' the electorate and make up for his support of fees and NHS reform, to reassert a certain amount of credability back. In addition, not only was a 'yes' vote one which was going to communicate support for the idea of coalition governments which may come under AV, it was intended to be a vote of confidence on the idea of coalition in principle, and in particular the Lib Dems involvement in this one. Whereas a lot of traditionalists in safe Tory areas or whatever voted as an affirmation of FPTP, many saw this referendum as the sham that it was and used it to give the Lib Dems a good fucking telling. This happened up and down the board.

[Tommy4ever]

Here's the main issues I detected:

People don't care - so why change

Dirty campaign of epic proportions confused a lot of people

Some saw it as a ''fuck you'' to Nick Clegg

Some actually thought FPTP was better

Some had tactical concerns - Tories and some Labour were worried it would reduce their numbers of seats

Others seemed to think that if we accepted this we would be stuck with AV and would not be able to reform further

Some found it a confusing system so thought FPTP was simpler

Others just followed the general though on the matter

All this added up to a big fat No.

[Sam_b]

Some had tactical concerns - Tories and some Labour were worried it would reduce their numbers of seats

Yet there was a clear split of support within the Labour camp. Are you detecting this from the national party, or from Scottish Labour; however? Both aren't one in the same thing.

[Demogorgon]

Yet there was a clear split of support within the Labour camp. Are you detecting this from the national party, or from Scottish Labour; however? Both aren't one in the same thing.
David Whitton once tried to tell me they were actually! I don't think Labour in Scotland are much different from the rest of Labour in this particular regard. Some of the Scottish MPs, particularly arch-reactionaries like Tom harris are very much against any kind of voting reform. I remember Harris doing his best to sink a possible coalition with the Lib Dems last year, saying he would vote against his own Government's Queen's Speech if it included electoral reform. I thought at the time that they should have expelled him from the Labour Party so that we could see how much he liked FPTP when he was no longer running in his safe Labour seat as a Labour candidate. Of course some of them might be reassessing their views now after all the safe Labour seats that went to the SNP on Thursday. If it weren't for the lists, Labour would have only fifteen seats in the Scottish parliament now.

[graffic]

Some saw it as a ''fuck you'' to Nick Clegg


I didn't vote because i wasn't in the country but this would have been the main reasons i would have voted to keep FPTP. FPTP actually is not bad for Labour. And Labour in my opinion is the true progressive party. I have always suspected the LibDems to be a progressive sham and this time they have actually confirmed everyones suspicions by acting that way in power.

At least the conservatives know who they are and they don't apologise for being that way. The last year we have seen liberal democrat politicians insulting the electorates intelligence by telling lies and attempting to invent justifications for their irresponsible behavior.

[agnixie]

I didn't vote because i wasn't in the country but this would have been the main reasons i would have voted to keep FPTP. FPTP actually is not bad for Labour. And Labour in my opinion is the true progressive party. I have always suspected the LibDems to be a progressive sham and this time they have actually confirmed everyones suspicions by acting that way in power.

At least the conservatives know who they are and they don't apologise for being that way. The last year we have seen liberal democrat politicians insulting the electorates intelligence by telling lies and attempting to invent justifications for their irresponsible behavior.

Labour has already proven itself to be no more progressive than the tories once it leaves the opposition.

[graffic]

Even neo-liberal, new labour was more "progressive" than Tories

[hatzel]

Even neo-liberal, new labour was more "progressive" than Tories

And piss probably tastes better than shit, but that doesn't mean I'd serve it up at a dinner party...

[agnixie]

Even neo-liberal, new labour was more "progressive" than Tories

Neo-liberal new labour sent people to Strasbourg to argue the case for expelling LGBT refugees. This is shit you expect from the tories, not a self-proclaimed "progressive" party.

[graffic]

And piss probably tastes better than shit, but that doesn't mean I'd serve it up at a dinner party...

I don't even understand what you are trying to communicate. The idea that the Labour are "the same" as the Tories is bullshit, proved by objective facts also

[Demogorgon]

I don't even understand what you are trying to communicate. The idea that the Labour are "the same" as the Tories is bullshit, proved by objective facts also
The difference is that they aren't quite as bad, but they are still awful. Personally I think that a voting system that forces us to choose between the two (not that I have ever voted for either of them personally, but in general) should be done away with on that basis alone without even considering its many other failings.

[bricolage]

The AV referendum was probably the least interesting, least relevant piece of shit electoral hopscotch ever to grace this rotten country. Any supposed communist that even went to vote unless to just take a massive dump on the ballot should give themselves a slap and say twenty hail marx's as penitence.

[hatzel]

I don't even understand what you are trying to communicate.

Maybe you'd prefer it if I expressed it in the somewhat more sophisticated language of Shakespeare, from the Taming of the shrew: "there's small choice in rotten apples" :)

[Viet Minh]

The main reason for the coalition was the AV vote apparently, so hopefully now its only a matter of time until the lib dems and tories split down the middle and we're left with a minority tory government who can't put through any more of their unfair legislation

Someone start a petition for PR

[bricolage]

The main reason for the coalition was the AV vote apparently, so hopefully now its only a matter of time until the lib dems and tories split down the middle and we're left with a minority tory government who can't put through any more of their unfair legislation
Until they call a snap election and win a majority.