One of the biggest disappointments I have had with the last 12 years of Labour government is the lack of willingness to discuss or countenance the idea of electoral reform in any shape or form. That was until the Prime Minister’s rather disappointing announcement in his Conference speech.
So it seems, yet again Labour is going to miss a golden opportunity to make our electoral system more proportional. Have a read of this Guardian editorial, which neatly summates my thoughts on electoral reform.
Thinking strategically (and I have been known to do it) this provides Labour with the perfect opportunity to paint the Tories as the barrier to change. So lets call a referendum now or on election day. Under no circumstances will Tories support any form of PR. I don’t know why but they just won’t. They will suddenly become the defenders of the status quo, defenders of our broken politics and defenders of the least representative electoral system in western liberal society. All of a sudden Cameron’s Tories don’t look so progressive after all.
This is also an opportunity for Labour to find some common ground with progressive Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats have been the main champions for electoral reform even prior to this crisis and they deserve our respect for that. Finding common ground on this issue could lead the way to the lofty progressive re-alignment I keep hearing about. Our adversarial style of politics is broken and it is about time we fix it and engaging with our Liberal Democrat friends is a way in which we can do this.
So let me do some advertising. On Wednesday 18th November, the Surrey Labour Students group is holding an event on this very issue. Our speakers will be Stephen Twigg, former MP and PPC for Liverpool West Derby and Tim Shand, PPC for Guildford. For more details please send me a message via oliver.deed@gmail.com, it promises to be an interesting occasion.
