Labour will be defeated without PR, says ex-MP

Labour risks losing the next election unless it introduces PR to keep out the Tories, a senior Labour figure warned the party.

Labour risks losing the next election unless it introduces PR to keep out the Tories, a senior Labour figure warned the party.

In a seminar in the House of Commons on electoral reform, Anne Campbell warned that the Labour Party was sleepwalking into an election defeat. The former Labour MP, who lost her Cambridge seat at the general election after 13 years in Parliament, said she would have held her constituency if the election had been held under PR.

She blamed the first-past-the-post system for helping those who wanted to "teach Blair a lesson" over Iraq. Ms Campbell warned that the party could be dealt defeat on a national scale at the next election if it fails to reform the way Westminster MPs are elected. At a seminar held by the Labour-supporting Young Fabians, the former MP said her defeat "could happen again on a bigger scale". She said failure at the polls was "the only alternative if we continue along this route".

"The Labour Party fought this election on a two-party system. At the next election the third party - whether it be Lib Dem or Scottish Nationalist - is going to be a more important force," she said. "Just fighting the election on the basis of Labour and the Conservatives is wrong. Labour could certainly lose next time."

Richard Burden, the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, said the current system was the "electoral version of a military coup" where parties fought to build up the most votes and form a government - even if they haven't got a majority of votes.

He warned that progressive politicians were "in real danger of getting into our bunkers and allowing a resurgence of the right".

Mr Burden, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Electoral Reform, said no one in the Labour Party "should be at all complacent" about winning the next election. He said the first-past-the-post system and changes to the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies could let the Conservatives back in. Labour must reform the system while it was in power, or it may have to sit out years in opposition during a Tory government.

"We may have won a majority with only 36 per cent of the vote. But those of us who lived through the Thatcher and Major years know that this could be the other way round. We can't guarantee that the same position will be true in the future," he said.

Kevin Bonavia, the chairman of the Young Fabians - the under-31 arm of the Fabian Society - said PR was being seriously debated within the party.

But Bob Ainsworth, MP for Coventry North East, said PR was not an answer, although he saw "good tactical reasons" for the non proportional AV system. "I personally see lots of disadvantages with PR and it is a distraction from things that the Labour Party ought to be doing," he said.

But Ms Campbell said all the main parties were fighting for the centre ground in the marginal seats. She said: "We are giving the impression of being a fairly right-wing party because a lot of our publicity is geared toward the middle ground because that is where under first-past-the-post elections are won and lost. We are ignoring our core vote."