A referendum promised on the voting system - but bigger changes are needed

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A referendum promised on the voting system - but bigger changes are needed

02.12.2009 // by Guy Aitchison

You may have seen in the paper's today that the government wants to hold a referendum on the voting system.

The plan is to pass a law before the next general election which will commit a future government (of whichever political party) to asking the British public whether they want to move from the current system of First Past the Post to the Alternative Vote system (see here for a good description of how this system works).

Democratic reformers, who have been arguing for years that our current voting system is unfair, will take some comfort from the Prime Minister's apparent conversion to the view that change is needed.

But this is still top-down change managed by politicians for their convenience. Under Jack Straw's influence, the Cabinet apparently decided to restrict voters' choice to two voting systems (neither of which is the proportional kind favoured by most reformers), denying the public the right to come to its own view on what the best system is for choosing their representatives.

How much more compelling would it be if this pledge was actually part of a wider and more radical plan for overhauling our democracy led by the people?

The government should take a leaf out of POWER2010's book. In just a few months the campaign has generated over 4000 ideas for reinvigorating democracy from ordinary members of the public from across the UK (you can read and discuss some of the best of them here).

POWER2010 is aiming to persuade every candidate at next general election to pledge their firm commitment to the most popular of these ideas, and to agree to clean up politics based on the public's priorities.

With all of these ideas and more, democratic reformers will say to the prime minister, by all means promise the referendum, but we won't stop campaigning until bigger changes are guaranteed.