The No campaign for the March 3rd referendum on increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly, True Wales, has decided not to seek official designation, thereby depriving both the Yes and No sides of public funding.
Referendum legislation makes funding available to both sides in a referendum if there is an officially designated campaign on both sides. As a result of the No campaign declining to seek official designation, this funding – £70,000 in cash, a free mailshot and TV broadcasts – along with higher spending limits, will not be available to either side.
The No campaign has explained its decision by saying that, “Enough of the hard-earned money of the hard-working people of Wales has been spent on giving more power to politicians”.
However, the impact of their action will be to reduce the level of public information about the campaign – and may not even save any public money as the Electoral Commission may decide to use its resources to provide an increased amount of public information to compensate for the absence of the TV broadcasts and mailshots.
Blogger David Alwyn ap Huw Humphreys has submitted a request to be recognised as the official No campaign, which would unlock the public funding, but the request is unlikely to be met given that he himself describes his campaign as “eccentric, hopeless, bloody pathetic, not credible, nutcase, brilliant idea etc”.
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7 Comments
Given that the No campaign is almost certain;y going to lose, really this is just a cheap shot, surely? The question about this campaign is if it will be 60-40 or 70-30, after all.
Always one of the problems when governing by referenda
EcoJon: Really? Can you give an example of similar problems happening at any of the previous referendums in the UK (of which there have been quite a few now over the last few decades)? Certainly this situation highlights a problem with how the current legislation for referendums is framed, but you don’t have to have the rules set that way.
Just a quick question as to the position in England. There is a yes and no campaign for the alternative vote referendum.
Do these campaigns (or the Lib Dems who are registered under the referendum legislation) get similar things in England eg free mailshot, TV, £70000 in cash etc?
If so which bit of the party does this go to? Will local parties (who’ll be funding the leaflets mentioning the AV referendum see any of it)?
>The question about this campaign is…
..what EXACTLY will we be voting yes/no for?
Precisely WHAT extra powers?
>Given that the No campaign is almost certain;y going to lose..
Nationalists will turn out in force to vote yes. Most people won’t know whether it’s a good or bad thing and won’t bother to vote at all.
BBC poll last month: “Only 37% said they were certain to vote, of whom 77% intended to vote yes and 23% intended to vote no.”
I imagine a great many of the 63% who said they might not vote did so because they have no idea what exactly they’d be voting for/against.
Including me.
An informed campaign, with actual details of actual powers, rather than the empty rhetoric we’ve had so far, would be nice from someone!
John,
The Electoral Commission will appoint the “official” Yes and No organisations for the AV referendum – which is UK-wide, not just in England. These campaigns will then be entitled to public funding, an election broadcast and a freepost address such as those candidates get in a general election. That’s in addition to money raised by donors, which will make up the bulk of spending on the referendum campaigns.
This all assumes the FPTP campaign doesn’t pull the same trick as the the Welsh referendum No campaign, and reject public funding – thereby denying it to the Yes campaign as well.
It is so silly for the assembly to expect people to vote at all when there is not any information available for any voter to make an informed decision. I want to vote but am inclined to spoil my paper by puting ‘not enought information’ on the voting form. But this is something I have never ever thought of doing in the past. Again this is so silly. And it will be a waste of my vote.
D Simkins