Yes to AV - Because it's all about the message

(Above) My first ever piece of political propoganda

If your age and citizenship gives you the chance to vote Yes to AV in the upcoming UK referendum, you should do take it.

Not because it's more or less fair, nor because it will advantage some party over another, nor because lots of money is at stake. Nor even because the 'No' campaign is so mendaciously lacking in transparency about its true motivations.

You should vote yes because our democratic system is outdated and broken in all sorts of ways, and a 'No' vote at this referendum will be relentlessly exploited by anyone who wants everything to stay just the way it is. 

Think the civil service is broken? A 'no' vote will be used to prevent reform there. Think the Lords should be reformed? A 'no' vote will be used to stifle that too. Want to see MPs given really different career incentives, to generate better patterns of behaviour? 'No' thanks. Want to see major democratic innovations like participatory budgetting given real scale, and real teeth? 'No' means 'no' there too. 

The last really major upgrade to the way our democracy works was the Parliament Act, way back in 1911. If it takes another 100 years to to adjust to the reality of a post-deferential, ICT mediated world, I really can't see our country doing very well.

Comments

[gerv]

You seem to be saying that we should vote Yes to AV because if we vote No, people will employ fallacious arguments about the meaning of the vote. How does voting Yes guard against this problem?

Particularly, why do you think that Yes to AV means yes to reforming the civil service, Lords reform, or participatory budgetting? Surely that connection is just as fallacious?

No to AV means no to AV, not to anything else. Yes to AV means yes to AV, not to anything else. (Well, unless it actually means yes to PR, of course...)