Govt’s ‘recipe for disaster’ on AV referendum – SNP
By politics.co.uk staff
The government is going against official recommendations by forcing through electoral changes less than six months before Holyrood elections in May, say the SNP.
Angus MacNeil, an SNP MP, has written to the Lib Dem Scottish secretary Michael Moore to argue that by holding Scottish elections on the same day as the AV referendum the government is setting up a “recipe for disaster”.
He accuses the government of back-tracking from the official Gould report on the troubled Holyrood election in 2007.
“Not only are we to have two elections in one day, but electoral administrators are again to be left with the impossible task of implementing new legislation in an impossible timescale,” Mr MacNeil said.
“The coalition government is making a mockery of the Gould report.
“The Scottish secretary seems hell bent on delivering a Lib Dem vanity project regardless of the impact on democracy in Scotland.”
All the devolved administrations have objected to holding the referendum on the same day as Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections – saying it will overshadow devolved issues.
The 2007 elections were marred by confusion over electoral rules. The Gould report concluded that new changes, such as those in the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill, should not take effect within six months of the next election.
It also recommended elections for different tiers of government should not take place on the same day.
The coalition government has insisted on holding the referendum concurrently with devolved and local elections – ostensibly to save costs, but potentially inflating the turnout on polling day, which many Lib Dems hope will increase the chances of a ‘Yes’ vote.
The referendum was the most significant concession drawn from the Tories during the coalition negotiations. Most Conservatives are implacably opposed to any change in the voting system.
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