This morning I launched the Liberal Democrats’ Yes! To Fairer Votes campaign in Manchester.
Over 100 local members and supporters came along to hear speeches from Simon Hughes, John Leech, Gordon Birtwistle and Floella Benjamin about how monumentally essential it is that we win this Fairer Votes referendum.
As Nick Clegg has already argued, this is “a battle between reformers and conservatives” and this is our chance, our one opportunity for genuine electoral reform.
By winning this referendum we can end the nonsense of safe seats for life and ensure that MPs work harder to win your votes. We can ensure that there will be no more wasted votes and that your vote will count no matter where in the country you live.
So what can you do?
- Print out a poster and put it in a window at the front of your home. You can find some on the Lib Dem website.
- Join the Facebook group and share the link with your friends.
- Find out what your local Liberal Democrat party is doing to support the Yes! campaign here.
I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it over and over but this really is the most important vote of our lives so far and it is our referendum to lose. Without the help of our troops on the ground we will not make it so we need the support of each and every one of you.
No matter how you choose to get involved just remember this: for the first time in our lifetimes we have real political reform within our grasp… and if we lose it will be the last time in our lifetimes.
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As a local party officer, how do I let people know about Manchester’s Yes To Fairer Votes events? We’re not organising events independently of the general Y2FV campaign, but they seem to be hopeless at letting their registered supporters know what’s going on, so perhaps that’s a gap we can fill.
There’s a Manchester street stall from 11am-2pm tomorrow in St. Ann’s Square – please turn up and help spread the word about the benefits of AV and encourage people to vote YES on 5th May!
If you are anywhere near Swansea, get updates about local ‘YES to Fairer Votes’ events on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Fair-Votes-Swansea/164522056920910
that’s a shocking photo – I look drunk!
You can end the nonsense of safe seats for life by getting people to vote, mandatory voting would almost certainly do it, complaining about safe seats us such a defeatist attitude and Lib Dems should know better, Solihull was about as true blue a seat as you could get until Lorely Burt came along.
Anthony, we can’t turn every safe Tory seat in the country into Lib Dem territory. Sadly.
I’m very enthused about this campaign. I hope to be able to proudly say that I am a Liberal Democrat and I support Electoral Reform.
I have talked to a fair number of ‘non political’ people recently and make a point off asking them about their attiude to AV. For what it is worth, I found a very common answer (at least among those who understood it) that they were sold on the idea that it was a ‘fairer system’ than FPTP, but were concerned about the outcome. Worringly for Liberal Democrats, the outcome is very much seen as the situation we have now – coalition government which does not seem to be working ‘as expected’. I suppose the Lib Dem inroads now being made into NHS reform proposals may put a more positive gloss on coalition. But is Nick Clegg with his own party on this ?