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Nick Clegg appeals to Labour supporters to vote for AV and signals greater distance from Tories after the vote
Nick Clegg has made a last-minute appeal to Labour supporters to set aside their desire to "poke him in the eye" and recognise that the alternative vote is an unambiguously progressive reform.
He has also vowed that his party will be more independent of the Conservatives after the referendum, saying the first phase of unanimity in public had been necessary due to the need to tackle the economic crisis.
In a Guardian interview, Clegg said: "For Labour party supporters thinking about how they should vote, Labour has always been at its best a progressive movement for reform. It always has been and always will be. This is a progressive change, an unambiguously progressive change.
"Yes, I understand people want to poke me in the eye and signal their displeasure. I understand all of that – I do not want to belittle that – but this is a fork of the road for progressives which is much bigger than me. This is not about Nick Clegg or the coalition government, it is about whether you take the progressive fork in the road, or do you stick with the status quo."
With polls showing that only a late swing by Labour voters to AV can rescue the yes campaign, Clegg – who is viewed with intense dislike by some on the left – praised Ed Miliband for the way he has led his party in the issue, contrasting him with the "old warhorses" of John Reid and David Blunkett, opposed to reform.
He also expressed his frustration at what some see as the duplicity of his Tory colleagues in government when they claim they are not responsible for the literature put out by the no campaign attacking his "broken promises".
He said: "I take what people say at face value. I do not try to second guess them, but it seems to be an established fact that this no campaign has transformed itself into a Conservative party campaign in all but name. It was transformed by a commitment from Conservative party high command. It is a pity that old warhorses like John Reid and David Blunkett have turned themselves into mouthpieces for what is in effect a Conservative party campaign.
"To be fair to George Osborne and David Cameron, they have been overt about the fact that they are going to do absolutely everything they can to stop a change that is inimical to their interests."
Echoing business secretary Vince Cable, he said the current electoral system had locked out progressive forces.
"The last century, as Vince has quite rightly said, has been dominated by one party – the Conservative party – on a minority of the vote. That is an incontrovertible fact. The whole Roy Jenkins thesis is that if you look at the last century, the left wing parties did not get a look in because they were splitting the difference."
He admits it is not immutable but argued that the trend has been for Labour and Lib Dems to vote tactically for one another. "Clearly, there has been affinity historically, ideologically between the two progressive parties. I am a progressive politician. I lead a progressive party
I always have and always will do.".
"I cannot for the life of me understand how intelligent, sophisticated folk in the Conservative party think it is defensible in the 21st century to have a system that ends up with hundreds of MPs with jobs for life – and they do not even deign to get 50% of the vote every few years."
Clegg is dismissive of critics who attack his record. "To use the challenges of coalition, compromise politics as a stick to beat us with is turning facts on its head to put it mildly. I don't indulge in anger, I think anger is a slightly useless emotion, but I reject this idea that I wilfully went back on my word. People that accuse me of doing a U-turn think I can behave as if I had won a landslide. I didn't. I will never apologise for the wider benefit of the country making those compromises. I accept that people want to shout me down simply to ignore argument and not to engage in rational debate, but that is the fact."
But he predicts his party from now on will be more independent inside the coalition. "If this referendum campaign, in a slightly gloves-off manner, has dramatised the fact that the Liberal Democrats are the progressive voice of this coalition, then it is not a bad thing in the long run.
"As we chalk up more progressive successes, I think people will see a pattern of progressive advance, and if people look out for that, or it is more obvious, or we are more articulate in explaining it, that would be a good thing. I always felt that the early stages were the most disciplined stages of the coalition because we were grappling with tricky fiscal issues, but inevitably over time you get those differences of identity to re-emerge."
But he urges his party not to think in terms of retreat if the referendum is lost or the local elections go badly. "Do I think it would be sensible for Liberal Democrats to bail out of a five-year plan at the very hardest point after a year? I think it would be an act of spectacular political masochism and it is something I am not going to do."