Give Up Yourself Unto This Moment – The Time For Change Is Now!

We now have just over three weeks until the hopefully transformative referendum on our voting system. It’s hard to judge the mood of the country on this, as I am involved in the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign, but from conversations with friends and colleagues, there certainly isn’t that ‘the only way is up’ feeling that great political change is coming. I get it, there is a lot going on right now, and voting reform doesn’t exactly sound sexy. But it’s the way that we choose our politicians who then make all the decisions that effect our lives. I know this is the most important vote I have ever been asked to cast. As a Vice-Chair, I only spend a little time working directly with the campaign, but when I am, I get the feeling that there are an enormous amount of people that just get it, they see what’s possible and what this moment is really offering us. The best thing about being involved in a campaign like this, is that it brings all kinds of people together, with different backgrounds, different political views and different hopes and dreams, all united in knowing that we deserve a better politics.

When I announced my support as a Vice-Chair back in February, I wrote about why I am voting Yes, and the difference between the two systems on offer. You can read that here. But now as the campaign has really launched and there has been more media attention, I wanted to share my thoughts on this. The media coverage has been interesting, showing that many of the main papers are against the Alternative Vote, judging by their coverage. I didn’t want to reference the No campaign, but having seen the type of tactics and lies coming out from their side, I have found this deeply saddening. Don’t we deserve a fair and honest debate on this matter? This is not a referendum on two different voting systems, this is a referendum between those who have always had power and control, and those who want a more honest and fair democracy.

As Martin Bell said, ‘I haven’t heard a single argument for first past the post’, despite me asking the No supporters on twitter if they could tell me what was good about FPTP from a voter perspective without referencing AV. They didn’t. The No campaign is based on three arguments, that AV is complicated, that it will cost £250 million and that extremist parties such as the BNP could get in. Tony Benn famously said in his 2007 interview with Michael Moore “I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralize them.” And that is what I am seeing here from the No Campaign. They are trying to scare, deomoralise, and confuse us into not taking this opportunity to change the system and move us away from the same old politics.

What is really upsetting is that the arguments that they are using are simply not true. The figure for £250 million includes what is already being spent on the referendum regardless of the outcome, and the price of expensive counting machines that we are not getting. The billboards that you may have seen around are horrible, stating that soldiers need new equipment, or a sick baby needs a new intensive care unit, not a new voting system. These posters are cruel and misleading, making us feel guilty for wanting to have more say in our democracy. Charlie Brooker did a great job at tearing apart this argument on 10 O’Clock live, concluding that by this logic, the future under AV would likely be “Fred West sodomising a panda outside Great Ormond Street Hospital”.

In terms of the BNP, I don’t know if there are that many people that support the BNP just a little, it is one of things that is either your first preference or wouldn’t get any attention on your ballot sheet. If you need further evidence on this, you should know that Nick Griffin, the Chairman of the BNP is voting No, and asking his supporters to do the same. We proved in the last election through simple campaigning groups like Hope Not Hate, can beat the BNP, and the voting system we have won’t change this.

It is insulting of the No campaign to say that AV is too complicated for us, of course it requires a little more skill to tally up the results than FPTP, but given all the wonderful things that the human mind can do, it can manage counting the votes in this way, I am pretty sure that you don’t even need GCSE maths for this. That will only effect the people counting the votes and the politicians by making them reach out to more of their constituents, not us voting.

The difference for us, the voter, is that we can vote for more than one candidate in order of preference, which is a system that suits most of us given that less and less of us are members of a political party. I think it makes it simpler for us a a voter, not having to worry about anything other than voting how we feel. AV increases the power of our votes, which you can see through the new index on Voter Power, a site that shows you the difference between your voter power under the two systems. It means that all our votes count, and that there will be less safe seats. Did you know that the 2010 general election result was decided by 1.6% of the electorate? As the result in only 111 constituencies actually counted.  The AV won’t totally solve this problem, but it will improve things, making our system fairer in the process.

What I am really excited about is the idea that we won’t have to play games, that as voters, we can go in there and vote how we really feel, this can only make our democracy more honest and more representative. The real value of this change is not so much in the results that it will produce but in the ways it will change the nature of politics. I believe it will give us more of a say, our MPs will be held more accountable to us, and the party whips will have less power. This change is a big deal, otherwise the opposition to it wouldn’t be so aggressive, the alternative vote totally changes the status quo and gives us the people, more control. That’s terrifying for those who have always had the power to rule. As I was watching some of the debates last week, I noticed Michael Howard kept saying that AV was ‘disturbingly unpredictable’ that’s because the main parties won’t have so much control over us. So don’t believe the talk that AV won’t make a difference. It will change everything, and we have to do all that we can over the next three weeks to make sure that as many of us understand this as possible. I believe this is the most important vote we will ever be asked to cast. Give up yourself unto this moment, the time for change is now! Let’s make this moment last.