Douglas Carswell's Blog

AV referendum - why I decided to vote No

As you can see from my ballot paper* , I’ve just voted “No” to adopting the Alternative Voting system.

I must admit that I hesitated a long time – and initially I was tilting the other way towards a "Yes".  Why the two minds?

I loathe the closed-shop political system we have in Westminster. All those “safe seats” mean too many MPs answer inwardly to other MPs, rather than outward to the voters. It seems to have bred a smug, self-satisfied political culture, where the SW1 tribe play word games with one another, at times appearing detached from the real concerns of folk outside.

I’m up for change. At times, I've felt so exasperated with closed shop SW1, I'd almost settle for any change. But just before marking my cross on the ballot paper, I asked myself, is AV really the change we need? No, it isn't.  AV solves nothing.

The central, thudding problem with our political system is the lack of choice and competition. In seven out of ten Parliamentary seats, it is a party political elite – not local people – who seem to ultimately decide who gets to be the next MP. That makes our political culture inward looking and self-referential.

I do not understand how AV would change this. Instead, I fear a “Yes” to AV would kill off any chance of introducing the real changes we need.

Introducing real competition to politics, by allowing every local voter to have a direct say over who gets to be each party’s candidate, would smash open the closed-shop Westminster system – and transform our political system for the better.

Far fetched? Far from it, the Coalition agreement gave a commitment to precisely such a system of Open Primary selection.  Indeed, the Tories have already used a form of Primary selection in Totnes and Gosport - with spectacular results. 

The original proposal for Open Primaries was straight forward and simple; the primary ballots would be held on the same day as pre-existing local or European elections.  “Piggy backing” onto such ballots would allow Primaries to be held at minimal cost to political parties – and at zero extra cost to the taxpayer.

The policy magpies in Whitehall, as is their way, over complicated the proposal, mangling it into a nonsensical proposal for state-funded candidate selection, with party bosses, not local people, making the key decisions. Earlier this year, it was then decided to quietly drop the idea, absurdly given that it need not involve taxpayer funding, on grounds of cost.

After Thursday, we need to look again at the simple, straight forward idea of Open Primary selection. It is Open Primaries, not AV, that reformists should demand.

* - NB.  Out of interest, I checked with the Electoral Commission before posting a photo of my ballot paper on line.  Apparently, it is legal to do so if you vote by post.  But not if you vote in a polling booth.  It's unlawful to publish information about what happens in a polling booth.

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