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Only a referendum on PR can save Labour now argues latest report
A new YouGov poll commissioned by Compass shows that Labour might not just lose the next election but that it might be out of power forever. On current polling Electoral Calculus predicts the Labour will win only 200 seats next May. In addition to this they may have to fight the 2014 election from an ever lower base for three reasons.
· First, an incoming Conservative government has pledged to cut the number of parliamentary seats by 10%. This will hit Labour hard because the biggest reduction will be in Labour strongholds such as Wales and industrial and urban strongholds which have seen population flight. One electoral expert has predicted that of the 65 seats that will go, a conservative assessment would be that 45 of them are Labour.
· Second, the likelihood of the SNP winning a vote on Scottish independence increases considerably with the election of the Tories in Westminster. New YouGov polling conducted for Compass shows that 34% of the Scottish electorate will be more likely to vote for the SNP promise of a referendum on Scottish independence by the end of 2010. This could be enough to see a Yes vote through. There are currently 59 Westminster seats in Scotland and 41 of them are Labour. They would all be lost.
· Finally, an incoming Tory government is very likely to introduce new party funding rules, which will break the link between Labour and the unions, further destabilising the Labour Party already heavily in debt and with a declining membership base.
Allowing for double counting, given Labour will have lost seats, it would be a cautious estimate to suggest that the party would lose a further 70 seats from the combined loss of Scottish representation and seat reduction, leaving it with as few as 130 MPs. These three factors could then combine to ensure that an already intellectually and organisationally weak party fails ever to recover.
But backing a referendum on PR dramatically changes Labour's fortunes. A recent poll for the Electoral Reform Society showed that 30% of Liberal Democrat voters and 30% of Labour voters were more likely to vote Labour if the party backed a poll on electoral reform on the day of the general election. Crucially this week's new YouGov poll for Compass shows that 66% of the public support a referendum and only 16% are against.
Neal Lawson Chair of Compass said:
"Labour leaders seem to have their heads in the sand. They think they can defy the polls and secure a victory against Cameron on issues such as economic competence and public spending when all the polls say this is virtually impossible. The party needs a game changer, a policy that wakes up the electorate, creates a strong dividing line with the Tories and which could propel the likely outcome of the next election from a comfortable Tory win into the terrain of a hung parliament. Only then would Labour be able to live and fight again. A referendum on PR is such a policy.
"Everyone who wants the Labour party to win, or at least to keep out the Tories, must be able to see the prize of backing a PR referendum, and that the danger of refusing to do so is potential political oblivion.
"Labour promised a referendum on electoral reform in 1997. The case for it now is not just strong - it is unanswerable. Failure to act could well mean this is not just a defeated Labour government, but the last Labour government. It is time to change the game. Otherwise ‘our turn' might never come round again. This will have been Labour's last turn.
For further information call Neal Lawson on 07976 292 522
Note to editors:
- Compass is the largest pressure group on the centre left of British politics with over 30,000 members and supporters
- Compass today releases a report called The Last Labour Government: why only a referendum on PR can save the party now.
- All polling figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,098 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 21st - 23rd September 2009. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
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Comments
on 02 December 2009, 10:25:52 AM
Roy Jenkins gained academic beatification at Oxford University.
David Owen was launched on a lucrative consultancy career.
Shirley Williams is the Edith Sitwell of postalliance Libdemism.
Bill Rogers survives as a popular quiz question.
I am living in an illegal villa at the end of a mud track
past the ruined chapel opposite an artichoke field.
James Purnell is actively furthering a Labour party
detached from the Labour party detached from the left.
Can the LRC match that?!
on 02 December 2009, 9:30:42 AM
What a strange concept to our modern times,eh,frances!
