Quote:
Originally Posted by punky
Its the Tories that have offered the referendum. The Lib Dems haven't agreed to that yet. The Lib Dems want to bring AV in unconditionally whether the public want it or not. So if the Lib Dems get their way (and they have ALL the power at the moment) I won't even get a chance to vote. Labour have offered unconditionally to introduct AV. So if they form a coalition I still won't get a say in it.
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The Lib Dems want
STV, not AV. We'll find out soon enough (well, hopefully soon enough!) whether the Labour & Tory offers of AV are enough for them.
I can find
nothing that says that the Lib Dems want to bring in electoral reform unconditionally, whether the public want it or not, & I find it hard to believe they'd consider wanting to introduce a change such as that without any referendum (given that they want referendums on a proper written constitution; Euro entry (if economically viable to bother in the first place etc. etc.); EU in/out (if a fundamental change is signed up to), etc.).
When the Labour Government proposed its constitutional reform bill to introduce a referendum on the AV system, the Lib Dems tabled amendments to add STV instead of AV.[which were then defeated, before the whole bill later got canned prior to the dissolution of Parliament].
What other references I can find, say the Lib Dems support a referendum on electoral reform, not immediate legislation
Labour have offered immediate legislation to bring in AV, that doesn't mean the Lib Dems don't want a referendum - it is what Labour are offering in hope of bribing them.
And as mentioned earlier in the thread, if a Lib-Lab pact tried to pass a bill to bring in AV without a referendum, it could easily fail anyway. Those who think it would be unfair without a referendum would vote no, while many Labour MPs would vote no alongside Tory MPs simply because Labour hates PR as much as they do.