Voting reform: 'yes' camp reeling as support collapses

A new Guardian/ICM poll on the alternative vote referendum shows 'no' campaign is 16 points ahead
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Julian Glover and Patrick Wintour
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 April 2011 21.31 BST

The Labour leader Ed Miliband shared a platform with Lib Dem Vince Cable at a 'yes to AV' event in London yesterday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Support for a change to the way MPs are elected is collapsing, according to the latest Guardian/ICM poll, sending shockwaves through the yes campaign advocating reform of the voting system.

The figures give the no camp a 16-point lead, wiping out a two-point lead for the yes camp in the equivalent Guardian/ICM poll in February.

Among people who say they are likely to vote in the nationwide referendum on the alternative vote on 5 May and have made up their minds, the poll shows 58% saying no and 42% saying yes.

Among all respondents, 44% back no and 33% yes, with 23% saying they don't know.

The findings prompted soul-searching among the yes campaigners over their tactics in the runup to the referendum. Some pointed to the fact that they were being outspent by the no campaign and facing a battle against its supporters in the rightwing press. However, there were no initial signs of panic or calls for a change in strategy.

The Guardian/ICM poll came on the day David Cameron cast aside political allegiances to join the former Labour home secretary Lord Reid to claim a change from first past the post would be a backward step for Britain. The prime minister said it would damage the chain of political accountability by making coalitions more likely. He dismissed the system as "obscure, unfair and expensive".

At the same time the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, shared a platform with the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, to argue the referendum is coming down to a choice of hope over fear. Miliband is not going to share a platform with Nick Clegg throughout the campaign.

The Guardian poll suggests opinion is hardening against the alternative vote.

A Guardian/ICM poll in December put the yes vote six points ahead, before adjusting for likely turnout. In February the two camps were neck and neck on the same measure, and now – again, before turnout is taken into account – the no vote is 11 points ahead. The poll, showing a much larger lead for the no campaign than in other polls, is the first for two months to use a random sample by telephone, rather than an online panel, and the results have been adjusted to take account of turnout.

Uniquely, the latest poll also includes a sample of voters from Northern Ireland, which is included in the UK-wide referendum. ICM posed the same question that will be asked in the referendum: "At present, the UK uses the first-past-the-post system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the alternative vote system be used instead?"

Pro-AV campaigners had hoped that people who wanted change would be more likely to turn out on polling day. Instead, once people are asked how likely they are to vote, the lead for the no camp increases.

A senior Lib Dem minister acknowledged the tightening in the race, pointing to the increasing propaganda coming out of the Murdoch press. He added that the campaign faced a strategic dilemma over how to fight the no campaign's negative tactics. The minister said: "You could end up looking like the no campaign and people will think it is a just a bunch of politicians arguing with one another, when we are offering a different kind of politics. You cannot have Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter getting down and dirty with Eric Pickles and Sayeeda Warsi."

There was also a further illustration of the toll the campaign is taking on cabinet relations when Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, lashed out at the Tory-led no campaign, saying he was "shocked that coalition partners could stoop to this level, dredging up stuff they knew was a downright lie".

He added that he had not had the courtesy of a reply from Warsi, the Tory co-chair, after asking her to name one country that had introduced expensive voting machines as part of the alternative vote. He also defended his decision to accuse her of employing goebbels like lies.

Ben Bradshaw, chairman of the Labour yes campaign, said: "I always thought it was going to be tough because of the unpopularity of Nick Clegg, and referendums are just difficult to win because the presumption is to vote no.

"We were also always going to be outspent, but I am still confident that when people look at the issues, a new politics, a fairer voting system and a more accountable system, we will win. When people look at who is lined up on either side of this argument they will vote yes.

"We have come under a lot of pressure in the yes campaign to go negative, but I think the strength of our campaign is that it is positive.

"It is fair to point out that the no campaign is a Tory campaign, funded by Tory money, but we must keep making the positive argument. We just have to keep banging on because there are still large numbers of people undecided."

Other senior yes figures said uncertainty about turnout rendered opinion polls unreliable and claimed improved campaigning recently would get the yes vote out on the day.

The Guardian poll shows three-quarters of Conservatives planning to vote will opt for no, as will a small majority of Labour supporters. Only Lib Dem voters are firmly in favour, with more than two-thirds saying they will vote yes.

The yes camp could still turn things around by winning over the 23% who say they are unsure how they will vote – but this figure includes many who say they may not turn out at all.

The poll also shows young people are more than twice as likely to favour AV as pensioners. But pensioners are more than twice as likely to vote as the young.

Cameron said at his press conference on Monday he would accept the referendum result. If he lost he would not allow diehard no campaigners in his party to block the reform by delaying the constituency boundary changes that must precede a change to the voting system.

One Tory MP, Eleanor Laing, said the legitimacy of a yes vote would be questioned if there was a derisory turnout. Cameron also insisted he did not "condone any personal attacks" on Clegg and pointed out that his own Conservative Yes Campaign literature did not feature any.

But Lord Reid seized on the inability of Clegg and Miliband to share a platform, claiming that it was the yes campaign's "biggest handicap".

The Guardian poll also shows Labour has regained a narrow poll lead over the Conservatives. The estimated national voting intentions put Labour on 37%, up one. The Conservatives are on 35%, down two, and the Lib Dems on 15%, down one, but still higher than in most online polls. Support for other parties was a combined 13%, a recent high in ICM polls.

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,033 adults across the United Kingdom aged 18+ by telephone on 15-17 April 2011. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. Voting intention based on British sample of 1,003 people