Daniel Kawczynski MP opposing electoral reform
Tuesday 7th September 2010, 9:43AM BST.
Controversial plans for a referendum to change Britain’s voting system could help extremists like the BNP get elected, Shropshire MPDaniel Kawczynski has warned as the move cleared its first hurdle in the Commons.
Mr Kawczynski, who has vowed to campaign “vigorously” against the proposals, said the alternative vote system would “help extremist parties”.
“BNP second preferences could decide the outcome of a seat,” he told the Commons.
A bill introducing a referendum on switching from first-past-the-post to the alternative vote system, changes to constituency boundaries and fewer MPs, was backed by 328 votes to 269.
But although the legislation paving the way for a referendum on May 5 next year was passed with a majority of 59 last night, there were signs of the tensions to come between coalition partners.
Tory backbenchers lined up to speak against changing the first-past-the-post system, with one claiming it was the “high price we have to pay” for the alliance with the Liberal Democrats — who have long demanded electoral reform.
Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Mr Kawczynski is one of 44 Tory rebels, including Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies, who have signed a parliamentary motion demanding the date of the national vote on the controversial alternative voting system be switched.
But a concerted effort by Conservative whips minimised any rebellion, with both Mr Kawczynski, Mr Davies and others voting with the Government.
However, Mr Kawczynski, Tory chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for the promotion of first-past-the-post, told the debate: “I think it’s the equivalent of watching Nero fiddle while Rome burns.
“We have so many problems in our country yet we are being distracted by this ridiculous referendum which is going to cost taxpayers between £80 million and £100 million.”
He went on: “I believe in one man, one vote. Under AV, some people will have two votes while others will have only one. How can that be fair?”
“Most people are happy with the way they elect us.
“There should be one voting system for all elections in the United Kingdom and that should be first-past-the-post,” he added.
David Cameron broke his paternity leave to head off bitter opposition from his own MPs. The Prime Minister underlined the importance of the referendum to the coalition by bringing his paternity leave to an early end to vote in the Commons.
By London Reporter Sunita Patel
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“could help extremists like the BNP get elected” – such nonsense, AV is not a proportional system, and secondly, do the people who vote BNP not deserve a vote?
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I couldn’t agree more.
Personally, whilst strongly I disagree with the majority of BNP policy, I support the right of their members to hold those views and to also have a voice when it comes to elections.
It’s quite undemocratic of Mr Kawczynski to suggest otherwise.
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Complete rubbish, the alternative vote (AV) system would make it harder for smaller parties to get elected.
AV would only help the lib dems.
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Fistly any academic study would show that the alternative vote is the system LEAST likely to elect a BNP member.
In order to get elected a BNP candidate would need to get more than 50% of the valid vote.
Most decent people would transfer to anyone rather than vote for them. For the seats they have won in local elections (first past the post) they often win with 30 percent of the vote or less. This would be impossible if people transfered against them.
David Kawczynski is confusing the Alternative vote (non proportional) with the single transferable vote (proportional), and even with STV they would have won a total of 0 seats in the election.
As to people being elected on the transfers of BNP voters, I am sorry but they are still voters (however misguided) and they all deserve a voice. When the BNP candidate is eliminated they will have to choose between the other poeple standing.
In summary we should not choose voting systems to twart the tiny minority that are the BNP.
If we did we would have to choose AV so David has got this completely wrong!
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I suppose to a self-serving careerist like Kawczynski, a patriotic party with substance and purpose would seem a bit extreme.
Extremists?….Who gave their full backing to Blair’s illegal wars? – The Tories did, not the BNP.
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Clearly Mr Kawczynski is not a fan of democracy. People might vote for the “wrong” party.
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Sir,
As a Politics lecturer in an FE college in the West Midlands, it’s not often I write to newspapers, but factually incorrect statements need to be challenged.
The statement “Controversial plans for a referendum to change Britain’s voting system could help extremists like the BNP get elected” is simply wrong.
