andrewducker | The funniest political timeline - where is the UK, and where is it going?

Where are we now?
Back on 4th of June I wrote a quick tweet/FB status update reading:

Funniest outcome: enough letters go in to have a No Confidence vote against Johnson, he then wins it, and then the Conservatives catastrophically lose the two by-elections.

I was then absolutely delighted to see all of this come to pass.

A friend asked me what next, to which my reply was "Infighting, lots of infighting." Which, again, I am delighted by.

An overly-long digression about where Conservative Support has come from in the last few years

What *almost* won the 2010 election for the Conservatives was at least a pretence of reform. David Cameron promised a Caring Conservative Party, who worried about the melting icecaps and wanted to "hug a hoody". Enough people believed it that they won the most votes, but they needed a coalition to take power.

What won the 2015 election for them was a mixture of them promising an EU referendum (in order to defang UKIP, who were eating their vote, a problem which would have been much smaller under a better voting system).

Things then get very wobbly for them in 2017, with Theresa May calling a snap election that was seen as going very badly for her, in order to get Brexit done. She actually added over 2 million votes to the Conservative totals, but as Labour added 3million under Corbyn they still ended up in a desperate position, with Johnson then able to launch his coup on the party in order to Get Brexit Done.

And that slogan got them a rather larger majority in 2019 - not because Johnson actally got significantly more votes, but because Corbyn's support collapsed.

My point being that from 2015 to now Conservative support has been higher because they owned The Brexit Project. And, by and large, support for Brexit has collapsed. 16% of people in the UK think it's going well.. 30% of Leave voters think it's going well. 33% of Conservative voters think it's going well. That's not enough support to be able to just shout "Brexit!" and win an election any more.

To the point where Labour, after very-carefully avoiding talking about Brexit since we actually left have now started talking about what they could do better (Not going nearly far enough, of course, but that's Labour for you).

Where next?
Johnson doesn't want to go. He's annoying large swathes of his party, but not enough to have lost the vote of no confidence. He might lose it if it was taken again now, but that's not certain, and to have it again now they'd need to change the Conservative leadership election rules. Which might happen after the 1922 Committee election. I strongly suspect that Johnson will fight to the end. Which is great for anyone who likes to see the Conservatives tear themselves apart.

And after that, anyone who stands to replace him will either be a full-on Brexit extremist (and unlikely to carry the country with them) or will cause large chunks of their party to go to war with them over Brexit. Both options sound fine to me.

I don't see us getting an election before January 2025 unless something changes very significantly. The widlcard will be if Johnson decides that he's happy to throw the Conservative Party to the wolves if it means he has a chance of keeping power and avoiding the investigation into his repeatedly lying to parliament. And, I see that, once again, people are hoping The Queen will save them. Which doesn't seem like the kind of thing that she does, to be honest. And it seems that the Conservatives are preparing for an election.

When we get a general election then it looks very-much like the Lib-Dems will eat away at the Conservative heartlands, Labour will retake much of the Red Wall, and we'll end up with a coalition of chaos wherein the Lib-Dem price for a deal with Labour is Proportional Representation with no referendum.

All of which gives me what I want, so I'm pretty happy about it. It also makes it very likely that something will go catastrophically wrong, because I have no luck with these things. So we'll see :-)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

danieldwilliam

I somewhat disagree on what won the Conservatives the 2015 election. The EU Referendum wasn't the only driver. They very decidedly and covertly targeted Lib Dem seats.

Not sure I see the Tories going to war with themselves over Brexit either. It's done. It can't be changed this side of a couple of general elections. I think they'll shut up about it if they can. They look more likely to fall out over Johnson's ability to lead them to victory or not.

I think the Queen might well intervene as suggested by the i article.

Not convinced that Johnson cares what the Standards investigation reveals. The outcome is voted on by the House of Commons and he either controls that or he's not PM whatever he's found to have done.

So I think we get another 6-18 months of the Tories fighting over Johnson and then the run up to an election broadly as currently scheduled.

From:

andrewducker

I think that there's still an awful lot of disagreement over what kind of Brexit we should have - and between the ERG wing and the moderates over things like the Northern Ireland Protocol. I agree that they aren't going to fight over whether to reverse it. Just over how extreme they want to be.

