Why publicans should vote 'yes' to AV
Given the remorseless attacks that were made on our industry by the last Labour Government, and now by the Coalition Government, publicans could be forgiven for saying "a plague on all your houses".
But washing our hands of politics isn't an option, given just how political licensing has now become. On the 5th May we have an opportunity to vote on whether to replace the 'first-past-the-post' electoral system with the 'alternative vote'. I want to explain why publicans should vote 'yes' to AV.
Firstly, there is the fundamental argument about democracy. In the 1950s we had class-based, two party politics and 95% of electors voted either Tory or Labour.
First-past-the-post works perfectly for this scenario and MPs and Governments were usually elected with more than 50% of the popular vote. Elected politicians could legitimately say "we represent the will of the majority of voters, we have a democratic mandate".
Multi-part system
Today only 65% of electors support the 'big three' parties at elections, and we now have a truly multi-party system. Over the past 40 years governments and individual MPs have increasingly been elected with less than half the votes cast.
At the last election only a third of MPs captured more than half of the votes. Two thirds of them were elected with less than half, some with less than a third. It therefore follows that most of us are now represented by MPs that most of us didn't vote for. This represents a huge democratic deficit.
Local issues
But why should publicans specifically support AV? We're frequently told to lobby our local MP on issues such as licensing reform - and many have.
The truth is, it hasn't worked because most MPs are elected to safe seats, and can rely on the 'tribal vote' to return them to Westminster. They are lobby fodder and they see obedience to the party whips as being the best way to further their careers.
What AV will do is make those MPs who were elected by a minority of voters think about what they've got to do to attract the all-important second preference votes needed to get them past the 50% support mark, and back into Parliament.
Constituency MPs will have to become much more independent of the party line, and much more responsive to local needs, if they are to broaden their appeal beyond the tribal support that so many of them have relied upon to give them a job for life in safe seats.
Pub support
A change to AV means that MPs can do what they should do: champion local issues on a national stage.
Support for the pub is an issue with enormous potential for galvanising public support locally, and every MP likes to be photographed with a pint in their hand, down the local, at election time.
Every pub is a mini parliament. Let's make our parliamentary candidates work for our support, and let's make 'localism' work for us. For that we need a new voting system.
Paul Chase is a Director and Head of UK Compliance at CPL Training.