An AS Government and Politics student writing the above would receive 0 marks for that claim.
Far from helping the BNP, the Alternative Vote would ensure, through voters preferences, that it would be impossible for the BNP to be elected. Why? Because they would need 50%+1 votes to win a Parliamentary seat.
Instead, the vast majority of voters would use their preferences to keep the BNP out of office.
Any good AS Government and Politics student would not have made such a basic mistake.
Whilst I welcome the debate on the electoral system, it should be a debate based on facts, not misinformaiton.
Yours faithfully,
Simon Foster
Birmingham.
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So, Mr Kawczynski is in favour of the undemocratic and antiquated system of first-past-the-post, and he would rather see us continue with the tired old one-party system, which allows despotic money grabbing MPs to get away, quite literally with murder, why are we not surprised. Isn’t this the same man that complained bitterly about Asian immigrants, when he was trying to get elected; and now he wants to stop the smaller political parties from changing things?
Presumably, he would like the public to believe that Tweedledee and Tweedledum are any different to Brown and Blair. But, if we’d had a genuine Parliamentary Opposition and genuine democracy, when Dr David Kelly was murdered, a few years ago, for exposing Labour’s lies and taking Britain into illegal wars, we would have been rid of the liars and crooks years ago. But, the Conservative and Lib-Dem parties were happy to keep their mouths shut and to ignore the brutal murder of one our top scientific weapons experts and allow the guilty to walk free. When this sort of thing can take place and brushed under the carpet, in dear old Blighty, then we have serious problems.
Instead of exposing this appalling crime, by ‘Dark Forces’, the Con-Dem’s bided their time and waited to gain political power. They, and their Labour pals, also carried on distorting the expenses system, which was abused by the vast majority of MPs, who regardless of their individual circumstances, or travel distance from Parliament, managed to arrive at exactly the maximum figure of £23,083, travel and subsistence allowance. Ask any bookmaker, to give you the betting odds against this type of coincidence taking place and the odds will be exponential, but it happens all the time and the despotic MPs continue to get away with it.
The arrogance and treachery of these people knows no bounds. They seem to think the general public are completely stupid, and God knows, they may be right in this assessment, because no matter what these crooks do, they keep on getting re-elected. In many parts of Britain, the three main parties can (and very often do) put a clown up for a parliamentary election and they succeed. This is mainly because the majority of people don’t bother to read the parties manifesto’s and continue to believe that the ideals of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties have not changed in 50 years.
The reasons for the parties’ change of philosophy can be traced back to the 1960’s, when an Oxford Don was invited to attend a meeting of the Communist Party. She decided to attend, more out of curiosity than actual support for this extremist group, but was shocked at the outcome. She explained that the very well know speaker, who was a major figure in the Labour party at that time, said; “The British people do not like extremism, so we have decided to abandon the Communist Party and move into the other parties. We will dominate the left wing of the Conservative party, the right wing of the Labour party and the whole of the Liberal party. This way, our Communist brothers will dominate the middle ground and completely control British politics for the foreseeable future”. The speaker was none other than Harold Wilson, and shortly afterwards, he was elected to lead the Labour Party and became Prime Minister.
So, Mr Kawczynski, are you still happy to continue with the first-past-the-post voting system, which has enabled left wing extremists to control our country for the past 60 years? As I am definitely not.
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The fact that you describe the parties that have led this country in the last 60 years as ‘left wing extremists’ simply shows just how far to the right your views are.
All of the Governments we have had in that period have been clustered atround the centre of politics, with the small degree of polarisation that we had in the ’60s and ’70s now even further diminished.
With the election of the recent Tory government we’re seeing attacks on public spending, and with the inevitable increase in unemployment, the upper hand is very much likely to to lie with greedy employers rather than with ordinary working people. I don’t think it is appropriate to reward the Lib Dems with a version of PR after their clear betrayal of all of their principles and most of their membership.
