There’s nothing that warms the cockles of most Liberal Democrat hearts quite like electoral reform. Those of us who attended Federal Conference found ourselves approached by very nice young people with clipboards who invited us to join a new organisation, Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform. LDER styles itself as “the home for Liberal Democrats who want to see a fairer and more effective voting system.”
Today, their acting chair, Crispin Allard sent out an e-mail to all the supporters who’d signed up.
It has been a while since we were in touch at Federal Conference, so I thought I should update you on what Liberal Democrats for Electoral Refom (LDER) have achieved since then.
Last month we held our first committee meeting, to which all those who indicated an interest were invited. As a result, we now have an Acting Committee, and a plan for the coming year:
- Over the next few months, we will be signing up LDER members at a special introductory rate of £1. Membership is open to all Liberal Democrat Party members – we’ll be in touch shortly to give you details of how to join.
- We propose to hold the Inaugural General Meeting at Spring Conference in Newcastle (9 to 11 March 2012).
- This meeting will adopt a constitution and elect the Committee. It will also be a chance to discuss policies and strategy.
- We’re also planning a stall and a fringe meeting in Newcastle.
- Following this, we will be applying for Associated Organisation status, which would give us additional rights within the Party. I’ve already written to Tim Farron to tell him about LDER, and I know we can count on strong support within the Party.
If we’ve learned anything from the AV Referendum fiasco, it’s that the British Establishment will fight tooth and nail to avoid change, and we need to get our strategy right if we’re to have a chance of defeating them.
Our challenge is not just to promote STV (which we will do), but to make sure our Party is making the right demands and taking the right decisions. The need for an organisation within the Liberal Democrats that will take up that challenge is clear – and LDER is the organisation to do it.
Regards,
Crispin
Acting Chair
As well as their website, LDER also have a Facebook page and can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected].
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16 Comments
Whatever happened to DAGGER?
They sort of faded away, I think.
Much as I welcome any group that gets people motivated within the Lib Dems and was happy to sign up myself, I do wonder if this could be the least fringe-like fringe group in any party. There may, of course be competition from “Greens for the Environment” and the “BNP Bitter Fat White Men’s Forum.”
Seriously though, I hope this new group is a success and hope it goes beyond the usual trope of talking about STV for the House of Commons to people who already support it till the cows come home – we need a group that works across parties and talks to the general public and one which recognises the importance of electoral reform in other bodies such as local councils, the European elections and devolved assemblies as well as being heavily involved in making sure the reformed House of Lords has a voting system worthy of the 21st century.
Good luck to LDER!
Alex, DAGGER wasn’t in a good way at the SAO review at Federal Conference this year. I believe that the LDER people are working with the remnants of DAGGER to ensure some form of continuity.
For accuracy sake, spring conference is in Gateshead, not Newcastle, although we do share a river and some bridges with them.
If the group wants an electoral reform campaign to kick start its existence, it should start with the power of recall. This was a clear part of all three major parties’ manifestos. The draft proposals published here:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/voters-have-power-remove-mps-serious-wrongdoing
are a disgraceful watering down which do not allow the electorate to initiate the recall process. Not one MP who was guilty in the expenses scandal would have been recalled under these proposals!
Nigel – the actual text from our manifesto was:
“Give you the right to sack MPs who have broken the rules. We would introduce a recall system so that constituents could force a by- election for any MP found responsible for serious wrongdoing. We are campaigning for this right of recall to be introduced to the European Parliament too.”
It seems the bill is pretty much in line with that.
Hywel – I have to disagree. There is a huge difference between ‘found responsible for serious wrongdoing’ and convicted of an offence. There were a significant number of expenses cheats who were found guilty of serious breaches of the expenses rules and who were ordered to refund money – some were also punished by parliament and / or party. Very few of these were prosecuted. During the election campaign, all parties argued that the right to recall was a response to this scandal yet the proposed bill would have done nothing about it.
