Scare mongering and communist baiting by the supporters of AV will fool no one. Indeed, writes general secretary Robert Griffiths to newspaper editors, our position on electoral reform, first defined in 1944 is more consistent than the record of other political forces.
April 28 2011
Dear Editor,
Supporters of the Alternative Vote scheme are making much of the fact that the Communist Party urges a 'No' vote in Thursday's referendum.
Our party has even been bracketed with fascists as though we, too, are enemies of a fair voting system and democracy.
Britain's Communist Party has regularly contested elections at every level since its foundation in 1920.
Our evidence to the Speaker's Conference in 1944 set out why we support the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies (STV-MMC), rather than the AV or First Past the Post systems.
STV-MMC would enable electors to express their full range of preferences without fear of 'wasting' their vote. Unlike the other systems, it would produce an elected body that broadly represents people's preferences. It would also retain the direct link between elected representatives and their constituencies.
The AV scheme, on the other hand, is indeed Nick Clegg's 'miserable little compromise', cobbled together between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats whose top priority is to slash and privatise our public services while launching yet more foreign wars.
The Communist Party refuses to be diverted by AV and rejects the insulting, anti-democratic and anti-working class arguments put forward by both camps in the referendum campaign.
Yours faithfully,
ROBERT GRIFFITHS
General Secretary
Communist Party of Britain
No comments:
Post a Comment