Electoral reform may be political suicide for McConnell; Holyrood

One step forward, two steps back. Progress towards electoral reform in local government has never exactly followed a straight line.

Last week's agreement between Jack McConnell and Jim Wallace on a draft bill to implement proportional representation (PR) has provoked the emergence of a heavyweight Labour campaign to prevent the bill becoming law. The Scottish Labour Executive, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), powerful trades unions and a host of backbenchers have placed their tanks firmly on Jack McConnell's lawn. The First Minister now faces the prospect of taking on his entire party over electoral reform.

The sight of LibDem leader Wallace claiming victory on PR at his party's conference this week will stick in Labour throats. The consultation within Labour over the summer demonstrated almost total opposition to changing the voting system for local government elections. Labour people do not understand how their leader can ignore their settled will.

McConnell's aides insisted last week that he had given no assurances, whatever the LibDems think, and that the offer of a draft bill was no commitment. Nobody is quite sure what status this bill would have, or even if it would be put before parliament. A perfectly serviceable bill on electoral reform for local government, moved by Tricia Marwick of the SNP, was dumped on the legislative rubbish heap last week. Who is to say that the forthcoming Labour bill might not meet the same fate?

If PR is implemented for local elections in 2007 there will be no fewer than four different systems of election in Scotland: the single transferable vote for local elections; the additional member system with regional lists for the Scottish parliament; first past the post for Westminster; and the all-Scotland list for the European elections. This will try the patience of voters to breaking point - and it is already difficult enough to get people into the polling booths.

The post-election parliamentary landscape may be very different anyway. The increasing tendency for single-issue and fringe party candidates to win seats will be used to defend the old certainties of first past the post. Imagine a Scottish parliament after May crawling with anti-hospital closure MSPs, renegade nationalists, H'angus the Monkeys, Greens, reds and even a few blues.

Opponents of PR see stable government under threat. It is bad enough having to conduct coalition horse-trading between the LibDems and Labour in the glare of public cynicism. Imagine trying to placate a parliament where the balance of power was held by independents! And there are many in Labour who feel McConnell should go for a minority administration rather than allow the LibDems to walk all over him. The Scottish parliament, some feel, could become the strongest argument yet against extending PR.

This argument has already largely won over Number 10. It is the reason PR is now almost certainly off the agenda in Westminster. The experience of the Scottish parliament has convinced Tony Blair's advisers that it would be a mistake to ditch first past the post for Westminster elections. Britain likes firm and stable government and expects to see manifesto policies implemented, not fudged in post- election deals.

The battle for PR in the UK seems lost, but this does not undermine the case for introducing fair voting for local elections, where politics is very different. Nor does it undermine the case for PR in the Scottish parliament. Despite all the forecasts of doom, we are a long way from seeing independents dominating the Scottish coalition. Independents are, by their nature, independent, and are most unlikely to agree a common programme.

The move towards voting for minority parties and independents may be what the Scottish people wish to see. There is a profound antipathy to party politics among British people. And the parties only have themselves to blame. It is spin and broken promises that have made voters look favourably on independent candidates who at least seem to stand for something - even if in some cases it is only themselves.

Being able to elect a diversity of MSPs may actually encourage people to vote in 2003. There are so few policy differences between the main parties, especially now that the SNP have abandoned their tax-raising Penny for Scotland, that it is hard for voters to distinguish between them. If they all sound the same, why bother to vote? At least with the Greens and Scottish Socialists some independent views are being expressed in Holyrood.

And the argument for PR at local level is entirely different again. Turnouts are dismally low for council elections and the uniformity of outcome is part of the problem. What is the point of voting when there is no possibility of overturning Labour dominance of west central Scotland because the electoral system is so weighted in their favour?

But Labour's council dominance is weaker than people realise. Labour has outright control in only 13 of the 32 Scottish councils - down from 20 in 1995. With PR they would lose outright control in all but one. Even in Glasgow, Labour would be in a minority. In many other councils they would face tough Liberal-SNP alliances. Electoral reform would not revive local democracy overnight, but it would change the character of local politics at a stroke.

The cronyism rampant in the Labour heartlands, as revealed in the Sinclair report into the Fife Third Age charity affair, would be dealt a major blow. The complex over-lapping networks of Labour influence, revealed in microcosm in the various sub-lets of Henry McLeish's constituency office, would be unravelled. People would have a reason for standing in local elections. What point is there in being a councillor in, say, Midlothian where there is only one non- Labour member? The conclusion of all the reports - McIntosh, Kerley etc - into local democracy have come to the same conclusion. PR would bring real opposition and accountability to council chambers.

Nobody should underestimate the electoral cost to Labour of PR, and nor should anyone underestimate the determination of Labour councillors to resist handing the political advantage to their enemies.

It would indeed be a remarkable act of non-partisanship for McConnell to deliver PR. He will have to take on his own party. And we saw what happened to McLeish when he started implementing LibDem policies such as free personal care against the instincts of the Labour tribe. Jack McConnell will have to be very sure of the undying affections of his party if he is to ask so many of them to commit political hara-kiri.

Copyright 2002
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