And of course, tied in with reforms are other changes which are designed to keep this grubby coalition in power for longer.
As for the BNP vote – it’s a non-issue under any system. Their performance in the recent elections was pretty disastrous by any measure, and under the AV system would be even worse.
The BNP’s direct antecedents in the NF, and the British Union of Fascists, their links with extremist groups in the US and elsewhere and the holocaust denying credentials of their leader clearly betray a long-term aim of scapegoating of immigrant communities and religious groups. The British people, other than those who are very poorly-educated or gullible, understand that, and regardless of voting system will treat them as the pariahs that they are.
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The BNP policies on law and order, getting prisoners to work for their keep and reahabilitation, green policies, taxation, education bringing back real teachers that actually want to teach proper subjects,(and giving them the powers to punish if the need arises ) funding university places , or a choice of civil or military national service, funding of apprenticeships ,self sufficiency in food productions and industry , get our forces out of all foreign countries and bring them back home and look after our borders, peak oil investing in new energy production using green methods, restoring our canals , railways , restoring farming , fishing etc, getting out of the EU , and use the money to fund the said projects, and many many more great ideas!!, is a good reason to vote BNP.
oh and, The BNP policies on law and order,deporting ILLEGAL immigrants and bogus asylum seekers of ALL races, If you want to work and live in Britain then welcome, if you abide by our laws, and it is in the country and the immigrants interest to be here of what ever race!
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Oh dear, where to begin…
Your list of fantasy policies really doesn’t stand up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny.
Firstly, prisoners working. There has always been an issue over prisoners working, as, especially at times of high unemployment they effectively introduce unfair competition into the jobs market, and take low-skilled jobs away from other (non-criminal) workers. Such jobs are hard to come by anyway since globalisation dictates that they are mostly done abroad these days.
Secondly, deporting illegal immigrants. Despite what you might read in the tabloids, we already do – lots of them in fact.
Thee problem is that many immigrants arrive in the country effectively stateless, having arrived either from countries where they cannot obtain passports etc., or having disposed of such items. I’m not aware of any country in the world that accepts people without the correct entry documents – so how would you go about this? It can eventually be done, but it’s not quick.
The idea that we could achieve self-sufficiency in food production is just risible. It wouldn’t matter how many people you kicked out on the basis of their colour, religion, sexual orientation etc. there still isn’t enough land to achieve that.
The damage to our trading position if we were to leave the EU would be unsurvivable – we’re not living in the cosy days of the Commonwealth – the rest of those countries, unlike the BNP, have moved with the times.
And finally, as for the idea that the BNP is ‘colour neutral’ in terms of their views on people – it’s just a lie. If you don’t believe me look at the many convictions of of BNP members and supporters assaulting and abusing people with non-white skins or who happen to follow a different primitive religion to the other primitive religion many people in the UK follow.
The BNP are a party whose policies are founded on hatred, bigotry and bullying. Nothing more, nothing less.
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I feel I must counter these scaremongering & misleading comments from Daniel Kawczynski MP, partly because he is plainly incorrect about AV & also because of his elected position others in society will take these factually weak opinions as facts.
First of all highlighted by other responses here, a change to AV is very, very unlikely to lead to extreme minority parties such as the BNP getting elected, especially as they are likely to be eliminated early on in the counting process & even if they last a couple of rounds into the count they are very unlikely to garner many 2nd or 3rd preferences from those voting for other parties, who find their racist & homophobic views offensive.
Daniel’s quote that “BNP second preferences could decide the outcome of a seat” is a total non-argument against AV, as what it actually highlights is that for BNP 1st choice votes to then be counted elsewhere as 2nd choice the BNP candidate has been elimated from ballot because he/she is least popular. Therefore those BNP votes have been transferred to other, largely less extreme candidiates. Daniel also states that all votes should be equal- but his logic here seems to be that they should be equal as long as you don’t vote for people he doesn’t like; not very democratic!
