Lesley Riddoch: We shouldn't let the politicians make their own rules

Published on Friday 11 February 2011 16:43

With a turnout threshold proposed for the AV referendum, Scots should take the 1979 devolution vote as a warning from history

IT WAS a bad case of dj vu. In 1979 the Scottish devolution referendum crashed and burned because a Labour MP introduced a minimum turnout threshold of 40 per cent - and just 33 per cent of the Scottish electorate turned out to vote. Last week a Labour Lord - Jeff Rooker - introduced the same 40 per cent threshold in a bid to wreck the Alternative Vote referendum on 5 May.

In 1979 Labour simultaneously supported change and allowed renegade action to derail it. In 2011 it's looking like the same story all over again.

Michael Kelly explained why in this column last week. The Alternative Vote will tackle the culture of massive majorities and safe seats enjoyed by the two main parties for centuries in Britain but Labour will gain very little in return - judging by Scottish voters' chronic lack of gratitude for the delivery of a Parliament and STV in council elections. After bending over backwards to be fair, Labour was unceremoniously booted out of office in the 2007 Holyrood elections. Thanks.

So if Labour stands to lose by supporting AV - and if Ed Miliband has to stand on the same AV platform as the tainted Nick Clegg - why should Labour bother? At last there's clear red water between Labour and the other Scottish parties and an opinion poll lead. Why risk confusing voters in the run-up to Holyrood elections which Labour (currently) looks set to win? Heavens - Iain Gray might be stuck on a platform with Auld Nick himself if Alex Salmond decides to support AV at an SNP National Executive meeting later this month.

Let's not be naive. Private calculations of party advantage determine almost every political decision - from opposition support for the Scottish budget last week (not the right time for a rammy) to last year's veto on minimum pricing (too potentially successful for the SNP to own).

But it's still shocking to see prominent Labour supporters openly cite party advantage as the sole reason to oppose electoral reform.

It speaks volumes about the dangerous sense of entitlement bred by decades of near automatic control - possible because of our antique winner-takes-all voting system. Ironically, Labour's defeat in 2007 proved first-past-the-post suppressed diversity. The country hadn't changed enormously since 1999. The voting system had.

The Alternative Vote lets voters rank candidates standing in each seat. On the plus side it keeps the link between MPs and constituencies but makes sure whoever's elected has some support from those who put another candidate top.On the downside, keeping that constituency link means AV isn't as fully proportional as the Single Transferable Vote with multi-member constituencies.

Opponents argue it is both a step too far and a step not far enough. Exactly the same "confuse, divide and rule" tactic used by opponents of the Scottish Assembly in 1979. In fact, AV may be just the right size of first step for hesitant times and cautious people. Labour tell us that the Calman proposals and current Scotland Bill process prove that constitutional change isn't set in stone. It's a dynamic - with rules which can be amended, adapted and improved over time. If AV proves problematic or limiting it too can be changed.

The only thing certain is that STV will never be used at Westminster or Holyrood elections if its tamer cousin is rejected on 5 May. 1979 showed Scots what happens when possible change is rejected in favour of ideal change. Nothing. For 20 long years, Scotland's industrial base was destroyed by a government its people did not elect. Thanks in part to the debacle of 1979. Let's not go back there again.

Voter confusion is another red herring. The 2011 Holyrood elections will return to the 2003 voting set-up and dump the confusing changes of 2007. Thus the SNP will not be allowed to call itself "Alex Salmond for First Minister". List and constituency votes will be on separate voting papers - not combined into one. Simultaneous STV voting will not occur because local council elections have been postponed until 2012.

The vote on 5 May is an opportunity for Scottish voters to share a tiny bit of the democratic action currently sweeping the world's news broadcasts courtesy of the tenacious people of Egypt. It would be wrong to overstate a comparison. But belief in MPs and the authority of Parliament has been dented by the expenses debacle - rumbling on thanks to court cases like Jim Devine's. Belief can only be restored by ending that complacent culture of safe seats and entitlement.

AV is the ideal way to stoke change - and not just for Westminster elections. If AV is adopted the pioneering Scots will suddenly be left trailing behind the times with our odd combination of first past the post and PR. How should we respond?

Meantime, its business as usual in the Palace beside the Thames. In a piece of rank hypocrisy, the same Lords who oppose AV for public elections will use it in March to replace a hereditary peer as a vacancy has arisen. Interestingly too, the Labour introduction of a 40 per cent threshold to the Lords came only weeks after Ed Miliband and Labour MPs rejected the same proposal in the Commons. Why? In the Lower House the measure was proposed by a Tory.

Today the Yes campaign will hand a letter to the BBC Director General protesting against a news ban on the words "electoral reform" to describe the AV referendum - apparently that sounds too positive. Meanwhile the Coalition's plans for the NHS are described as "NHS reform" every night.Nice. But the AV bill is back on track.

The Scots are the most likely to turn out and vote and the most pro AV - 65 per cent are supporters against the 59 per cent UK average in the largest ICM poll in December 2010. Turnout for the 2007 Holyrood elections was 51.72 per cent and for the first and last UK-wide referendum over "Common Market" membership in 1975 - 64 per cent.

So the 40 per cent threshold should be irrelevant and may even be fair - but it's a deliberate damp squib. So is the half-hearted nature of Labour and SNP support and the BBC ban. There's only so much dampness a good idea can withstand. We need a fairer way of electing MPs. AV is the best and only alternative system in town - coming your way in a polling booth soon. Remember 1979 and disregard the nay-sayers. Vote yes.