Hostages to fortune

BBC reports:
David Cameron has postponed a long-awaited speech on the UK's relationship with Europe to respond to the hostage crisis in Algeria.

Well, that was lucky for him - a jolly good reason not to make that speech yet, but he'll have to do it some time.    Cameron is like a man in a mire.  If he stands still he sinks slowly but if he tries to move out, he may sink faster.    If, as we all expect, he promises a referendum after a negotiation to make the UK different from every other member-state, then he will be a hostage and so will we all.  Cameron will be a hostage to a negotiation that he cannot win and we - the whole country - will be hostages to the prospect of the referendum and the uncertainty of our membership of the European Union.   Investment in the UK will fall and some firms may even move their work to less ambivalent member-states.   

Yes or no ? Is that democracy ?

The BBC has this graphic for its summing up of the arguments on the AV Referendum. Clearly the pencil has more than two faces but only two are available to the voter - yes or no. The graphic so neatly sums up the problem with First Past the Post that I'm surprised the Director-General Mark Thomson didn't ban it as the BBC banned the use of the word "Reform".

Caroline Lucas was of course right in seeking to amend the referendum into a preferendum with a choice of voting systems. She was wrong to blame Liberal Democrat MPs for not supporting her, as she know that the combined weight of the Tory and Labour dinosaurs would not have permitted such a choice to the electorate. LibDem MPs were confined to the AV option by the coalition agreement. Could we have got more from the Tories ? I wonder. What about Labour ? With the exception of Ed Miliband (who gave a remarkably honest interview to the trivial, point-scoring, ever interrupting Humphries this morning) and a few other Labour politicians, the Labour Party has once again shown itself dishonest and opportunistic. Blair's first broken promise was his refusal to put the Jenkins Commission's report to a referendum. Now many Labour politicians led by the despicable Reid, Prescott, Blunkett and Beckett are campaigning against AV, which they promised in their own General Election manifesto. Make no mistake. If the answer tomorrow is "NO" they will bear the blame as much as any self-seeking Tory.

The conclusion: you can't trust politicians to set the rules by which we are governed. The UK needs a Constitutional Convention, just as the Scots had before.

Call Labour's bluff - split the bill !

The opportunistic self-serving hypocrites who lead the Parliamentary Labour Party are going to vote against a referendum on AV despite their own commitment to the idea a few weeks ago. The arch-hypocrite (and sadly typical ex-NUS President) Jack Straw explains that the bill also provides for redrawing boundaries and reducing the number of constituencies. Of course the real motive is to join with Tory anti-referendum backwoodsmen rebels and defeat the government. So, the obvious solution - split the bill in two. Will Labour have the unashamed gall to vote against a bill only for a referendum on AV ? I doubt it, but if they did we would see their essential and deep-seated conservatism revealed. Simples !

There is a tide in the affairs of men

One or two people of my acquaintance have expressed the opinion that we would lose a referendum on electoral reform and that therefore Liberal Democrats should do a deal with the Conservatives.

I do not understand this view. All the polls on the subject show that the public support it. If we are not prepared to take the risk, we should just get out of politics. This is the best chance we have ever had to change the voting system and the only chance we will have for many, many years. A deal with Cameron would be utterly worthless. We would share the blame for his disastrous economic policy and fail to achieve any of our own basic policies and, when Cameron felt the time was right, he would pull the plug and go for a new election, at which he could win a majority. Under the current system the public would feel even less inclined to vote for a third party and the Tories would have more money to fight the campaign than anyone else.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men” and we don’t take it at the flood, we deserve to drown.

Fair votes referendum NOW !

Alan Johnson has called for a referendum on PR to be held on the day of the next general election. What is the logic of voting to change the electoral system on the same day as electing a new House of Commons under the old system ??? Of course, a referendum on the Jenkins Commission's recommended Alternative Vote top-up System is now more than ten years overdue. Labour's manifesto commitment to hold a referendum was the first of many promises broken by Tony Blair's government.

Small problem: under our daft, archaic and essentially monarchical non-constitution, the PM only needs to give everyone about four weeks' notice of when his time runs out, whereas public debates on referendums should last longer.

Big problem: The main block to PR has always been the strange unwillingness of MPs elected under first-past-the-post (stupid name for a system without a post) to vote for their own demise. However, we are now in a most unusual period when many MPs do not expect to be re-elected anyway. Perhaps Labour MPs would be willing to respond to a referendum now, as a way of avoiding a huge Conservative majority next year. If we wait to hold a referendum until general election day, we can be certain that a new government led by David Cameron will ignore the result. They would probably set up a new Royal Commission to think about it for another ten years.

Referendums

On Monday night I attended Liberty's comedy show at the wonderful Hackney Empire, "Bonfire of the Liberties". Bremner - brilliant as always. An excellent Iranian comedienne, a female ventriloquist with a monkey - an act full of Brechtian alienation - and, of course, Marcus Brigstocke as compere. It was Brigstocke who sent up the idea of a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty. See Jeremy Hargreaves blog and Jonathan Calder's reaction.

Referendums are poor instruments for deciding anything but are absurd for treaty ratification, which requires line-by-line scrutiny, which only parliament can give. Neither the North Atlantic Treaty nor any other treaty I can think of has been ratified by referendum in the UK. Liberal Democrats were wrong to give credence to the idea that a referendum was appropriate. Eurosceptics want a referendum precisely because they fear the decision of people who will actually have examined the treaty.