Democracy in Welsh Labour — Mike Hedges AM

Or: OMOV (One member one vote) not SMLOV (some members lots of votes) or why the Electoral College system in Wales must be changed

There are basic rules that we take for granted in elections within a democracy such as

One person only has one vote

Each vote is of equal value

The candidate with the most votes wins

Unfortunately the way the Electoral College currently used by the Labour party in Wales for the election of Leader and Deputy Leader works is that the first two do not occur and there is a reasonable chance of the third not occurring as happened in the deputy leadership election.

Firstly we have multiple votes, I cast seven in the deputy leadership election (Assembly Member, Party Member, 2 Trade Union votes, Fabian Society, SHA and Co-Op party), others may have cast more, and all MPs, MEP and AMs will have cast at least two votes and most more.

Votes in different sections are worth different percentages of the final college vote. Each MP, MEP and AM has a minimum of 0.57% of the total vote and if some do not vote that can, as in the case of the deputy leadership election, become worth over 0.6% of the total vote.

Depending on turnout in each section the vote of an affiliated member can be worth more than that of a full member as happened in the deputy leadership election.

From the above it is easy to see how the candidate with the most votes can quite easily lose as happened in the deputy leadership election held recently.

Welsh Labour now has another opportunity to consider its method for the election of leader and deputy leader, via its Democracy Review.

In Scotland for the Leadership election they moved to the following system, which is identical to the one used for the Labour leader at Westminster

There were three sets of people who could vote:

1. Labour Party members

2. Affiliated supporters — people who’ve signed up as a Labour Party supporter through one of the affiliated organisations or unions

3. Registered supporters — people who registered that they support the Labour Party by signing up online and paying a one-off minimum fee

Those voting all did it in one section and each vote counted equally

This removed the “super votes” of MSPs, MEPs and MPs, ensured that no one had more than one vote and that the candidate with the most votes won.

The affiliated supporter system keeps the link with trade unionists and ensures that the votes of individual trade union members, who support the Labour party, are an equal part of the system. This keeps the link with trade unionists, the loss of which is one of the arguments made in favour of the Electoral College. This worked well in the election of a Westminster leader where 100,000 affiliated supporters voted in this way in the second UK leadership election in 2016.

To increase the number of affiliated Trade Unionists voting then each trade union will have to try and get its members to join as affiliated members.

The argument around registered supporters is more nuanced.

On the plus side it allows Labour voters as well as Trade Unionists and Individual party members to vote

On the negative side it opens up the opportunity to vote to anyone prepared to pay a fee

The current Electoral College system is inherently undemocratic and the “super votes” of AMs, MEP and MPs can easily distort the result.

Let’s keep the link with Labour supporting trade unionists, empower individual members and ensure every vote is of equal value.

Mike Hedges is the Assembly Member for Swansea East