Signups broken!
I tried to sign up but got the message:
‘Your subscription cannot be processed: this account is inactive’.
I’ll try again another time but it sees unwise to advertise this at a time when you can’t join.
I think we need to disentangle the two threads of Electoral Reform: Preferential Voting and Proportional Representation.
Preferential Voting is what the AV referendum offerred, and one of the reasons that it was lost is that the No Campaign succeeded in confusing it with Proportional Representation.
Taking on its own merits Preferential Voting is a Win-Win situation for the individual voter. It allows the voter to make 100% use of his/her vote whatever other voters do. The fact that the electorate was persuaded to defeat it was one of the great mass con tricks of recent years – along with mis-selling PPI (Payment Protection Insurance).
( I offer “U Wuz Robbed!” as a fightback slogan for a Preferential Voting comeback campaign.)
PR has different merits, in that it increases the breadth of opinion in Parliament/Assembly and the Executive. Any electoral system can, by chance, deliver something close to PR. The First Past the Post system usually fails to do so, most notably in 1951 Westminster General Election.
I’d be happy to take part in a body that promotes Electoral Reform, but both these objectives are good and should be promoted, each in their own right. Also Electoral Reform really needs cross-party and no-party campaigning, to avoid being seen as merely cynical self-interest by parties outside th big two.
This is from a debate in the Lords last Friday:
Baroness Butler-Sloss:” I speak with some diffidence since I have really come to listen and learn. But I have to confess to noble Lords that I am not helped by my pasting on my iPad, by mistake, a photo of my dog on top of my remarks.”
The case for reform grows….
I’ve highlighted to the people responsible for the website the problems. Apologies and thanks. In the meantime, if you sign up to the Facebook page that will also keep you updated.
Nigel – the legislation as currently drafted allows for a recall petition to be started if:
a) An MP is convicted of an offence with a sentence of 12 months or less or
b) Parliament decides that they have behaved in such a way that constitues serious wrongdoing and they should face a recall petition.
As you say there is a difference between criminal convictions and other behaviour – but this act allows a recall petition in the case of both. That would (in theory) have allowed such sanction to have been taken against those MPs who didn’t face criminal charges.
With reference to the expenses issue though its worth noting that a number of instances which attracted widespread public criticism were claims made within the rules so its arguable that there was no wrongdoing.
I had the same login problem and it seems that this has not just suddenly arisen. Was the link not checked before article published?
@Hywel
“With reference to the expenses issue though its worth noting that a number of instances which attracted widespread public criticism were claims made within the rules so its arguable that there was no wrongdoing.”
I can’t let that go without comment. I think we would all agree that there are a lot of actions that are lawful, but that we wouldn’t all consider to be good, or moral. So there could be lawful but still considered by many wrongdoing, demostrating hypocracy or just “bad form”.
Some politicians do preach to the electorate, so if they are caught doing those sorts of things, they would descend in public estimation. It’s why we have elections to “throw the rascals out”.
Of course, some people in the media do censure both politications and private citizens who are doing the sorts of things that they (the media folk) do without any comeback.
I’m afraid I don’t “get” preferential voting.
AV’s only advantage is that those who – under FPTP – don’t vote for their true favourite, for fear of allowing a party they detest in by the back door, can give their second preference to the party they are prepared to grudgingly accept. It’s a form of insurance.
PR does not require preferential voting because a well designed system will be reasonably proportional (obviously!).
STV compels voters to list candidates in order of preference despite the fact that this is meaningless for many, probably for most. They just want their party to win – or, more likely, anyone EXCEPT the party they detest. Sad but true. And STV’s method of awarding seats is just too obscure to be truly fair and democratic – the candidate who is awarded the final seat in an Irish constituency often owes his success to luck rather than logic in the counting procedure.
There’s a reason why so few countries use STV or AV – they just are not very good. But good PR systems flourish in many democracies – why not consider one of these?