By the way your forgotten man in the gang of four was,of course,
James Purnell.
on 02 December 2009, 9:29:36 AM
The forth member of the notorious 'gang of four' was Lewis Parry. He was so shamed by his part in this misadventure that he went into exile in Spain and has never been heard of since.
on 02 December 2009, 8:36:22 AM
Lewis could you just remind us - what was the aim of the SDP. What was the dream scenario? Weren't they after a Labour Party detached from the left?
on 01 December 2009, 10:46:07 PM
' "But why not?" the baffled, massed ranks of Compass's lefty-progressives will cry. Supporting proportional representation is to Lib Dems what publicity seeking is to Katie Price: it's in our DNA. So why would Nick Clegg and Vince Cable be so reluctant to champion a plebiscite on electoral reform, the sooner, the better?
You don't have to look far for your answer: just check out the nakedly self-serving news release accompanying Compass's call for an immediate referendum. Its headline says it all: "Only a referendum on PR can save Labour now argues latest report". It goes on to detail the psephological tsunami that could sweep Labour away over the course of the next two elections, reducing the party to a rump of just 130 MPs.
If Compass is expecting the Lib Dems to intercede to save the Labour party from extinction, they'll be waiting a long time. At least as long, in fact, as the rest of us have been waiting for Labour to deliver on the election promises they made – both on reforming the electoral system and the unelected House of Lords – a dozen or more years ago.
Trust in politicians is, thanks to the MPs' expenses scandal, at an all-time low. For the Labour party to grasp greedily now at the straw of electoral reform, just months before an election they are expected to lose, would be rightly seen by voters as scaling the heights of hypocrisy while scraping the bottom of the barrel of contempt. The reverse Midas touch that afflicts all tired, discredited, fag-end governments would taint the cause of electoral reform in the eyes even of those voters inclined to support it. A referendum held in these circumstances would kill off for a generation the prospect of introducing a fair, proportional voting system.'
A similar point was made by me (with no links to the Lib Dems) when this idea was first raised on Compass about a month a go. Is the Compass Managment Committee really in touch with other so-called 'progressives' or are they isolted by their own agenda?
A PR campign without the Lib Dems?
on 01 December 2009, 9:16:44 PM
Three landslides and a million promises later where are we?
Broke,jobless,and embroiled in American wars and their domestic complications.Committed to market forces,and nuclear greeness.
Public services swathed in uncaring tick lists,and a welfare system
in a vegatitive state.
Well we stabbed and stabbed but the hypocratic beast of unsocialist
Labour certainly outlasted us all right.Congratulations!
on 01 December 2009, 6:45:33 PM
The problem with referenda is that you cant make people answer the question; very often they will answer some other question they think more important. In this case it could easily turn into a vote on GB, Iraq, Immigration etc.
The voters dont trust you, the other Parties dont trust you & any vote on PR will look utterly cynical.
There is a way out, include PR in your manifesto then, whatever the Election result the great majority of voters will have backed PR through their votes; any possible minority/coalition Labour administration could just get on with legislation.
on 30 September 2009, 10:04:38 AM
PR or no PR Labour will lose and deserve to lose.
on 29 September 2009, 5:36:18 PM
Labour Party Manifesto, 1997
“Labour remains committed to reviewing the experience of the new electoral systems – introduced for the devolved administrations, the European Parliament and the London Assembly. A referendum remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster.”
Labour Party Manifesto, 2005
"Fool you once, joke's on you.
Fool you twice, joke's still on you.
Fool you thrice, diddleydoo,
More fool you."
The Wizard of Oz, 2009.
on 29 September 2009, 3:34:13 PM
Oh, and now we're going to be the first generation (???) to beat cancer. Oh, and we love this country. Oh, and there's nothing inevitable.... Oh, and never stop believing... in the Wizard of Oz. Whatever.
on 29 September 2009, 9:44:48 AM
Also as scottish independance has been raised, perhaps someone can help me with some questions on that subject. I have written to senior SNP MPs without any answers.
