Lib Dems Elections Disaster

Last Thursday was a voting extravaganza for the people of Britain, with national elections in Scotland and Wales and local elections in much of England (except here in London) and the nationwide referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) voting system for General Elections.

Scotland sprang the biggest shock, electing a majority Scottish National Party (SNP) government in the Scottish Parliament, under an election with a proportional element, designed to specifically stop a majority government being elected. It was a personal triumph for Alex Salmond the SNP leader, who is far too crafty for Labour’s second division politicians in Scotland. A referendum will now be held on Scottish independence but if it were to be held tomorrow, it would undoubtedly be defeated. But Salmond is too skilful a politician to fall into that trap, and the vote will not be held for at least two years, by which the time the full horror of an English Tory government will be apparent, and with the election boundaries changed in the Tories favour, the Scots may conclude that they will be better going it alone. It will be interesting to watch how this situation develops.

In Wales, Labour did pretty well at the expense of Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems but fell just one seat short of an overall majority on the Welsh Assembly. The Green party failed unfortunately to land a first Assembly Member that was hoped for.

Local elections in England went surprisingly well for the Tories, gaining councils and seats, when they were expected to take losses because of the austerity programme introduced at national level. Their gains though were almost entirely in the south of England, and they didn’t have much to defend in the north. The Green party continued its modest progress with a net gain of 14 councillors and the Greens are now the largest party on Brighton and Hove council.

But the big story in England (and Wales and Scotland too) was the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. The scale of their losses is truly staggering. They lost almost 700 councillors which is over a third of the seats they were defending. They will take some comfort from gaining 15% of the vote in England, but it has to be remembered this was on a low turnout, so they would be highly unlikely to get this high a share in a General Election.

All of this was compounded by the decisive loss of the AV referendum (by a 2 to 1 majority) which the Lib Dem leadership had hoped would be seen as vindication of their entering of the coalition government with the Tories. The decision to go into coalition now looks to be a terrible error of political judgement and they have been well and truly stitched up by the Conservatives, useful as whipping boys for unpopular policies, but utterly without influence over the government’s direction.
Of course the Lib Dems will try to assert themselves more within the government now, but why should the Tories allow them any influence when they are so unpopular with the voters? They are destined for wipe out at the next General Election and who can say that they don’t deserve it?

The only way that I can see for them making any kind of recovery is if they ditch Nick Clegg as leader, and with a new leader (Charlie Kennedy, perhaps) bring down the coalition over differences in policy. Then they might be able to reduce their losses and even lay the groundwork for a coalition with Labour post election. The alternative will be a slow, painful death, with the reversion of thirty years of incremental gains and a return to the political wilderness.

Photo from The Guardian

Tory / Lib Dem Electoral Pact on the Cards

The Independent newspaper reported on Friday 28th January here,that senior members of both coalition parties are thinking of entering into an electoral pact at the next general election.

When I first saw the Oldham East by-election result, I was struck by how well the Lib Dems had done, considering their plummeting opinion poll ratings. The Independent piece though, claims that Tory voters’ voted tactically for the Lib Dems as the best way to defeat Labour. As it happens, Labour won, with the Tory vote down sharply but the Lib Dem vote down only slightly. The reasoning for this put forward in The Independent was Tory voters switching to the Lib Dems, and thus avoiding wipe out for their coalition partners.

Figures in both governing parties are openly suggesting that they should give each other an easy ride in future by-elections and at the next general election, citing the low profile campaign in Oldham East by the Tories, as a template for the future. The thinking is that an anti-Labour electoral alliance could be constructed to keep the coalition government in power for the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, I argued here on this blog, that if the Alternative Vote referendum is passed into law, which is a big if at present, then this will help facilitate the Tory and Lib Dem strategy even more. That is, they will then be able to openly state that their voter’s second preference votes under AV, should be given to their coalition partner. Together with the government’s proposed boundary changes and the reduction of the number of constituencies (those that will disappear are all Labour held seats in inner cities) this could well keep the coalition in power for as long as Mubarak in Egypt.

So, why should the Green party be concerned about Labour being permanently out of government? Well, it is true that Labour are no ‘greener’ than the Tories or Lib Dems, perhaps even less so, and that their social policies were only slightly better than the current government’s when they were in office.

From a Green party electoral point of though, I can only see us getting any influence at Westminster in a coalition or such with a minority Labour government. Labour (members anyway) are closer to Green party social policy than either Tories or the new right wing Lib Dems, and personally I get on better with Labour people than Tories or Lib Dems in general. Despite the last couple of decades, a lot of Labour people still see themselves as on the left politically, which is perhaps more of a gut feeling these days than anything particularly demonstrable, but all the same I think it would make it easier for us Greens to connect with Labour than the other main parties.

As I explained in the previous post referred to earlier, AV would not significantly help a Labour / Green electoral pact, and the danger is that we will be stuck with the coalition in government with no realistic means of ejecting them from office. Also, it will encourage elements in the Labour party to tack even further to right, to try and win over right wing voters, which will lead to us having a permanent reactionary government, even if Labour does gain power again.

Is AV Much of an Alternative?

Green party autumn conference, which is being held in Birmingham over the next few days, will debate whether or not to back the Alternative Vote referendum in a session on Monday 13 September. In the Green party, conference actually makes policy, unlike the main parties where conferences are little more than cheer-leading events for the leadership, where votes can be disregarded. Anyway, side swipe delivered, back to AV. Under an AV voting system, voters get to rank candidates 1,2,3 etc, and a winner needs 50% of first preference, or first and second preference votes to be elected.

I think the prevailing mood will be to back AV, recognising that this system is not proportional in any way, which is the kind of electoral system that we would like to see introduced, but on the basis that it will be a small step in the right direction, and will help the Green party elect more MP’s. Indeed, I am expecting one of my local party colleagues to make the case for AV on this blog at some later point.

I have to say though, that this is not my personal view. I can see that it will probably benefit Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion, with Labour voters likely to second preference the Green party, but I can’t see it doing us any good electorally anywhere else. To take the example of the London mayoral election in 2008, which is an AV type election, as guide to what might happen is instructive. The Green party candidate polled 23% of second preference votes, but these were useless as she only achieved 3.7% of first preference votes. In effect, the second preferences were wasted votes. Only the top two candidates in first preference votes, gain from second preferences.

The danger is, I think, that with the coalition government we have at present, the tendency of first preference Conservative and Lib Dem voters will be to second preference their coalition partner’s party at the ballot box. Labour voters will probably, by and large, second preference the Green party, but because we don’t get enough first preference votes in most constituencies, these will be wasted votes again. The AV system, coupled with boundary changes, could keep the ConDem government in power forever, which is why the Lib Dem leadership in particular, are so keen to move to this system. In my view, this is a highly undesirable outcome, saddling us with a reactionary, free trade neo liberalism, at a time when Labour is talking a more social democratic language in its leadership contest, than it has for a generation.

So although AV on the face of it seems a more democratic electoral system, it has the potential to build in a permanent government coalition of the right, with even less chance than under the present First Past The Post system, of getting the kind of radical changes that are needed to deliver the social and ecological justice that I would like to see.