Five New MPs Sign up to Campaign for Fairer Votes
UPDATE (20/1/11) - The latest MP adding his voice to Labour’s campaign for a yes vote on AV is Martin Caton (MP for Gower)
UPDATE (19/1/11) - Increasing support for Labour Yes as John Woodcock adds his vote to the campaign for a yes vote.
UPDATE (19/1/11) - News reaches us that Labour’s newest MP Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) is also in favour of a YES vote! This comes soon after Linsday Roy (MP for Glenrothes) gave us his backing..
UPDATE: More good news from the yes campaign as Angela Eagle MP (Wallasey) and Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) today confirmed to Labour Yes that they will be supporting a positive vote on AV in the upcoming referendum.
UPDATE: Since this was posted we have had it confirmed that Huw Irranca-Davies, MP for Ogmore, has become the 6th MP in the last 48 hours to indicate their support for a YES vote on the AV referendum.
Labour Yes is delighted to welcome 5 new MPs who will be supporting a Yes vote in this year’s referendum on the Alternative Vote. They are Rushanara Ali MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and a member of the shadow team for the Department for International Development, Gordon Marsden MP for Blackpool South, Alison Seabeck shadow Housing Minister and MP for Plymouth Moor View, Tom Blenkinsop MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, and Wayne David MP for Caerphilly and Shadow Minister for Europe.
If you haven’t yet signed up to the Labour Yes campaign you can do so here.
Quick correction: Alison Seabeck is the MP for Plymouth Moor View (she was the MP for Devonport, before the boundaries moved last time).
[...] they proudly announced five new Parliamentary supporters, including Wayne David MP, Shadow Minister for [...]
Can any of them answer the question what the result in Oldham would have been if AV was in place please?
Andy - they won’t answer the question because if they did, they would have to admit that Debbie wouldn’t have won.
They also didn’t open comments on their ‘Youth Committee’ thread, despite suggesting that young people have the most to gain from electoral reform.
Under AV, in 2010, the Lib Dems would have gained between 19 and 32 extra seats, with Labour losing around 23 (interestingly, the Lib lose *none* and the Tories come out even) — so, what would have happened to tuition fees then Yes Campaign? The majority in favour of hiking them up would have been even greater, with a greater number of power-hungry, sell out Liberals in the House of Commons, and fewer Labour MPs to hold them to account.
There is no doubt that AV would have made this coalition even stronger - the Liberals would NEVER have formed a ‘progressive’ alliance with the Labour Party because Nick Clegg is essentially a Tory — and given that we would have lost roughly the same number of seats the Liberals gained, the numbers still wouldn’t have added up for the Left (if that’s what you want to call it).
I’m fairly certain this won’t get through Yes’s moderator, but I’ll give it a go anyway - esp, as Andy says, it would be interesting to see how they might explain to Debbie Abrahams that she hasn’t been elected fairly…
@Andy- any answer to your question about Oldham is basically at best an educated guess, mostly based on a mix of opinion polls & exit polls where they ask people who they’d have given a 2nd preference to if they’d been allowed one, despite the fact that having the ability to rank candidates officially may allow some voters to give their 1st preference to someone else. I don’t really trust much of the projections of previous elections on how they’d have turned out under different voting systems, as after all that’s all they are- projections & estimates.
My guess is that Labour would have still held Oldham East & Saddleworth under AV, as upset left-leaning social democrat-type voters who’ve previously been supporting &/or voting Lib Dem would be still be giving Labour either 1st or 2nd pref, & those sticking by the Lib Dems as 1st pref would still be more likely to rank Labour well above the Tories. On the other side, Tory voters who’ve tactically voted Lib Dem under FPTP could highly likely take the option to give the Tories 1st pref & probably Lib Dems 2nd, which would mean on the 1st Preferences count the Lib Dems could’ve well done worse under AV than they did under FPTP as the Tories would have pegged them back, thus giving Labour a bigger lead going into the run-off rounds. Some Tory 2nd prefs would also go to UKIP as well, especially those Tory supporters who hate any kind of “woolly, lefty, liberal” taming of right wing Tory values!
If you look at the spread of minority candidate votes too, Labour could pick up quite a few of those voters’ 2nd/3rd prefs which could help push Labour to 50% before the 3rd place party (Tory or LibDem) is removed & it’s votes redistributed- ok I guess many Labour-ites aren’t keen on many of these minority parties but at least the 2nd, 3rd etc prefs of some of these voters is more mainstream & sensible than their possibly extreme 1st preference!
@Ben ahh yes I can see how the 3rd choice BNP preference can be more appealing than the extreme Tories.
Seeing as the Tories are being mentioned as giving their votes to the limp dems to beat Labour I doubt that Debbie would have won. Coalition sticking with coalition with tactical voting still counting and yes I do mean Tories voting 1st for the limp dems then themselves if they know that even with AV they can’t win.
Noticeable that the Yes campaign, especially the MP’s lining up to jump on it, won’t answer but I suppose head in the sand and ignore is probably the best policy they could have.