From:

danieldwilliam

Perhaps, but there is also a model of inaction. That the Tory Party decides not to poke the bear by trying to change any aspect of the EU deals and just lets them trundle on whilst trying to keep quiet about it and talk about something else - of which there is plenty to talk about.

From:

andrewducker

Agreed on the Conservatives with the Lib Dem seats though. I wonder if those gains will now be fairly easily reversed.

Johnson has a majority of 80 seats. 148 of his MPs voted against him in the VONC. If enough of those feel that supporting him is bad for their re-election chances then they'll vote him out. He's already going to have issues passing controversial laws, I suspect.

From:

danieldwilliam

I think they probably would be easily reversed now. LD-Con voters tend to be economically to the soft centre-right, socially liberal and pro-European and that's not really the current Conservative Party.

Agreed on the controversial laws. Anything that about 50 Tory MP's don't like becomes difficult to pass.

From:

mountainkiss

Why do you think the Queen might well intervene?

From:

danieldwilliam

It's her job - or at least it is part of one interpretation of her job. It is certainly an interpretation of her job held by some of her advisors.

It's a cheap intervention - she doesn't have to do anything in public. She isn't being asked to campaign for a particular outcome. All she has to do is to not grant permission. Which she can do in private or, if forced in to public, ask political leaders from all parties and her Privy Councillors to discuss a way forward in the national interest and then, if that fails, she'll grant a dissolution.

Voters generally do not like snap elections - so she's not picking a direct fight with the electorate.

From:

mountainkiss

That tells me lots of reasons that you think the entry bar is lower than it looks, but does not tell me anything about why she might choose to make the decision or her advisors might recommend it. It would be both a highly unusual decision and likely to incur criticism from multiple sources. There has to be a positive reason sufficiently strong to counteract a move away from tradition.

From:

danieldwilliam

It is her job. As head of state in the UK her role, in theory, is to apply the rules of the constitution and to adjudicate in constitutional controversies.

She might well not agree that it is her job, or that her job in the first instance is to push the resolution of a constitutional controversy back on to the political leadership. She might as Charles Stross suggests prefer to protect her family's position rather than do her constitutional job but if you are looking for a reason why she would intervene then the reason is that it is arguably her job to do so.

From:

mountainkiss

I think there's a big step from "it is her job to intervene at the appropriate time" to "she has (or her advisors have) a reason to think that this is the appropriate time". That latter is currently not clear to me.

From:

andrewducker

I suspect it depends on whether they feel that the Lascelles Principles apply:
(1) the existing Parliament was still vital, viable, and capable of doing its job;
(2) a General Election would be detrimental to the national economy;
(3) he could rely on finding another Prime Minister who could carry on his Government, for a reasonable period, with a working majority in the House of Commons

I'd say that (2) doesn't apply, because a general election wouldn't disrupt the economy overly-much. (1) does apply. And (3) arguably does, because the Conservatives could replace Johnson with someone who would have a working majority.

From:

mountainkiss

I think it would be hard to make a case for a GE now as substantively different from others called for political reasons in the past. But open to being wrong about this.

From:

danieldwilliam

Ah, so the question is, why do I think this is an appropriate time. Or why do I think the Queen and her advisors would think this was an appropriate time.

The British Constitution ought not to be an internal tool of the Conservative Party.

A UK General Election ought not to be used to resolve an internal dispute about which individual leads the Conservative Party. UK General Elections ought to happen a) when the term of the current Parliament has expired b) when it is apparent that the current Prime Minister can no longer govern and no alternative Prime Minister looks likely to be able to command the Confidence of the House of Commons.

Nor ought the threat of a UK General Election be used as an internal Conservative Party tool.

The current Prime Minister currently commands the Confidence of the House of Commons. There is no serious suggestion that he has lost the Confidence of the House. He may yet do so. He has in fact recently won a vote of confidence of Conservative MPs. The Government has not lost a significant vote on key legislation on the floor of the House. It may yet do so. They certainly have not lost a Confidence vote in the Commons. They may yet do so. Were the current Prime Minister to demonstrably loose the Confidence of the House there are alternative Prime Ministers potentially available. Their ability to command a majority has not been tested or even contemplated. It may yet be so.

So calling a UK General Election now is to short circuit a longer process with multiple steps.

