Politics and Demonstrations

[andrewducker]

I'm a fan of democracy. I think that First Past The Post is a grossly unfair system that causes all sorts of iniquities.

I've been very happy by the surge of interest in Proportional Representation, and been paying keen attention to the demonstrations organised over the last couple of weeks.

I didn't make it to the one in Glasgow last weekend, so when one came up in Edinburgh this weekend I was delighted that I'd get the chance to go along. When they asked for volunteers to help out with stewarding I was very happy to offer to help out.

Only now I'm hearing that the organisers changed their petition retroactively from "Voting Reform" to "Proportional Representation", and that (a) some of the people that signed up aren't actually supporters of full PR and (b) changing the words on a petition after it's been signed really isn't on.

However, the only place I've seen this so far is on a couple of friend's Facebook updates. I've not seen any discussion anywhere else, and I'd quite like to know whether there's some kind of misunderstanding, an individual doing something stupid, or an attempt at hijacking a mass movement going on.

Does anyone have any information they could share? Because I'd love to go along and get involved tomorrow, but I don't want to be party to unfair unscrupulous behaviour.

Comments

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth remembering a couple of things:

1. Take Back Parliament didn't organise the demo tomorrow. We did. Everyone who's going, everyone who's helping out.

2. I think that if the petition has been reworded - and honestly I wouldn't know - it will have been reworded not to screw over those who signed it but to clarify that AV is not PR - something that every bloody newspaper in the country seems to think, and something that I suspect the Tories would very much like people to think. While I agree that it's principally and practically not cool to change the wording of a petition after the fact, I suspect that if it was changed it didn't even begin to cross the minds of the organisers that the signatories would mind. I don't think anyone was trying to be sinister or put one over on anybody else. The worst they're going to be guilty of is thoughtlessness.

The blog on the Take Back Parliament website has an entry about AV being good but not enough. I can't find the reference that Matthew claims says they now stand only for Proportional Representation without individual constituency MPs - presumably meaning STV in preference to any mixed-member system.

Matthew's objection to PR seems to be founded specifically on the concept that marginalises rural areas which is just a fiction - the maths can be worked to say that, but in practice it's just bollocks, and due to the political make-up of rural areas in Britain PR will actually boost their representation. The only way that rural areas would suffer would be if they happened to all vote for one of the Big Two, since they're the ones who're going to lose votes. So rural England may lose some representation (but I think they'll still manage all right somehow) - overwhelmingly Lib Dem/SNP rural Scotland are going to have better representation whichever way you slice it.

Finally, as you know, I'm in favour of mixed-member PR. Most of the demo last Sat was spent discussing different forms of PR, their merits and flaws, and the ones we thought might apply best to Britain. The overwhelming feeling was that what we wanted to see was simply Fair Votes For All, and that frankly the exact details we'd be happy to have worked out later. I'd be very, very surprised if that wasn't still the mentality of most of the people campaigning across the country tomorrow - whatever their website does or doesn't say.

[alienspacebat.livejournal.com]

The Edinburgh demo seems to have broken away from the main Take Back Parliament page

Compare http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115573861816604&ref=ts and http://www.takebackparliament.com/

Main TBP
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Petition: "This Parliament does not represent us. We demand fair votes now. There must never again be an election under this broken system."

View on AV: "AV is a small step in the right direction, and an improvement on our broken and outdated system of “first past the post”, but it’s not the same as fair votes. We welcome the fact reform of our out-dated system is finally on the table, but as it stands this is not enough as the choice is being restricted to two flawed options.

The public must not be denied the choice of a fair proportional voting system in any referendum. Reform of the voting system is so fundamental to our democracy that it should be decided by the people not the private vested interests of the parties."

Edinburgh
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"We support a fully proportional voting system. This would mean that numbers of votes cast for a particular political party would translate by percentage share of the vote into that percentage share of seats in our parliament.

Whatever people wish to call it, the system must deliver the above outcome to be truly representative of us as the electorate.

The Alternative Vote System mooted by some members of our political elites cannot deliver the above outcome. It IS NOT truly proportional and serves to maintain the status quo ante.

We must reject it for the sham that it is and campaign hard for true proportional representation. "

[marrog.livejournal.com]

In fairness, one says "fair proportional" and the other says "fully proportional" - I think there's some nitpicking going on here. I really just think this is a few people not realising that going for full proportionality is going to turn anyone off, and that there's still a large amount of variation within those protesting.