It comes as no surprise that the evil and corrupt minority rule *members of the ruling Labour Party* in the U.K. are NOW opposing proportional representation AFTER they have POWER. --------- Vote reform hits snags within UK's Labour By Rosemary Bennett BLACKPOOL, England, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Members of the ruling Labour party told Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday to scrap plans for a new voting system for general elections that could transform the face of British politics. It was an uncomfortable day for Blair at the party's annual conference. He was accused of stifling debate on the issue and preventing the conference from passing a motion rejecting any change from the first-past-the-post system used to elect members of parliament. The government is committed to holding a referendum on adopting a proportional representation (PR) system for these elections even though Blair has said he is not persuaded of the case for PR and many cabinet ministers are openly opposed. Party fixers managed to avoid embarrassment for Blair during a debate on the electoral system by persuading engineering workets' union leader Ken Jackson, who sponsored a motion highly critical of PR, not to press the issue to a vote. But another leading trade unionist weighed in to the argument accusing party managers of pulling cheap tricks. ``I suspect that one or two arms have been twisted and one or two shabby litte deals have been done, and a lot of people down there are very suspicious about it all,'' said John Edmonds, general secretary of the GMB union. More than 100 resolutions hostile to PR had been submitted and party officials acknowledged a vote would have decisively rejected electoral reform, which would have been a slap in the face for the Labour leadership despite its lukewarm feelings towards change. But Jackson and other activists left the government in no doubt that a shift to PR would be a reform too many for a party that has backed Blair's sweeping programme of constitutional change, including a measure of home-rule for Scotland and Wales and a shake-up of the upper House of Lords. Many Labour members favoured PR during the party's 18 years in opposition, but Blair's landslide victory in the May 1997 election has curbed the appetite for a system that could reduce the number of Labour members of parliament and boost the centre-left Liberal Democrats, Britain's third party. Jackson said PR would lead to ``a carve up, deals not democracy, chaos not clarity.'' Blair has appointed Lord Jenkins, a former Labour finance minister who split from the party in the 1980s, to recommend the best system of PR for Britain. Jenkins is due to submit his report at the end of the month amid speculation that Blair will risk alienating Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown by delaying a referendum until after the next general election in order not to widen Labour's divisions. 13:49 10-01-98
