ELECTORAL REFORM:No guarantee for Tory leader change would benefit the party in subsequent elections, writes MARK HENNESSY
IN THE early hours of June 26th, 1846, two drowsy parliamentary clerks entered the House of Commons chamber to announce that the House of Lords had passed the Corn and Customs Bill, a soporifically-named piece of legislation but one that laid the foundations for Britain’s economic supremacy for the rest of the century.
Receiving the news, Conservative prime minister Robert Peel knew he had changed history. He also knew his political career was over: the bitterness within his own ranks towards the ending of corn import duties meant unity could no longer be maintained.
Within two hours Tory MPs had voted against him or abstained on an obscure piece of Irish legislation.
Turning to his friend Sir Henry Hardinge, Peel whispered: “We have fallen in the face of day and with our front to our enemies.” Leaving by a side door, Peel was cheered from the rooftops by the poor outside, who knew what he had done: that one of the longest-lasting pillars of British political and economic life had been removed.
Today, Cameron could be just a week away from a judgment of similar magnitude. Should he be prepared to offer the Liberal Democrats some degree of electoral reform as their price for joining a coalition, thus ending centuries of first-past-the-post voting; or risk offering the Labour Party a “get out of jail” card to hold on to power?
The Liberal Democrats want proportional representation, where voters would exercise their franchise as happens in Ireland, though they have – presumably as an opening bid – already been offered by Labour a referendum on the Alternative Vote – a system where candidates are elected once they have won 50 per cent of the votes in a single-seat constituency.
If pushed, the Liberals might be bought off with a system known as Alternative Vote Plus, where most candidates are elected by a 50 per cent majority, but the remainder – perhaps a significant remainder – are elected from a list system that would reward parties for the share of the national vote that each receives.
Unlike Peel, Cameron does not want to make changes. He believes in first past the post and there is no guarantee that electoral change – even if the existing system can no longer produce majority rule for either of the largest parties – would benefit the Conservatives for every election that would take place subsequently.
An analysis by Prof John Curtice of Strathclyde University of one of a recent ComRes poll reveals that 68 per cent of Labour supporters and 41 per cent of Conservative would give a second preference to Liberal Democrat candidates if they were allowed to do so on May 6th – a result that would leaves the Conservatives in third place.
Regardless of Cameron’s views, his own party does not want to compromise and it is far from clear that they would bow to such demands, particularly if they also had to swallow the prospect of the Liberal Democrats’ Vince Cable occupying number 11 as chancellor of the exchequer, as well. Ninety per cent of Tory party members ruled out PR in a February poll.
Polls show support for the Conservatives rising and tonight’s final leaders’ TV debate in Birmingham may help to concentrate the public’s mind about spending cuts to come, and about the fears the Conservatives now raise daily about interest rates, sterling’s value and international confidence.
For now, though, let us assume that there is a hung parliament.
Cameron could offer to put one or more of the voting reforms to a referendum, though it is reasonable to assume that the Liberals would demand (a) a guaranteed date for the holding of such a vote, and (b) a guarantee, with ifs, or buts, that the Conservatives would back a Yes campaign.
However, Cameron could refuse on this point, but offer the Liberal Democrats everything else that they want. If they do not accept that, he could then hope that Labour and the Liberal Democrats fail to agree – thus leaving the latter’s leader, Nick Clegg, to decide whether he wants to bring down a minority Tory government when it tries to bring forward a Queens’ Speech and force a second election.
Clegg is also on the spot. The Liberal Democrats lean left, even if the leader and many of outgoing MPs go the other way. Furthermore, he is constrained by a complex, and not entirely well-defined “quadruple lock” voted through after his predecessor, Paddy Ashdown had wanted to agree a coalition deal with Tony Blair before Blair knew his 1997 winning margin.
Any change that could affect the party’s independence of political action has to be first approved by the party’s MPs, and then by the party’s governing federal executives. Then, a two-to-one majority is required from a special party conference, and if such a majority is not gained there, then the proposal must go to a postal vote of the full membership.
One hundred and sixty years ago, Peel, one of the greatest, if less well-remembered of British prime ministers made calls that changed history, but to his own cost.
The Conservatives were subsequently frozen out of office for 35 years. If faced with a hung parliament, Cameron will be afraid that he, too, could inflict a similar penalty upon his party.