Labour plans to guarantee referendum on electoral system reform

[oldironside]

"Gordon Brown is to introduce a law to guarantee that a re-elected Labour government would hold a referendum within two years on abolishing Britain's first-past-the-post system for elections to the Westminster parliament.

Electoral reformers hailed the move to abolish the winner takes all system which gave Labour 55% of the seats in the House of Commons in 2005 on an overall share of just 35.3% of the vote.

Ministers are to introduce paving legislation within months to ensure a referendum by October 2011 on replacing the first-past-the-post system with the Alternative Vote (AV) system.

Under the current system voters place an X against the name of just one candidate; the winner is the candidate with the most votes. Critics say the votes for other candidates count for nothing."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/01/electoral-system-reform-referendum-plan

This I will believe the day that I see it.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

1. If somehow Labour are re-elected with a working majority

I expect this to be quietly-dropped. I imagine it's there as a sweetener for the Lib Dems in a Hung Parliament situation.