Brown's Resignation and The Importance of STV.

[miss_s_b]

There are fevered speculations in the media now that Brown has proffered his resignation. Are we heading for a coalition with Labour? Charlotte Gore is already throwing the vitriol, despite the fact that this doesn't really alter the fact that a coalition with Labour wouldn't outnumber the Tories, and we'd have to hold ourselves to ransom to the nats as well, AND that if you trust Labour to deliver on a promise you're bloody stupid, AND that they don't really have a credible leadership candidate to put up even if we DID coalesce with them...

No, there are too many issues with a putative coalition with Labour. Why would we want to shackle ourselves to their death throes? I still think coalition with the Tories is the only game in town. Brown resigning might be an offer to us from the Labour party, but it doesn't mean we're stupid enough to accept it, and it doesn't mean that we will automatically stop talking to the Tories. It gives us additional leverage to play them off against each other, though... And this brings us back to STV.

I really, truly, genuinely think that fair voting is the cornerstone of Liberalism. Freedom to elect one's own government is a pre-requisite of a liberal democracy. I don't understand people who think that Lib Dems advocate STV because of self-interest: that's like saying cheese advocates milk out of self interest. You can't have cheese without milk, and you can't have a Liberal Democracy in which the vast majority of people's votes don't make a difference. Yes, STV may well mean the death of the party in the medium term. This doesn't matter. The people of this country having fair elections matters.

Similarly, I recognise that shackling ourselves to the Tories will lose us members and votes. If we get STV, it's worth it. If we don't get STV, it's not. This is not because I think electoral reform will benefit anyone in the political sphere: it won't. It will benefit the people of this country.

STV is not a panacea. But it is the petri dish in which a panacea can be developed. If we go into coalition with either of the other two who are wooing us without insisting on it, then frankly, we deserve to implode.

Comments

[leoniedelt]

'we' (read that my husband, since i cant vote) voted libdem - i hope it doesnt really mean he 'voted tory' - but at the same time, dear god dont let it mean he 'voted labour' ...

sigh. what a shit position we're all in :(

[matgb]

It didn't. He voted for enough LibDem MPs to stop a Tory govt being possible. A coalition govt isn't a Tory govt, by definition. And on the big liberal issues of the day, they're closer on many. And we can block the ones they're daft on.

[matgb]

exactly. Love you, can I have my brain back?

[bagfish]

If the Tories are not budging on electoral reform, we can't, just can't go in to coalition with them (or even offer supply and whatever support). Without electoral reform being offered everything will be wasted and we'll be back where we started, but only worse because everyone will hate us (I would hate us!!).

If the only thing we get out of working with Labour and the nats is STV style electoral reform then it would be worth it, even if there was another election within 12-18 months. As long as PR had been sorted out, then dealing with the party offering reform is going to be better than siding with the party that is only offering a commission looking in to it. Seen that before, didn't do any good....

[awesomegore]

I don't object to STV or PR. I object to doing a deal with Labour to get it.

[miss_s_b]

I object to dealing with either of the big two. They both suck. But the objective is more important than whatever distaste I might feel about sharing power with evil people.

[awesomegore]

Well, I obviously don't agree that both parties suck equally :S

[miss_s_b]

ex girlfriend syndrome because you've actually voted for one of them?

[(Anonymous)]

The 1980s, I suspect.

[miss_s_b]

Charlotte voted for Blair, didn't you know? She's too young to have voted for Thatcher

[(Anonymous)]

There are these things called "history books" which will tell you about things which happened before your were alive.

[fabulousblueporcupine.wordpress.com]

Great piece. Although, I'm not sure "getting STV" is the right way to express what we want, although it is useful shorthand for the scale of feeling in the party. A promise of a referendum on STV is worth nothing without a time limit and a fixed parliament, because then the ruling party can just short-circuit everything by calling another election. So the packaging is as important as the contents offered - and there are a hell of a lot of other things on our political reform wish list too. The biggest complication being a Citizens Convention on drawing up a constitution, which is arguably more important and will presumably contain electoral reform in its remit.

Not, however, that I think we should go easier on labour, rather than opposite. They need us more than the Tories do. And they're supposedly "reformers" already. Time to demonstrate it.

But in the meantime, I'm just enjoying watching the nutter baton pass from one side to the other.

[awesomegore]

Hmm. Since Friday I've been more impressed with the Lib Dems than at any other time. I was genuinely surprised that they were so willing to negotiate properly with the Tories, that they were willing and able to make having a stable Government, one capable of dealing with the deficit properly as their highest priority. I was also reassured that the Lib Dems understood that Labour have no mandate to deliver anything at all since Thursday, and that to support them would be intolerable.

Today, knowing that the Lib Dems have turned down an offer than included a referendum on AV because they're being offered immediate AV by a Gordon Brown-less Labour makes me feel quite sick, embarrassed and angry to have been so openly supportive of this potential coalition.

It's obvious I've profoundly misunderstood the Lib Dem party and feel somewhat cheated about it. If this makes me mentally ill, hey, I'm mentally ill and proud.

[matgb]

To my knowledge, neither offer has been turned down yet; I agree with Jennie that the LAbour offer is probably unsustainable, and I think I agree with Dave below when he says we might not get better than AV and the national interest argument wins.

I've always said I'd accept AV as a first step, as long as it's accepted as being a first step. I don't know yet what the full offer is, and thus can't fully judge.

I do get to be told fairly soon though.

[fabulousblueporcupine.wordpress.com]

Charlotte, I think one of the reasons I'm so tickled by the path of the nutter baton is that each successive pass is in response to a STAGE in a negotiation. Which is then succeeded by another stage. And still, people go bonkers with fury/nausea or whatever else each time, as if they've completely forgotten that previous stages successively occurred. (Actually, I'm being generous; quite often a *rumour* is enough to get the baton passed.) So why not wait until the negotiations are actually *over* before throwing your toys out of the pram and being sick over them, or whatever it is you want to do?

Consensual politics is, unsurprisingly, about compromise. I happen to think Jennie's right that the LibLab deal isn't really viable (and I don't think the Labour party know enough about compromise anyway) but who knows, I might be wrong.

[awesomegore]

Well, Nick Clegg's about to go back to the Lib Dem MPs and we'll know once and for all, I guess.

[perlmonger]

This.

Maybe we can escalate to STV now that desperation has led the Tories to match Labour on an offer of a referendum for AV? :)

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I don't think we can afford to throw our toys out of the pram if neither the Tories nor Labour offer us STV. Which they're not.

We need to show that a UK peacetime coalition government can work, and without us blatantly holding the Labservatives to ransom. Otherwise that will count against us when it comes to a referendum.

[matgb]

I think I agree with this. I don't want to agree with it, but I think I do.

Plus, AV will get people used to preferential voting, which will help.

[po8crg]

Also, I bet we can get STV for the Lords and possibly for councils.

[matgb]

And both of those would be good things in and of themselves.

Now, would I be able to live with, long term, AV for the Commons, STV for the Lords and Councils? Hmm...

Not sure, but it'd work.

[po8crg]

Yes, precisely Hmmmm. I think I would regard that as a deal.

And we could probably get STV for Commons at some point just to simplify things.

[(Anonymous)]

I am sure no matter which party Nick goes with will result in another election with in the next 18 months, i would snatch Labours hand off to get AV STRAIGHT away as that will virtually guarantee us more seats in the next 18 months.
Also the possibility of the Conservatives to going to the country A.S.A.P.if they think it will gain them a majority in 6 months time saying that the Liberals are stopping them from instigating cuts etc....both we and Labour with no money to fight another election would be a push over