At last year’s general election, we argued that a vote for any of the major parties would be a wasted vote. Subsequent events proved we were right and on May 5 we again urge people to withhold their vote in the national and council elections and in the referendum.

In 2010, none of the mainstream parties were honest about the spending cuts they would make and the election was therefore a fraudulent one. The ConDem government has since made savage cuts in public spending, raised tuition fees to unaffordable levels and attacked the NHS.

Councils, many of them Labour-controlled, throughout Britain have implemented the cuts at local level. Whatever councils Labour may take control of on Thursday, they are certain to uphold exsiting cuts budgets and implement new attacks on jobs and services in 2012. No point in voting for Ed Miliband’s crowd then.

As for the referendum on the voting system, it really amounts to no choice at all. Under first past the post (FPTP), New Labour won huge majorities with the backing of only one in four of registered voters. The alternative vote (AV) system would enshrine coalition politics and make it almost impossible for smaller parties to win a seat in Parliament.

As a previous blog said: “Surely the point is that an unfair voting system reflects a broken political system. Traditional bourgeois politics is more about managing state structures on behalf of corporate and financial interests, than offering real choice.”

The experience in of elections to the Scottish Parliament, where a mixture of proportional representation (PR) and FPTP prevails, is salutory. PR does not increase the power of voters, but significantly increases the level of horse-trading and jobs for the boys and girls.

Since 1999, first Labour, then the SNP, have led minority governments, and none of them have been able to change the reality that one in seven Scots lives in dire poverty, or prevent youth unemployment soaring. Currently more than 20% of 18 to 24 year olds are out of a job, the highest level since comparable records began in 1992.

Labour leader Ian Gray claims that if elected this time, they will “eradicate youth unemployment”. This is nothing more than hot air and is rich coming from a party that, when in office, presided over the conditions that led to the current job crisis.

In the televised election debate, all the main parties refused to say how many public sector jobs they would cut in the course of the next parliament. One in four Scots work in the public sector. Finance Secretary John Swinney has admitted that 30,000 jobs are likely to go. The axe is already falling in the NHS and in voluntary sector organisations who deliver care services for councils.

The SNP have promised time and again to hold a referendum on independence but it is again retreating into the future. Polls have told them that people won’t vote for it while the economic situation continues to be so desperate.

The Welsh Assembly elections are an irrelevance for most voters. In March, by an almost two to one majority of the 35% of people who voted, a referendum gave the Welsh Assembly Government new primary law-making powers.

But it does them little good.

Successful candidates still don’t have any power over the economy – the single most important concern to most people. Wales remains entirely dependent on Westminster for a block grant, so, like the councils of England, Assembly Members are reduced to arguing over how to allocate the cuts in education, health and every other part of public sector the ConDem coalition has decided are needed to deal with the national debt.

At a hustings in Carmarthenshire East, the main parties’ candidates – Plaid Cymru, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative were asked whether a referendum, similar to that in Iceland, should be held to allow the people of Wales to vote on the decisions to implement cuts in services. All hid behind the parliamentary system falsely claiming that the forthcoming election gives voters the opportunity to express their opinion.

And that’s about right. An “opinion” that counts for very little indeed. Another good reason to hang on to your precious vote on Thursday.

A World to Win editorial team

To listen to the supporters of the Alternative Vote (AV) system, you would think that a “Yes” vote in the May 5 referendum would lead to a miraculous new lease of life for the clapped-out parliamentary democracy we have now.

A letter that came through my door the other day claims that AV will lead to MPs working harder, give voters a stronger voice and tackle “jobs for life” at Westminster. Under AV, voters can rank candidates if they want to. The preferences of bottom candidates are redistributed until someone has 50% of the votes. Following the 2010 election two-thirds of MPs lacked majority support, the highest figure in British political history.

But evidence suggests AV is not exactly a lot “fairer” than the present first-past-the-post (FTTP) system where the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner. The real outcome of AV, planned or otherwise, would be coalition politics on a grand and lasting scale.

In an indirect way, the AV campaign reflects the break-up of the two-party system in the period of corporate-driven globalisation. Where Old Labour, at least sometimes, did not totally identify with big business and finance, its 21^st century version does. The Tories under David Cameron have made themselves a successor to Blair rather than Thatcher.

In 1951, the two main parties polled 96.8% of the total electorate between them. By last year, the figure had slumped to 65.1%. Yet the voting system continues to reward Labour and the Tories, who captured 86% of the seats in the House of Commons last May.

