Make My Vote Count

The campaign for voter choice and a more representative parliament

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Response to Brown's AV referendum commitment

 
"We've changed the Government's position and we'll do it again"

That is our rallying cry in response to Gordon Brown's announcement this afternoon that the Labour Party will commit to holding a referendum on the Alternative Vote early in the next Parliament.

Tweet, update your Facebook status, text or email people getting the message out that Brown has recognised the strength of our  arguments but appears to have fluffed his big moment. We need a democratising and empowering referendum on electoralreform before - or on the same day as - the next general election, and not after.

Six months ago I never would have believed that the Prime Minister would stand up at Labour Conference and effectively announce that First-Past-the-Post was unjustifiable in today's political world. Electoral reform is now seen as a pressing priority that received not just paragraphs in Brown's speech but a proposed timetable for delivery too.

That is the power of your actions. That is the pressure for change that you and everyone involved in Make Votes Count and the Vote for a Change campaign has created this year.

We've won the basic arguments. Thanks to your efforts the Prime Minister has conceded that if politics is to be "more open, more  plural, more local, more democratic then big changes need to be made" - including changing the voting system.

BUT - and this is a huge but - the Government has failed to find the right policy. What Brown has announced satisfies no-one and delivers nothing. Cynically, it could be seen as an attempt to close down the debate on electoral reform this side of the General Election. We cannot allow that to happen.

That is why I am asking you straight away to write to Gordon Brown, and to your MP (or Labour parliamentary candidate if you know
them), strongly putting the case for real electoral reform, and for an election day referendum.

(i) The Government has the chance and the power to act now, this side of the General Election.
(ii) Labour promised in its 1997 manifesto a referendum on PR. The Alternative Vote is not proportional - so this is a step-back from that 1997 commitment.
(iii) Give voters a real choice over the system: it should not be the Government dictating the system that is on offer.

Send your letter to: The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA

Email or write to your MP via http://www.writetothem.com

We ramped up the pressure in the days before the Conference (from targeting MPs in their constituencies with our Gravy Train, to a  hillside message to Gordon, to parking the Gravy Train outside the Conference centre http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/blog). And - with  your help - we shall be doing so again in the coming days and weeks.

We have moved mountains already and we shall move them again.

Posted: 30/09/09

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