The Queen's job in the current situation is to require the Prime Minister to demonstrate to her (or Her) one of three things 1) he has lost the Confidence of the House and no one else could command it or 2) that whilst he personally commands the Confidence of the House the House will not allow him to govern or pass legislation or 3) that the ordinary methods of testing contentious claims in a constitutional controversy have been tried and not produced a stable result. If the Prime Minister is unable to demonstrate this the Queen's job is to send him back to run the existing processes until either he succeeds, or fails or reaches one of 3 impasses described in this paragraphs.

From:

mountainkiss

I think (?) that this was all true for May in 2017?

From:

danieldwilliam

Several differences.

1) there is a special case of the constitutional logjam where it appears that a specific piece of constitutional legislation is stuck in Parliament and a General Election is required for the people to instruct the House of Commons how they would like it resolved - in May's case her Brexit deal.

2) The Fixed Term Parliament Act was still in force and the House had voted for a General Election.

From:

mountainkiss

Fair. But I think I still think there's a really big gap between "this is on paper her job" and "there is a reason to expect her to do it", when the countervailing force of "she is a figurehead leader" is so strong and long-standing. It seems to me very unlikely that she and her advisors would see her role as intervening in parliamentary procedure to prevent a general election when there is nothing in the way of precedent. It is not as though she takes any other interest in whether parliamentary procedures are manipulated for the internal purposes of the ruling party.

From:

danieldwilliam

I see that argument and I think it's a perfectly sound one.

However, I think there is precedent for the Monarch being involved in the Parliamentary process during periods of controversy.

She's also not being asked to intervene to prevent a dissolution. She's being asked to intervene to grant a dissolution.

And the ultimate backstop is that if people or the political leadership think a) it is her job to intervene and b) she has not intervened when she ought to have done and c) the UK constitution only works in its current form with its current roles and personnel *if* the Monarch actually does the job of intervening when she ought to then perhaps the people or the political leadership decide it is time to change the constitution.

If she's supposed to be a failsafe but isn't acting as one then arguably it is time to change the way we operate our head of state.

So reasons why should intervene now, 1) it is her job and the level of intervention required now is low and passive or negative and 2) if she's just going to handwave through any old nonsense than she exposes herself to being removed from office.

From:

mountainkiss

I still think “should” is different from “can be expected to”. That’s where I am lacking evidence.

From:

danieldwilliam

I think actually we've got three modal verbs going on here.

"ought" she is morally or ethically compelled to act in a particular way

"should" - it is in her interest to act in a particular way

"can be expected to " - one would rely on acting in a particular way.

I think she ought to act to prevent an arbitary dissolution. I think she should - she should do her job and if she doesn't do her job she should fear being removed.

Can she be expected to do so - well unless we have access to the briefings and her own thought process I'm not sure we can tell. I'm not sure Kremlinology is going to take us very far. Short of providing an opportunity to wager on the outcome.

Which I think is an unsatisfactory situation. The behaviour of the head of state, I think, ought to be either rule-bound and thus predictable or political in nature and therefore discussable and negotiable by them in public. I think it is unsatisfactory that the UK head of state is most of the time not strongly rule bound nor able to negotiate for a political outcome of her choosing with a mandate from the people (or Heaven).

From:

andrewducker

I'd be delighted to replace her with a flowchart.

From:

danieldwilliam

We're going to need a bigger flow chart.

From:

mountainkiss

I wonder if the heart of this is difference between her job description as written, as commonly understood and as enacted in recent history.

From:

danieldwilliam

Very much so. There's been a long-term movement from the Monarch personally and in fact fulfilling some of the Monarch's constitutional role to the actual exercise of those powers and roles being done by the Prime Minister with a hope / belief / backstop that if the Prime Minister stopped exercising their powers in a constituationally appropriate way the Monarch would step in and personally and in fact exercise their powers to fulfil their constitutional role.

This hasn't been accompanied by enough explicit discussion of how much power the Prime Minister has in fact ended up with, how some of the powers they have ended up with are supposed to be used as check on the powers of the Prime Minister, how the powers of the Prime Minister interact with the powers of a Party Leader in practical terms and so on.

