Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform
History
The Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform arose from a grouping, known as the Labour Study Group for Electoral Reform, which came together inside the Labour Party in the 1970s at the time Labour was in government without a majority in the House of Commons, and Lord Hailsham was calling it an “elective dictatorship” in his 1976 Dimbleby Lecture. At this time it concentrated more on the elections to the European Parliament by a proportional system, something that had to await the return of a Labour Government in 1997. By the early 1980s, Labour was out of power, and most of the Labour MPs had either lost their seats or moved on to other things. Austin Mitchell MP who came in in a byelection in 1977, was one of the few who remained to found LCER. Ron Medlow who was active in the Electoral Reform Society, became the Secretary after the 1983 defeat, and worked on administration, membership and booking speakers, sending out model resolutions and organising fringe and other meetings, expanding the work slowly, but determinedly, until the Labour Conference of 1987.
This was the turning point for the organisation. The third Labour defeat, and Neil Kinnock’s first, that year, meant resolutions were sent in on the issue of electoral reform to the Brighton Conference. On the LCER fringe platform was one Arthur Scargill, and while not agreeing with him on other issues, two of the audience, MPs Robin Cook and Jeff Rooker, came to play a significant role in the future debate. Robin Cook became a sponsor, and Jeff Rooker was to go on to become Chair over the next few crucial years of the Plant Commission. At Blackpool in 1988, there was the beginning of a realisation that electoral and constitutional reform needed to be tackled by the Labour Party. More resolutions were sent in. The LCER fringe was chaired by Austin Mitchell, spoken at by Jeff Rooker, Carole Tongue then MEP and Richard Kuper of the Socialist Society. Anthony Barnett then working with Stuart Weir on the New Statesman was in the audience and challenged Mary Southcott, a failed Labour candidate in the 1987 election, to explain why Labour members had not understood the need for electoral reform. Mary said she had and he commissioned an article which was printed in the New Statesman the following January under the title “Electoral Reform and me” and later reproduced as “Coming Out for Electoral Reform” in a series of articles making the arguments after the launch of Charter 88, the previous autumn.
