The AV referendum: state of play

With attention understandably focusing on events in the Lords, the actual progress of the campaigns for the electoral reform referendum has had less coverage in the last few weeks. So here’s a quick scorecard:

• Funding: the No campaign has taken to the media to protest about “big money” funding the Yes campaign. Even as reported by the Telegraph the attacks are pretty thin going, but revealing in one respect. Many expected the No campaign to be well-funded by the sort of large donors who have heavily funded the Tories in the past (not to mention, possibly, trade union funding). However, the No attacks suggest their own search for large donors isn’t going well.
• The polls: where pollsters ask the question to be used in the referendum, without other introductory text, the Yes campaign is ahead. YouGov uses introductory text and finds the No campaign ahead. (More details here.)
• MPs: there has been a steady sequence of Labour MPs which the No campaign claimed as supporters speaking up to say that, in fact, they are supporting the Yes campaign. Alun Michael is the latest.
• The Labour Yes campaign: Ed Miliband has said he will campaign for a Yes vote, which given the likely key role of Labour supporters in the referendum result is an important step forward. Overall the Yes campaign is doing well at signing up MPs and other leading Labour figures to back the campaign, though it looks very unlikely that the party will go as far as registering as an official supporters of a Yes vote (which would have allowed more to be spent from Labour resources on promoting a Yes campaign and would have made the administration of Yes campaigning easier). Even so, it is likely that a big majority of Labour Shadow Cabinet members will be joining Ed Miliband in calling for a Yes vote, though amongst other Labour MPs the balance is likely to be much, much closer.
• The arguments: the Yes campaign was strengthened at the start of the year by the publication of a detailed study by the IPPR showing how in British elections first past the post has lost the attributes its supporters used to praise.

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