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• Miliband shares stage with Tim Farron and Caroline Lucas • Urges voters not to treat AV poll as a referendum on Clegg Tortuous efforts to set up a cross-party platform in favour of the alternative vote have finally borne fruit with Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat president, and Caroline Lucas, the Green party leader, joining forces to back reform. Miliband insisted that voters should not decide which way to vote based on particular personalities. He said, it is not about Nick Clegg, it is about changing your voting system, and not a stick with which to beat the government. In his speech, Miliband said that despite the current Lib Dem coalition with the Conservatives, he still believed that AV would help progressive centre-left parties to “build bridges not barriers”. “The tragedy for progressive politics in Britain has been that division on the centre and left has handed a united right victory after victory,” he said. “For most of the last 80 years, there has been one Conservative party but several competing for progressive votes. No wonder the Tories back the current system. “They know Britain is not a fundamentally Conservative country. But with first-past-the-post, they are more likely to govern whenever progressive forces are divided.” Miliband was also joined by former Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords Lady Williams, shadow cabinet members John Denham and Tessa Jowell, as well as former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, is currently in Mexico and was asked by the yes campaign not to attend on the grounds that his current unpopularity might turn voters off . Farron described the no campaign as a bunch of harrumphing majors adding: “a yes vote will put an end to safe seats for MPs”. He said the no campaign was “ridiculous, reactionary and very well resourced. They will claim in the next five weeks that if you vote yes your hospital will be closed or your police will be cut or you will be invaded by Norway.” He added: “Every MP will have to work hard for your vote rather than being protected by a medieval voting system.” He said the MPs’ expenses scandal “came out of a culture of complacency and arrogance shored up by the fact that two thirds of MPs have safe seats for life”. He claimed “the only people that should vote no are lazy MPs who do not want to do any work, newspaper proprietors that want to make sure the establishment remains intact, and if you have difficulty counting to three,” a reference to the no campaign’s claim that the AV voting system is too complex. He added the no campaign was “just making up invented cobblers, such as permanent hung parliaments and the need for expensive voting machines”. He also called on the no campaign to come clean about its funding, claiming its campaign was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Conservative party. The yes campaign also sought to rebut claims, pushed hard by the no campaign patron and former home secretary Lord Reid that AV will lead to supporters of fringe parties having extra votes once their own chosen party drops out. Farron pointed that the BNP were supporting the no campaign, adding extremist parties would be disadvantaged by AV since “extremists either vote for extremist nutters or not. They do not tend to transfer their second preferences. I have yet to meet a lukewarm fascist.” At a largely good-natured event, Farron was forced to admit he had seen the referendum as a staging post to a more proportional voting system, but he accepted this was the only change on offer. Tessa Jowell called the vote a “once in 20 or 30 year chance”, and insisted that the referendum was the last that would be held. Jowell is especially important since she needs to raise the turnout in London where there are no local elections. There are warnings that only 20% of eligible Londoners may vote. Kennedy urged Liberal Democrats not to hold back because they were not being offered a fully proportional system on 5 May . Addressing those who “fought long and hard in the wilderness for a proportional system”, he said the lesson of history is that you cannot afford the luxury of waiting for a perfect system. “This is the proposition is on the table; this represents the force for political reform and this is the chance that has got to be seized. The NotoAV campaign director, Matthew Elliott, dismissed the yes event as “a Lib Dem convention chaired by Ed Miliband”. “The only person missing from their Westminster photo-op is the man who is forcing us to have this expensive referendum – Nick Clegg,” he said. “It would be his party – the Lib Dems – that would benefit most from a switch to AV. The yes to AV campaign is just a front for the Lib Dems and they are deceiving the public if they claim otherwise.” AV Electoral reform Ed Miliband Nick Clegg Liberal Democrats Liberal-Conservative coalition Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk