10th June 2009

Ipswich shows why electoral “reform” is so wrong

Before I get stuck into the reasons why proportional representation would be so bad for Ipswich, let’s just enjoy a little diversion: does this not show how completely inept our prime minister is?  Having only saved his skin on Monday night, he relaunches (for the umpteenth time) his political career on the back of electoral reform – an issue he claims, completely implausibly, to have been passionate about for a long time.  So with a major crisis in parliament, the deepest recession since the ‘30s, a ballooning public deficit, and an impending crunch in NHS finances, the PM judges it best to reconnect with the public on… Alternative Vote Plus.  And that only a day after the BNP gained two seats in the European Parliament, where PR delivered them victory purely because the turnout was so low.  Tony Blair would never have got himself in that position; indeed, he shied away from PR even when his poll ratings were rocket-high.  If empirical evidence were needed that Gordon Brown is demented, this is it.

But his plans are also very dangerous, because electoral “reform” threatens to destroy that one part of our democracy which is still not open to question: the ability of a local electorate to hold their MP to account.  After all the individual scandals with expenses, this right is one that voters will be keen to exercise in the election ahead.  But with proportional representation (PR) none of this would be possible.

Worse than that, because there would no longer be individual constituencies, like Ipswich, voters would be presented with party lists, controlled by some faceless political wonk in Westminster, whose candidates would be chosen only because they were appreciated by the party high-command.  So no mavericks, no one voting against the party-line.

This is not what voters want, especially now.  I have thought right from the beginning that the expenses scandal was a proxy for something far bigger – that people were fed up with controlled politics and politicians, with never being heard, with the depressing feeling that whatever they did made no difference.  The scandal merely crystallized that general sense into an apparent proof that politicians had become a class apart.

What we need is more connection between politicians and their constituencies, not less.  Take Ipswich: under PR, Ipswich would be part of some Suffolk mega-seat, or worse still an East Anglian region, and not one person would be personally responsible for the town.  So no one to fight for the hospital, or for better trains, or the town’s schools.  Why not?  Because the MPs knew that their place on the party list would depend not on the people of Ipswich, but on how they behaved at Westminster.

So what the proposers of PR miss is that far from creating a harmonious political environment, PR would polarise politics just at the point at which it needs to be more consensual.  Because they don’t need to get votes from a set geographical constituency – like Ipswich – but rather play to their natural vote across a larger region, there is none of the incentive to reach out to people who would not in otherwise vote for you.

Worse still, governments are only formed in a PR system by compromise between the parties, which gives disproportionate influence to fringe elements and delivers a government which looks nothing like anything that the electorate, in their different ways, intended when they cast their ballot.  And that’s before they try to make the whole thing operate for four or more years.

So the risks that come with a supposedly “fairer” voting system are very real, and the damage done will be felt most in places like Ipswich, where people want a strong, local and loyal voice representing their interests in parliament and across government.  For the sake of our democracy, tarnished and knocked as it already is, we must do all we can to repel Gordon Brown’s dangerous political stunt.