All parties are concerned to win the votes of the so-called “squeezed middle” and their concern is what the money markets and transnational corporations think about their policies. So, for example, the Electoral Reform Society, which backs the “Yes” campaign, says: “It [AV] encourages candidates to chase second- and third-preferences, which lessens the need for negative campaigning (one doesn't want to alienate the supporters of another candidate whose second preferences one wants) and rewards broad-church policies.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband’s message at the launch of the “Yes” campaign was similar, claiming that “AV would encourage us to build bridges, not barriers, between parties so that we can persuade more voters of our case” before adding: “I believe today’s political culture, which only encourages division, profoundly damages belief in politics.

Most Labour MPs are against AV, which is not surprising because their party only needs a three-point lead in votes in order to secure an overall majority under FTTP, whereas the Conservatives need about an 11 point lead. Miliband, like Blair, is a “moderniser”, despite what his MPs might want. As to the “fairness” of AV, that is not at all clear cut, as a report by nef makes clear. The think-tank has developed an index of “voter power”. Its report says: “AV would bring an increase in the average power of UK voters from 0.285 of a vote to 0.352 of a vote, where a score of one is a fair vote.”

Nic Mark, the creator of nef's voter power index, says AV would bring some improvements but would not get rid of the main problems. "Unfortunately, whatever the outcome of the referendum, politicians will still largely ignore voters in safe seats, while they spend most of their time, money and energy on voters in marginal constituencies."

Surely the point is that an unfair voting system reflects a broken political system. Traditional bourgeois politics is more about managing state structures on behalf of corporate and financial interests, than offering real choice. The last government bailed out the banks and the Coalition is cutting the deficit to appease the money markets. Whatever the voting system, this would have been the outcome.

So I can’t get worked up about the AV referendum and will withhold my vote. Democracy cannot end with the Westminster model. My energies, therefore, will be directed to working for completely new forms of democratic government around the concept of People’s Assemblies.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

News today that Britain’s voting system is said to be “broken” comes as no surprise. What is left unsaid in a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), however, is that the political system itself is in a state of terminal decline.

The IPPR report Worst of Both Worlds explains in convincing detail why the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system is increasingly undemocratic and why things can only get worse.

it found that just 1.8 per cent of the electorate - less than 450,000 voters - decided the outcome of the May election in 108 marginal constituencies. “The overwhelming majority of us live in safe seats where we are increasingly neglected by the political parties both during and between elections –and where we have little chance of influencing the result of general elections,” the report notes.

As we know, the election produced a hung parliament and Britain’s first peacetime coalition government since the 1930s. Drawing on academic research, and conducting its own analysis of voting election data, the IPPR report suggests that the 2010 election result was not a one-off aberration.

“Instead, we believe it reflects long-term changes in voting patterns across the UK – declining support for the two main parties and divergent support for them across the nations and regions of the UK – that significantly increase the likelihood of hung parliaments in the future. Unless FPTP is reformed the UK will be left in the ‘worst of both worlds’: a voting system that neither delivers fair representation nor single-party majority government.”

The report shows the dramatic shift away from Labour and the Tories over the last 60 years. In 1951, the parties polled 96.8% of the total electorate between them at that year’s general election. By last year, the figure had slumped to 65.1%. Yet the voting system continues to reward Labour and the Tories, who between them won 86% of the seats in the House of Commons last May .

The rise in support for third parties makes it more difficult for individual MPs to secure a majority of support (50% or more) among their local electorate, which, says the IPPR, raises serious questions about the legitimacy of MPs to represent their constituents. “It also makes it much harder for governments to win an overall majority nationally, which again undermines the representativeness of governments formed under FPTP.”

The IPPR, which was a strong supporter of New Labour governments, is concerned that “Britain will become increasingly divided electorally, and governments will be formed that lack widespread support across the country”.

The report will lend support to those campaigning for the alternative vote (AV) system in the referendum scheduled for the coming May. This has already led to some bizarre alliances with, for example, some trade unions joining with right-wing Tories in a bid to block a “Yes vote”. Most Labour MPs are against AV, which is not surprising because their party only needs a three-point lead in votes in order to secure an overall majority, whereas the Conservatives need about an 11 point lead.

But surely the point is that an unfair voting system reflects a broken political system, as reflected the decline in voter turn-out (especially among new generations). Increasingly, politics is part of a state structure where corporate and financial interests predominate. The last government bailed out the banks and the Coalition is cutting the deficit to appease the money markets.

Over the last 30 years of globalisation, Parliaments and governments have become bit players in a world dominated by ultra-powerful transnational interests. No amount of fiddling with the voting system will change that. A transition to new forms of democratic government around the concept of People’s Assemblies is what beckons in 2011.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor