Cynical, I know - but not unreasonable. Politics is give and take (or give and give, in the case of the Lib Dems in the current government). Millions will suffer as a result the unprecedented ideological economic programme of this government, and sacrificing much needed electoral reform to protect the interests of the poorest in society is worth considering very seriously.
If AV is rejected at referendum, goes the argument, the Lib Dems will despair. They will have sold their principles for nothing, and will begin to agitate. They will fragment under the weight of the savage economic measures being carried out in their name, and eventually the coalition will split. There will be a new general election, which Labour will be able capitalise on as the party of government spending.
All well and good - and if this was the guaranteed outcome, it may be worth considering. There will be many in Labour who support this strategy, and there are already moves by some to renege on their former manifesto commitment to electoral reform by quibbling over boundary changes.
The real outcome of the AV referendum is much more difficult to predict, however. There is a huge degree of chaos in the system that makes the above analysis of cause and effect look highly questionable. Here are just a few of the factors which confuse the argument.
The coalition government is split on the right as well as on the left. A 'yes' vote in the AV referendum may well cause a similar fragmentation of coalition support in the Conservatives. Powerful backbenchers like John Redwood would start to question how their leadership was outfoxed on electoral reform, and they could eventually destabilise the coalition by demanding compensatory concessions. This would put further strain on the bond with the Lib Dems, who might feel that they have sacrificed enough already.
Another factor to consider is that the Lib Dems may split the coalition even if they get their way on AV. If a change to the voting system is passed, they will have got what they wanted - and there may be little to sustain their interest in continuing in the coalition. The left of the Liberal Democrats will certainly be less prepared to suffer constant criticism and loss of public support just to help their coalition partners carry out ideological economic reforms.
Conversely, there may be no appetite amongst Lib Dems to leave the coalition even if they fail to secure electoral reform. The party is itself a coalition of social liberal migrants from the other two parties, and contains a very large number of economic right-wingers. We are learning the hard way that they are not the natural party of the progressive left they have claimed, and that many Lib Dems actively support the cuts to public services. To paraphrase Tony Blair: it may be worse than that, they may actually believe it.
And finally, we don't yet know what kind of party Labour will be when the referendum is held. The leadership election could produce any number of different kinds of Labour Party. And if we are weighing the suffering of our poorest citizens against the prospect of electoral reform, we need to know that Labour will not conduct Conservative-lite economic reforms themselves. Alistair Darling's warning of proposed Thatcherite spending cuts are not worth sacrificing electoral reform for. In order to justify our voting against AV, Labour would need to offer assurances that cuts would be much slower and better targeted, and that a much greater emphasis would be placed on taxation to cut the deficit.
With so many complex and unpredictable factors in play, it is impossible to say which referendum outcome will produce which result. In which case, the safest way to vote is on the issue itself. FPP disenfranchises millions in safe seats across the country, leading to a political debate skewed in favour of a handful of natural conservatives in swing seats. This cannot be allowed to continue if we are to secure the future of Social Democracy in the United Kingdom.
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