1. Would the 1603 treaty (union of the crowns) be used as the 1707 treaty would be abolished.
2.What guarantee would there be that an independant scotland be accepted into the EEC.
3. Would north sea oil be leased to england as these revenues are still crucial to the economy.
4. Ditto for nuclear bases.
5. Would RBS and BoS revert back to scottish independant banks, and how.
6. Would scottish public services be maintained or reduced.
Financial survival is the achilles heal to an independant scotland with a 5 million population and dropping. Emigration of the young and educated because of lack of opportunity. Fiscal revenue way below the required sum to survive in situ, and the majority still against complete independance.
Finally has anyone actually asked the british crown about the above, any answers please?
on 28 September 2009, 10:48:49 PM
"It's not clear to me. Please tell me."
I think it's the Wizard... the Wizard of OZ!!!!
on 28 September 2009, 7:27:53 PM
A referendum on PR with a list of choices, e.g.
1. Stick with FPTP
2. STV
3. Multi-STV
4. etc. etc.
on 28 September 2009, 6:50:57 PM
Alas. That would have been an excellent idea if we'd put it to referendum in the late Nineties. It would have given the Tories fair representation in Wales and Scotland and protected us from a right wing Tory government based on a minority of the southern English vote. But it's too late.
The Tories will pulverise Labour next year and proceed to change the boundaries to their advantage, cutting Scottish and urban constituencies. The Barnett formula is likely to be axed and arguably so it should. The Tories and the Daily Mail will have an orgasm savaging the pubic sector thereby dramatically worsening the recession. But they will claim they are doing the necessary tough choices needed to recover after Labour and enough people will believe them for them to be reelected in 2014. This is going to be Thatcherism all over again and the Scots may well decide they're not having it a second time.
Labour is doomed and it's quite possible that Great Britain will be finished as well. Cheers Blair, Brown and Mandy and a special hurrah to Jack Straw and Prescott for vetoing PR in 1998.
on 28 September 2009, 4:53:53 PM
It's not clear to me. Please tell me.
on 28 September 2009, 1:33:07 PM
I just don't see Compass having any part of any successfull regenerated Labour Party. Many Parliamentary Candidates, some not all, some who are associated with Compass, are just not good enough. We need a new breed of John Prescotts, with fire in their belly, passion in their hearts, and courage in their veins. Individuals who have the ideas, have the strength, have the fight in them to take the party forward instead of relying on silent windbags.
Ed Miliband is fast becoming the only contender/candidate who at this time, can inspire change. He would wise in keeping a wide birth of this pressure group, think tank or Lawson's folly, prior to the general election.
on 28 September 2009, 1:14:11 PM
Anyway, while AV+ may give more power to the party leaderships, this is not necessarily inevitable. It depends on how the top-up MPs are selected. The best solution to this problem IMO is to allocate the top-ups from the second placed candidates in order of priority based on their share of the vote. The party leaderships can't then determine the allocation, only the voters and local parties can.
on 28 September 2009, 12:33:38 PM
as a method for choosing candidates. This is not proportionate and would leave the dominant parties in an even more entrenched position. People are being hoodwinked by this proposal.
In addition this would give more power to the leadership of every party to select the candidates.
on 28 September 2009, 9:49:08 AM
Not true. The boundaries are defined by considering a number of different criteria.
Firstly, not all constituencies are the same size in population. Some inner city constituencies are over 30% smaller than the largest shire county ones. If the Tories were to change this it would favour them. However, as I pointed out there are sound reasons (invisible and migratory voters) to justify this discrepancy. This also means that PR inherently disadvantages Labour, by the way! The lower voter turnout in Labour areas also hurts us under PR.
An interesting idea that I heard recently to redress this problem of voter turnout was to enter the names of everyone who voted into a free lottery. Let's say a £10m first prize national lottery, and a £20k first prize for each constituency. That would boost turnout massively, particularly among the low paid and would only cost £25m at a general election (less than the Labour election budget).
