As the most recent meeting of the cabinet was breaking up, Chris Huhne and Sayeeda Warsi, the co-chair of the Conservative party and Lib Dem minister who are exchanging increasingly incendiary fire about changing the voting system, fell into conversation. David Cameron came over and joked: "I'm glad to see you two are still on speaking terms."
The prime minister did not know it, but the two of them, coalition colleagues around the cabinet table but bitter foes over electoral reform, were actually carrying on with their row. The Lib Dem was goading the Tory peeress to give a public reply to his accusation that she descended to "gutter politics" and "Goebbels-like lies" when she contended that moving to the alternative vote would be a boon to extremists such as the BNP. I'll address that argument – one of the most desperate claims made by the No campaign, but potentially also one of its more salient attacks – in a moment. First, note the rising temperature of this battle; heat which will be further increased by the latest letter from Mr Huhne to Baroness Warsi in which he demands to know why the No campaign is concealing the sources of its funding.
The referendum is only just beginning to impinge on the consciousness of the nation, but between the politicians the struggle is already intense. Good. With the caveat that it would be more dignified for both sides to eschew comparing each other with the Nazis, a hot debate on this question is exactly what we need. I'm perplexed by those commentators who have adopted a pose of lofty scorn towards the referendum, dismissing it with a sneer through a yawn. They proclaim that the public is not interested in the way we elect our governments. The most condescending even say we ought not to be troubling the poor little heads of the voters with a referendum at all. Really? This is a country that likes to think of itself as a pioneer of representative democracy. We are fond of the pride-swelling remark made by John Bright, in a speech in support of electoral reform in the 19th century, that: "England is the mother of all parliaments."
Yet the people of England, and the peoples of the other nations of the UK, have never been offered any opportunity to set the basic rules of our democracy. This is the first time that the people have been given a say about how we elect members of parliament. If there is a more important subject for a referendum than that, I can't think of it.
The two sides are conducting their campaigns in contrasting ways. The Yes campaign is putting a lot of emphasis on its celebrity cheerleaders. The comedian Eddie Izzard and the gold medallist Kriss Akabusi fronted a campaign launch yesterday. Other celeb endorsements for AV include Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. The starriest names that the No camp can muster are Michael Howard and Margaret Beckett, not an Oscar-winning combination.
The more high-minded among you may be irritated by the Yes campaign's implication that voters should choose an electoral system because an actor tells them to. But at least it is a more attractive strategy than that pursued by the desperadoes of the No campaign. Having virtually nothing positive to say about obsolete and broken first past the post, the anti-reformers are conducting one of the most negative campaigns ever witnessed. They started by alleging that moving to AV would make elections hugely more expensive. The Yes campaign were generous to their opponents when they described that claim as "flawed". A better word would be "fraudulent". Then the abominable No men argued that British voters will find AV too "complex" and "confusing". We are apparently too stupid to be able to rank candidates in order of preference; we are too thick to write 1,2,3. They deserve to lose just for that insult to the intelligence of the British people.
Another theme of the No campaign is that we should stick with the status quo because AV is somehow alien. This will come as a surprise to the millions of voters who already use AV in elections for charities, business bodies, churches, trades unions and voluntary organisations. AV is, in fact, the most common form of election out there in David Cameron's "big society".
Far from being hideously foreign, adopting AV would be a very British thing to do. It would not be a revolutionary break, but an evolutionary change. AV preserves the feature of the current system which has most merit – the direct link between an MP and a constituency – while addressing some of the most pernicious flaws of first past the post, such as the fact that two thirds of MPs were sent to parliament last May without the support of a majority of voters.
The Yes campaign over-claim when they suggest that AV will produce a saintly Commons in which every MP will aspire to emulate Pericles of Athens. The case for AV is that it will make MPs think a bit harder before they do bad things such as fiddle their expenses, and make them more representative of, responsive to, and effective on behalf of their constituents. AV offers an incremental, moderate improvement and that is a terribly British way of reforming our constitution.
Most of the No campaign's attacks on AV are self-evident rubbish. But they have recently advanced an argument that deserves more attention, because it has enough superficial plausibility that it could frighten the public into clinging to the status quo. This is the argument that AV privileges the supporters of minority parties over those who vote for the major parties. To try to make this argument more scary, they claim the BNP will love AV. We can tell the No campaign think they might have a trump card with this one, because it is a claim which has started to feature very heavily in their propaganda.
Yet if AV really would be such a boost to fascists you'd expect the BNP to be enthusiasts for it. They are actually campaigning on the No side. It is our current electoral system which increases the risk that extremist parties will prosper because first past the post allows fascists to be elected on a minority of the vote. Under AV, by contrast, successful candidates must seek the backing of a majority of voters, which makes it harder, not easier, for extremist parties to thrive because few supporters of other parties will make the BNP their second choice. AV is, in fact, the most extremist-resistant electoral system.
The No campaign have a related claim about extremism. This is their contention that AV gives "extra votes" to supporters of minority parties because, when their first choice is eliminated, their other preferences come in to play. David Cameron likes this argument so much he made a big thing of it in his most recent attack on AV. On Friday, he told his party's Welsh conference: "Your vote for a mainstream party counts once, while someone can support a fringe party like the BNP and get their vote counted several times."
Put like that, AV does sound unfair and undemocratic. I can see this argument troubling a lot of voters. If it were true, it would greatly bother me. It is potentially the most potent attack available to the No campaign. It is also an absolutely false assertion. David Cameron may not know it to be fallacious – he may be guilty of bad logic rather than bad faith – but he is wrong.
To expose why, we first need to see AV for what it is. It is a method of holding an exhaustive ballot without having to ask voters to make repeat visits to the polling station to come up with a winner. Consider a straightforward example. Mr Grey, Mrs Purple and Miss White stand for election. In the first round, if one of them attracts the support of more than half of the voters, that person is elected. Each voter has voted once. If none of the contenders can command majority backing first time around, the candidate with the least support drops out and there is a second round. Let us say that Mr Grey – not a popular chap – is the candidate eliminated. The second preferences of his supporters are now redistributed between Mrs Purple and Miss White.
So, yes, you can say that Mr Grey's supporters have voted again. But, crucially, so too have the original supporters of Mrs Purple and Miss White. Their first round vote counts again in the second round to contribute to the voting totals which decide the winner. And this is true however many rounds take place until someone has a majority of the votes. Under AV, all votes are equal.
Now, there is a different electoral system in which some votes do count for a great deal more than others. There is an electoral system under which the complexion of the government is usually decided by a minority of voters in the minority of seats that are swing marginals. There is an electoral system which induces politicians to pander only to this minority of voters rather than encouraging them to reach out more widely. There is a system under which extremists, whom the majority would never want to see elected, can nevertheless win seats with minority support.
That system is called first past the post.
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