24 Aug 2016

Back to the Ballot Box? Might the UK have a General Election well before May 2020?

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Theresa May’s strong start as Prime Minister combined with the agony of the Labour Party (or at least its parliamentary branch) at the continued leadership of Jeremy Corbyn has prompted media speculation about an early General Election. Most active politicians have distanced themselves from the notion, although not necessarily excluding it entirely, but Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, conceded with characteristic candour that the concept was “tempting”.

A few commentators have noted how Gordon Brown’s failure to capitalise on his early popularity by flirting with but ultimately abandoning an election in Autumn 2007 election eventually doomed his tenure. The comparison is not entirely apt. Mr Brown was a more broadly known figure when he entered 10 Downing Street than Mrs May is today and the Labour Party had already been in office for 10 years, not six. Nevertheless, the notion that any new Prime Minister should strike while the electoral iron is hot and claim a mandate of their own is not an unappealing one. Yet it would also be unusual. The only true analogy to the Brown/May suggestion would be Sir Anthony Eden who took over as Prime Minister from Winston Churchill in 1955 and almost instantly called an election which he won.

The crucial difference between then (or 2007) and now is that the rules of the game have changed. In 1955 it was Sir Anthony’s decision alone as to whether to obtain an election and in 2007, had Mr Brown wanted to submit himself to the electorate, there would have been little doubt that he would have been able to even though the Parliament had almost three years left to run and he had a large enough majority to be completely confident of managing an administration. Mrs May has a majority of 12 seats, smaller than both Mr Eden in 1955 (17 MPs) and Mr Brown in 2007 (66 MPs), and that alone must indeed make contemplating a premature election worth at least momentary interest.

The provisions of the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 do, though, provide logistical challenges. An early election can occur in only two sets of circumstances. The first is where the House of Commons, by a margin of at least two-thirds of the actual number of MPs (434 or more out of 650), approves a resolution calling for such a ballot. This means that there must be an accord between both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party that such an outcome is desirable. Second, an early election can be forced if a Government loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons and there is no vote of confidence in any alternative Government within 14 days. This opens the theoretical chance that a Government could move a vote of confidence in itself, vote against that motion, bring itself down, vote against any other Government being installed and by this ruse open the route to a ballot.

Will it happen? It is not easy to envisage it but there are three plausible scenarios in which the UK may have a General Election before the current legally designated date of Thursday 7 May, 2020.

The November 2016 scenario

Although Mrs May has come very close to completely rejecting an instant election, her position is not completely irreversible. If, as is assumed, Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as Leader of the Labour Party and still cannot form a Shadow Cabinet that extends much beyond a hard-left personal fan club, an argument of a sort could be concocted that the country should choose who it wants to be the Prime Minister.

Mrs May could challenge Mr Corbyn (who is always calling for general elections) to live up to his word and back such a resolution when the House of Commons returns from the final stage of its summer recess on Monday 10 October. If, as seems quite probable, the rest of his colleagues manage to convince him that colluding with the Conservatives to force an election that Mrs May would probably win handsomely was not really that clever a move, the Prime Minister could then resort to the technique of moving a vote of confidence, voting against it, and creating an election.

There are lots of difficulties with this scenario. It would be utterly shameless. There is absolutely no constitutional or political obligation on a mid-term Prime Minister to seek a personal mandate and the precedent it would create would be a poisoned chalice for the Conservative Party in future occasions when it needs to change its leader in mid-Parliament. The spectacle of a Government voting itself out of office just to hold an election at a convenient moment would be near farcical.

The timetable is also far from perfect. At the earliest, if for some surreal reason Labour MPs wanted to be part of a new Jonestown 1978 exercise and commit mass suicide, the country would not be able to hold a vote until very early November and more plausibly it would have to be later in that month. The clocks would have been turned back and traditional campaigning and canvassing would be very difficult. Fear of Mr Corbyn might still hand Mrs May a very large majority but the tactics to secure it would win her few friends. For all these reasons, it must be rated as very unlikely. A 2 out of 10 shot.

The May 2017 scenario

This one is more credible. There is a much better justification for an early ballot. In this scenario, Mrs May settles on her Brexit strategy and makes it public. She either triggers Article 50 and asks for the approval of the electorate for her approach and decision, or defers pressing that political button until June or July next year if she secures a mandate for it at a general election held on 4 May 2017.

At least there would be a pretext and Mr Corbyn would probably still be the Leader of the Opposition. It would be harder (but not impossible) for Labour to oppose supporting an early election resolution and if it refused to collaborate then it would seem less outrageous for the Government to then hold and vote against a vote of confidence in itself. If the polls look good for Mrs May, she might go for it.

She could also assert that with elections being held in France in April/May 2017 and Germany in late September or October 2017, she too needed the explicit endorsement of her voters before entering what was bound to be a complicated round of negotiations with her main EU partners. On balance, it is more unlikely than likely but it cannot be discounted. It could be as high as a 4 out of 10 option.

The May 2019 scenario

There is one other coherent possibility and that involves an election being held after the terms of an exit from the European Union has been agreed but before the final divorce papers have been filed. It could arise because the Prime Minister felt very confident that the public would back the deal that had been negotiated. Or, in the exact opposite situation, that the dialogue had proved extremely awkward, the accord reached was being widely criticised, public opinion had manifestly shifted against withdrawal, a small but politically significant section of Conservative MPs who continued to favour EU membership had gone AWOL inside the House of Commons – meaning that there was no majority for enacting the legislation to legalise the exit – and a new Leader of the Labour Party was making the call for either a second referendum or an election before our departure from the EU was a settled and irreversible fact. One could make quite a robust case that an election was ethically essential before the UK left the EU.

It might well require some pretty anarchic political conditions to bring it about (or an unbelievably smooth set of talks to establish the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the rest of the EU) and there is the further joker in the pack as to what might have happened or be about to happen with Scotland in its own alignment with the rest of the UK, but it is not impossible. A 3 out of 10 rogue prospect?

Tim Hames, Director General, BVCA

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