Secondly, when setting constituency boundaries the Boundary Commission are trying to balance four competing aims: the desire to base each constituency on a locally recognisable community, while also trying to broaden the socio-economic demographic as much as possible, trying to make all constituencies as similar in size as possible, and also attempting to ensure that the final number of seats for each party correlates as closely as possible to their percentage of the overall vote. The reason why FPTP fails is because it is virtually impossible to define constituency boundaries that deliver all these four things simultaneously. A three party system makes it even more difficult, as does tactical voting.
However, if all constituencies did have the same demographic they would all vote the same way and the same party would win them all under FPTP. So there is inevitably a certain amount of subjectivity in how the boundaries are set. Some may call it bias.
Robert's point that Scottish independence could leave the Tories in power in England for good and Labour would be hard pressed to win power on its own ever again is a good one, but again neglects the boundary effect. The Tories have virtually no seats in Scotland or Wales but still poll 20% in both regions. So the Tories are massively under-represented there. To compensate they are over-represented in England. Scottish independence would mean that that over-representation would or should be removed, so the calculation of this article is flawed. It is merely a Tory wet dream!
I do, however, agree to a certain extent with Robert's other points, that Scottish independence would make it more difficult for Labour to govern alone in England, and that it may force the English Labour party to 'clean up its act' and not take its core support for granted.
on 27 September 2009, 11:04:02 PM
Even with a Tory majority in the house of commons, it will be hard to resist a clear majority in favour of one or the other systems of PR in electing the parliament after next. The point then is to make sure that any referendum offers the voters a chance to clearly choose a PR system which is agreeable to themselves, the LibDems and Uncle Tom Cobbly 'n'all, perhaps by having members of the electorate rank their preferred systems using the alternative vote procedure.
Supporters of PR must reject any attempt to have a referendum at the back end of this parliament the only purpose of which is to determine whether or not we are to have a referendum in the new parliament on the system to be used when the question asked may well be determined solely by the Tories, although some Labour strategists (!!!???) are certainly stupid enough to think the PR issue will be enough to put the Tories on the back foot during the election campaign whilst still leaving room for more New Labour/Quasi-Labour/brute Labour/dumb Labour creativity in the fluidity of the concept to leave them wriggle room to abuse the electorate even more than they have done over the past thirteen wasted years.
Just a thought.
on 27 September 2009, 7:34:56 PM
In the short run the loss of Scotland would be a disaster for the English left but in the long run it might force us to clean up our act. Tribalist loyalty to the Labour party by people like Prescott and Jack Straw's implacable hostitlity to PR are what made Blue Labour possible.
Just as the Bishop's War in Scotland triggered the English Civil War in the seventeenth century so Scottish independence could be the catalyst for the English constitutional revolution.
on 27 September 2009, 7:26:35 PM
If the 2005 general election had been held in England alone Michael Howard would have been Prime Minister! And if anything English constituency boundaries are biased in favour of Labour not the Tories so the next boundary shift is likely to boost Cameron. We could be facing well over a decade of Tory rule with the conservatives doing to the public sector what Thatcher did to the unions.
Labour could try and get back in by lurching ever further to the right, but that space is already occupied by the Tories.
on 27 September 2009, 1:33:33 PM
It makes the mistake that many make with the FPTP system: it assumes that if Scottish and Welsh constituencies are lost through independence, the boundaries of English constituencies will remain unchanged. This completely disregards the role of the Boundary Commission in continually redrawing those boundaries to increase and improve electoral fairness.
The loss of Labour constituencies through Scottish or Welsh independence would inevitably be corrected for by the complete redesign of English constituency boundaries.
Moreover, inner city constituencies would not be culled or enlarged. Yes they are smaller than those in the suburbs and rural areas, but this is to take account of their invisible voters - the homeless and those in temporary accommodation that are invariably excluded from the electoral roll.
on 27 September 2009, 11:15:41 AM
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