So we have situation where the Queen (probably) can intervene to prevent a premature dissolution and (I think) ought to intervene but arguable ought not to (depends on whether one thinks the British people have voted for the current Prime Minister to have perogative powers or to exercise them on the Queen's behalf) but (perhaps) has a personal and official conflict of interest. In a situation where the rules and their interpretation and their history of exercise is uncertain.

It's a mess.

From:

andrewducker

Oh yes - the Queen lost her ability to block dissolution, and then regained it again recently when the FTPA was repealed.

From:

calimac

Surely the LDs shot themselves in the foot so thoroughly in the way they handled the coalition that it would hardly take Con targeting of their seats to cause disaster for them in 2015? In any case, aren't the Cons always targeting LD seats, assuming there's enough of them to be worth targeting?

From:

danieldwilliam

The Conservatives deliberately and explicitely targeted LD-Con voters in LD held seats. People who thought the Coalition had been a good thing but not quite Tory enough. They put their limited campaigning resources in to those seats and those voters rather than Con-Lab marginals.

This may have worked well as a strategy because of the drop off in overall LD voters of the LD-Lab type or LD voters in the student type made the LD's vulnerable but the Tory response to this vulnerability was to exploit it more.

From:

coth

It would be fun if we didn't have so much skin in the game. If you are right we face another two years sustaining damage to our health, wealth, liberties and wellbeing being done by a government that is refusing to govern in the interests of the population.

From:

autopope

The Queen won't intervene. Here are three reasons:

Firstly, Elizabeth Windsor is 95. Expecting action and a controversial one at that from a 95 year old is highly optimistic.
Whatever happens with Brexit or Scottish independence or electoral reform, the monarchy will still stand as long as the Queen is seen to be above partisan politics. The monarchy's inaction ensures that the monarchy can't alienate a large segment of the electorate: this is one of the reasons Charles is so problematic. The instant the Queen steps down off the pedestal of majestic inactivity and dips a toe in the mire of politics, the game's up.

(Consider the recent controversy of the Palace's moves to draft an exception for certain of her own assets to exempt them from environmental and other laws, and the degree to which the Palace insisted on maintaining a veil of secrecy around their intervention. The crown knows damned well that it needs to stay out of day-to-day politics.)

Elizabeth's formative event was the abdication crisis of 1938, without which she wouldn't even have been in the line of succession. She is all about protecting the monarchy. Nothing else matters to her at this point.

Edited Date: 2022-07-04 04:29 pm (UTC)

From:

andrewducker

This totally agrees with my understanding gleaned from watching The Crown, which is, from my understanding, a totally accurate depiction of events

From:

bens_dad

the abdication crisis of 1938
I know about 1936; did I miss something in 1938 ?

From:

autopope

Yeah: you missed me not bothering to double-check on wikipedia.

From:

calimac

Codifying various possible circumstances and taking them out of the possibility that the monarch would have any free choice in the matter has been the pattern in constitutional development over the last century or more. It is, as you say, all about protecting the monarchy, and it can't be protected if it's seen to have inserted its personal opinions into the formation of governments.

From:

danieldwilliam

I don't think she needs to take controversial action to refuse a dissolution. All she needs to do is let it be known that a request would be refused and failing that pretend not to be able to hear it.

"I'm sorry Mr Johnson, I'm 96 you know and my hearing is not as good as it could be, it sounded like you were asking for a dissolution of Parliament, but that can't be right because I explicitely had one of my people tell one of your people that I'd ask for your resignation if you asked me for a dissolution. So I must have misheard. "

What's he going to do, stand up in Parliament and say the Queen told him to eff off?

So her actions are invisible.

From:

mtbc

I have a hazy recollection that due boundary changes look to favour the Tories. Perhaps proportional representation would somewhat ameliorate that.

From:

andrewducker

Proportional representation would mean all sorts of changes.

From:

autopope

A switch to proportional representation combined with Scottish independence would be ... well, it wouldn't be good for England's prospects of ever dislodging the Tories, would it?

From:

andrewducker

Tories haven't broken 43% in a very long time. Scotland is only 10% of the whole country. So I don't think that the Tories are likely to break 50% by losing Scotland.

(I'll need to look at the maths in more detail later, but it seems much less likely they'd ever get a majority)

From:

calimac

Some time back I worked out who'd have won rump-UK general elections if Scotland were independent. I think most of the Labour-won elections would still be Labour-won.