Britain's rejection of a new electoral system in last Thursday's referendum comes as no surprise. Nor does the predictably low turnout of 42 percent. Alternative Vote (A.V.), the system proposed to replace the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) method of electing ministers of Parliament (MPs) to Westminster, was no one's first choice. Even the majority of those fronting the Yes campaign viewed the system, in the words of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, as a "miserable little compromise."
The promise of a referendum on electoral reform was a key condition for Clegg to agree to lead his Liberal Democrats into coalition with the Conservative Party, after last May's general election resulted in a hung parliament. Punished by the FPTP system for decades, the Liberal Democrats have long championed proportional representation. In the 2010 general election, for example, the Lib Dems received 23 percent of votes, but just 8.8 percent of parliamentary seats. Unsurprisingly, the Conservatives support the status quo; thanks to the peculiarities of FPTP, the Tories won large majorities throughout the 1980s, despite receiving only 40-odd percent of the vote. A.V., which requires the ranking of candidates to ensure that the winner receives support from at least 50 percent of voters, is the mid-point between the Conservatives' and Lib Dems' preferred systems. The choice of A.V. has more to do with coalition politics than good governance.
While there are passionate supporters of FPTP and passionate supporters of proportional representation, there are very few passionate supporters of A.V. Former Labour minister Ben Bradshaw, a leading campaigner for a yes vote in the referendum, last year stated: "The reason I've never supported A.V. is that it would have given us an even bigger majority in 1997, and it would have given the Tories an even bigger majority in 1983, and probably 1987 as well." With the Yes campaign itself lukewarm on A.V., it is no wonder that voters rejected the system.