Electoral Reform Society: The Brown roadmap - promise but few signposts

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Wednesday, 04, Jul 2007 12:00

Labour’s grand constitutional settlement unveiled.

The Electoral Reform Society welcomed the first glimpse of Gordon Brown’s package of constitutional reforms.

Dr Ken Ritchie, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society said:

“There is much to celebrate in today’s proposals. Debates on the voting age and the timing of elections are long overdue. And we welcome the promise of the publication of the government’s review of electoral systems, a mere six years after Labour made it a manifesto commitment.

Brown’s ‘road map’ includes sweeping changes to the operation of the royal prerogative and the right to protest, but does not yet offer any specific commitments to overhaul our outdated elections.

Dr Ritchie added:

“I’m sure Brian Haw must be happy that his living arrangements seem to have been clarified for the time being. But we do wonder what the future holds for Britain’s 45 million voters. This is a roadmap with few signposts, and the public need to know that when this debate kicks off that political self interest won’t keep anything off the agenda.

“Brown wants to restore public trust in our democracy, and we can’t fail to welcome that spirit. But he must ensure that this debate gives real power to real people to make real changes in our political life.”

NOTES:

• The Government’s Green Paper, The Governance of Britain, is available here: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm71/7170/7170.asp

• Brown, questioned on the campaign trail explained that he was “not closed to electoral reform at all” on the campaign trail. A complete transcript of Brown’s speech is here: http://fabians.org.uk/events/hustings-07-leaders/speech