Daniel’s assertion that AV doesn’t equate to “one man one vote” is also incorrect- everyone has one vote, but with that vote they are able to rank the candidates they want to vote for in order of preference. If their stated 1st preference is for a candidate that is eliminated in the counting process that single vote is then transferred to their 2nd preference. It still counts as one vote because it’s original recipient is removed from the count at that stage & therefore no-one gets to vote twice.
I also think the argument about the timing of the referendum being bad with what is going on financially is an absolute joke, & stinks of someone clutching at straws for excuses to delay & derail much needed reforms. We have just had an election where 2/3 of all the MPs were elected with less than 50% support from their voting constituents, under a system where brazen, negative tactical voting is very easy to do & influence others to do. Boundary changes & equalization on their own will not sort this problem out, but AV reform will to a much greater extent.
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I have news for Mr Kawczynski – the British people are awakening to the truth about all the dirty tricks and anti-democratic practises which are adopted by the three main parties. And, the people will ultimately decide who THEY want to elect, and not who they’re TOLD to elect.
Just to recap a few facts; Isn’t it somewhat totalitarian to deny your opponent a fair chance in elections? Whether it’s the tired old first-past-the-post system, or this Stalinesque AV system, they’re both designed to be undemocratic and corrupt. The fairest method is straight forward PR, but that is clearly too democratic to be adopted by the Parliamentary brigade.
The appalling terms used to describe BNP members and voters are absolutely disgraceful and are now rather transparent. Calling your opponent wicked names is the mantra of Leon Trotsky, whose Communist ‘brothers’ are responsible for the horrific murders of over 120 million people, and still counting.
As Bertie Bert says; most people are now recognising that the BNP’s policies are genuine patriotic ideals. Throughout Britain’s history, patriots have fought and died to protect their loved ones, their neighbours and their extended families – their fellow citizens, whether they liked them or not. When our forebears made the ultimate sacrifice, they didn’t say; “I’ll go to war, but I’m not going to save Fred Bloggs, because he is a Tory”. They did it because it was the right and decent thing to do, and besides, Fred Bloggs has every right to vote for whoever he likes, and nobody can refuse him his God given rights.
I, and at least a million others choose to vote for the BNP, and nobody will stop me from doing so. And, eventually, everyone will see through the lies of the desperate men who are clinging to their Parliamentary lifeboats, in the vain hope that they will not drown, under the flood of sleaze which emanates from that place.
The three main parties choose to denigrate their opponents, as all despots have done in the past, so that nobody will listen to an alternative message. But, one way or another, people are getting to know the truth, and the best way to get the truth, is by not waiting to be sold on something, but to find out for yourself. Many people are now doing this, and the more the opposition attacks the BNP, the more notice people take of us. We are not going away, as this is our country, which our Fathers fought and died for. So, we will not dishonour their memory by running away, like rats from a sinking ship, like so many people are doing these days. We will stay and help regain our country, and we will still be here when the majority of the British people wake up to the truth.
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‘patriots have fought and died to protect their loved ones, their neighbours and their extended families – their fellow citizens, whether they liked them or not.’
In the Second world war, patriots fought and dies to protect their families from the scourge of Fascism that was sweeping Europe. The atrocities that were commited in the name of the sort of racial segregation still favoured by the BNP have since been denied by your leader, and he’s never apologised for that.
I think that tells us all we need to know about the BNP.
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So Daniel Kawczynski thinks that the BNP are extremists well if he wants extremists he had better look closer to home. Try the violent thugs of the UAF a group supported & back by his own party leader & many of it’s top members.
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If Daniel is so opposed to AV why didn’t he vote AGAINST it? Will speak against AV all day long if you let him, but doesn’t have the guts to vote against it! Is this the type of person we want representing us?!
