It’s official, the UK has blown its historical chance to bring its electoral system into the 21st century and make a better democracy.
Both the Conservatives and Labour have ensured the UK won’t get a referendum on whether people want proportional representation or not. The Liberal Democrats didn’t have the numbers. There will be a referendum on the Alternative Vote system but, while an improvement, it is not proportional representation.
Labour is now lying to their supporters that they didn’t have the numbers for a coalition. In fact they did, the smaller parties were offering their support to an alliance. Labour supporters who are gutted that the Conservatives are now in power should realise that it is entirely Labour’s fault that they are:
A [LibDem] spokesman said key members of the Labour team “gave every impression of wanting the process to fail” and the party had made “no attempt at all” to agree a common approach on issues like schools funding and tax reform.
“Certain key Labour cabinet ministers were determined to undermine any agreement by holding out on policy issues and suggesting that Labour would not deliver on proportional representation and might not marshal the votes to secure even the most modest form of electoral reform,” he said.
This isn’t a party interested in policy. They’re interested in unbridled power. Instead of compromising a little on policy with the Liberal Democrats they’d rather compromise completely and have a Conservative government.
The Conservatives won around 10 million votes while the Liberal Democrats and Labour together won around 15 million votes, around 5 million more than the Conservatives. And yet the Conservatives get 306 seats while Liberal Democrats and Labour together get only 315 seats. Just 9 more seats than the Conservatives. Why do we pretend this is representative democracy?
As coalition talks continue in the UK both Labour and the Conservatives are proving themselves arrogant as usual.
The biggest barrier to a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is the Conservatives’ refusal to support a referendum on electoral reform, offering instead a toothless “all party committee of inquiry on political and electoral reform”; the Conservatives would rather retain an unfair voting system which disenfranchises not just a third of voters (about 10 million people) but also 16 million or so eligible voters who didn’t vote, most of whom probably don’t see the point in voting in a representative system that clearly isn’t even representative.
Meanwhile Labour is dashing its own chances of forming a coalition, which, along with the Liberal Democrats, would require the support of other smaller parties too. Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party offered that support yesterday. Labour’s apparent response? Unbelievably to refuse it:
BBC News:
Scotland’s First Minister, SNP leader Alex Salmond, called on the Lib Dems to join a “progressive alliance” involving Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.
However a Labour source dismissed that as “a desperate attempt by Alex Salmond to make himself look relevant after a terrible general election result”.
Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are as much a part of the establishment as the rest of them but they get my vote (my first in a UK election) for pointing out the bleedin’ obvious:
Brown systematically blocked, and personally blocked, political reform. I think he is a desperate politician and I just do not believe him.
Brown and Labour, at heart, are authoritarians and deserve to be thrown on the dustheap. This is the best chance Britain has had for electoral reform in a very long time.
Next time maybe Britain will be able to vote in modern democracy under a modern system of proportional representation (not the ruse that Brown was touting, the alternative vote).
Under his and Blair’s leadership the economy tanks. What does he do? Blatantly tries to divert attention by screaming “War on Terror.” Little more than a propaganda tool to take away the freedoms of the people of Britain.