British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that he will hold an electoral reform referendum early in the next Parliament, if his government is re-elected in 2010. But rather than proposing proportional representation, Brown will put forward the Alternative Vote, another winner-take-all system with many of the same flaws as first-past-the-post. (See FVC paper: “The Alternative Vote: It’s no solution to the democratic deficit”.)

The Electoral Reform Society (UK) recently said: “The key test of credibility of any referendum hinges on whether the new system constitutes a radical break with the past. Voters expect a choice at a referendum, between the old politics of First-Past-the-Post, and a genuinely fresh alternative. We'd remind the Prime Minister that a choice between the current system and the likes of the Alternative Vote is barely a choice at all.”

The Vote for a Change (UK) coalition, which had been pushing for a referendum in conjunction with the 2010 British election, said: “Labour promised in its 1997 manifesto a referendum on PR. The Alternative Vote is not proportional - so this is a step-back from that 1997 commitment”.

“Give voters a real choice over the system,” the campaign said in a statement yesterday: “it should not be the Government dictating the system that is on offer.”