AV campaign reject the ‘No’ argument about it boosting BNP

London Assembly Member Murad Qureshi writes a strongly worded rebuttal to Baroness Warsi's recent claims about the BNP and the Alternative Vote (AV). Arguing that AV will in fact damage the BNP rather than boost them a yes vote for AV is a no vote to the BNP.

The recent column by Sayeeda Warsi in Eastern Eye was the worst type of scaremongering, clearly aimed at smearing the Alternative Vote (AV) referendum ‘Yes’ vote among Asian voters.

Let’s be clear from the outset about what exactly is being proposed in this referendum on May 5, because the case against AV’s opponents would rather you didn’t know what’s really on offer. AV is our chance to make all MPs work harder, and for all of us to have more say on Election Day. And let’s be clear also that the British National Party’s (BNP) Nick Griffin is voting No on May 5. While the Yes campaign has both Operation Black Vote and the Muslim Council of Britain on side, the BNP are campaigning for a No vote.

AV is simple. Instead of just placing an ‘X’ against the name of the candidate voters would like to see elected, they will be asked to put the candidates they like in order of preference. With AV, if your favourite candidate can’t make it, you can still have a say. This is exactly what voters in London do during the mayoral contest where all voters get two choices – and with it, more chance of deciding the outcome.

Most elections in Britain are decided by a handful of voters, in a handful of seats, so this is a chance for all of us to have more of a say on polling day. Most of us have MPs who most of us didn’t vote for, and AV deals with it. It is, and can no longer be the case, that politicians can scrape by with the endorsement of 20-30 per cent of the electorate. AV means all MPs have to aim for majority support. Politicians will have to widen their appeal beyond their core constituency. In order for MPs to gain 50 per cent of voter support, they would need to devise policies and positions which have a wider support.

AV forces candidates to reach out to more of the communities they seek to represent and incumbents to work harder between elections to keep their wider electorate on side. And that’s why the BNP are calling on all their supporters to vote No – because extremists who can’t reach out have no future with AV.

Whenever the BNP have gained public office in town halls across Britain, they have sneaked in – in every case, opposed by the mainstream majority. By exploiting low turnout and a split field they can and do scrape in with minority support. And it is a trick that Griffin’s BNP would like to repeat at Westminster.

Leading pollster Peter Kellner has long argued that AV is the best system to keep the BNP at bay, something that Sayeeda Warsi has clearly not appreciated, or perhaps chosen to ignore. It is understandable that she is quiet on the subject of her fellow No campaigners. But I believe she does have some form on pandering to the BNP herself under the system she is now defending. When she stood to be an MP in Dewsbury at the last election, I feel she encouraged BNP supporters to vote for her, suggesting in her literature that a vote for the BNP was wasted and would be better if electors voted Conservative in order to keep Labour out.

Intriguingly enough, at the time the Lib Dem vote was a similar number to the BNP, yet she made no attempt to woo them. What Warsi’s actions illustrate well is how the current First Past the Post system has encouraged the kind of behaviour she has pinned on an anti-extremist voting system. Double standards are, of course, the order of the day.

We have an unelected politician working at the behest of her political sugar daddy the prime minister – who himself got elected as Tory leader through a form of AV. This is just another shoddy smear from a No campaign that can’t find an honest argument for keeping the current system. Warsi has the unenviable position of being in concert with the BNP in this referendum. Eastern Eye readers should make up their own minds when they head to vote on May 5.

Murad Qureshi

London Assembly member