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Kwaczaski and the other self-serving MP’s of this country have no interest in democracy. If they did they would support proportional representation. PR does what it says… parties are given a proportion of seats to votes cast! The old-gang parties don’t want their cosy little con disrupted by the BNP, after all…the BNP telling the truth would expose their greed and shallowness.
Ben Cadwallader uses the language of the old parties when denigrating the BNP…’racist and homophobic.’ Sorry Ben, one million who voted BNP in the Euro elections and the 560,000 who voted them in the general election, and that from standing in only 320 seats out of a possible 650, have heard all this nonsense before. Because they put British people first you call them racist, but where do you get ‘homophobic from, the dark recess of your mind I imagine.
No, the old-parties don’t want PR, or even the nonsense of AV, because they would see first hand democracy in action….and we can’t have that now…can we?
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Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas… that is the one reason he’s against it.
Factually wrong and knows his career as the representative for Shrewsbury & Atcham will be over if it gets in.
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Strikes me that Mr Kwaczynski objects to everything just to see his name in print.
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Peter, Your usual load of dribble. I am now 70 years of age and in that time I have voted for all the parties,I have seen them Destroying and Dismantling Great Britain over the years and making us 2nd class citizens in our own Country. Don’t fly our flag, change Christmas to Winter Festival etc. etc. Then the Germans who were responsible for the Holocaust telling us what to do thr’o the EU, and the French who we liberated and now hate us, All our freedom given away, When I see the names of the Battle Of Britain Pilots, some who gave their lives at only 19 years of age on the War Memorials in this country and abroad, I say to myself you gave your life for nothing. This is why I, and a lot of people of our age are voting BNP.We want our Country back.
.
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Hear hear John Jones. Give us back our country.
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John,
You’ve learnt little about politics in your 70 years, and apparently nothing from the lessons of history. The whole ‘Winter Festival’ thing was an invention of the tabloid press – you fell for it – Christmas has never been banned anywhere, nor have children been banned from singing ‘Baa Baa Black sheep’ etc.
Germans weren’t responsible for the Holocaust – Nazis were. The German people were tricked by vile propaganda into supporting a regime that sought to differentiate between people on grounds of race or religion. In supporting the BNP you have clearly fallen for the same sort of vile racist nonsense. Shame on you.
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good old tories, stuck in the 19th century still!! Reform must come NOW, we are denied real democracy in Shropshire because we just have safe seats for blue in the countryside and a safe red seat in telford, therefore for me who despise both red& blue my vote doesnt count, so im denied democratic rights
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Peter’s Nu Labour are the closest thing Britain has ever had to fascists.
I only hope that one day Blair & co are put on trial for their war crimes – just like the fascists of the last century.
Hundreds of our boys have died because of Nu Labour’s evil, illegal wars, while wicked fascist Blair still swaggers in front the media.
Enjoy it while you can, Blair – because one day justice might be done.
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Peter, You surprise me,so the German people were not responsible for voting Hitler in power then? With his National Socialist Workers Party [NAZIS] Formed around 1920. From the very outset in his propaganda speeches he preached antisemitism, The German people knew all about the Holocaust.A good book to read on the subject is Hitlers Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen.Also Please read the numerous books written by SIR. MARTIN GILBERT the well known Holocaust Historian.As a person who has studied the Holocaust for a number years, and as part of my studies, I have visited all the death camps in Poland. [Or what is left of them] together with the Holocaust Museums in London, Manchester and others in New York, Washington and Israel, so please don’t tell me that the ordinary Germans did not know.When the victims were turned out of their houses and put in Ghetto’s, then on to the cattle wagons to the death camps, the German people did not know, did the trains run on their own? were all the population blind? To this day people are still living in these houses in Germany, France and all over the now EU. And have never paid a penny for them. As for the rest of your comments,were did I say that Christmas was banned? I said that they are changing the name.
Please get in touch with Birmingham City Council. Contact Birmingham Education Department about BarBar Black sheep. Or go to the Government’s own Race and Equalities Department and ask them.
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