Yes to Alternative Vote debate

OBV’s Director hit all the right notes at the Lib Dem spring conference yesterday. In a maiden speech on the main platform of a Lib Dem conference Woolley addressed delegates in the issue of the Alternative Vote (AV)

Blogging on the Guardian site Andrew Sparrow noted:

‘Simon Woolley, the Operation Black Vote director, is speaking now about the case for the alternative vote. There haven't been many rousing speeches at this conference so far, but Woolley is getting a tremendous reception.

'The AV campaign isn't about any single party,' he said. 'It's about democracy.’

He informed a packed conference centre that it would be absurd to miss this, ‘once in a generation opportunity to improve our democracy’. Adding, ‘Our politics can only improve when more of the electorate has a voice and stake in the system’. He rounded on the No vote campaigners, for their scaremongering and bald face lies, ‘On the BNP website’, he argued, ‘they are clearly urging their supporters to vote no to AV, so why are the No vote campaigners arguing the opposite? ’.

Woolley used his speech to commend the party for having passed a resolution that will help BME candidates secure seats with a fighting chance of being successful. ‘You know as well as I do’, he informed them, that the party needs to be more inclusive and representative’. But he ended on a high, telling delegates to go out on the street to win the AV debate with an unequivocal message: ‘A stronger democracy demands Yes to the AV’.