Guy Lodge: A Hung Parliament Will Provoke a Constitutional Crisis over England
[Guy Lodge is Associate Director at ippr and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University.]
Why has no one noticed that a hung parliament would trigger a constitutional crisis in England?
This election was supposed to be about the parties plans’ to tackle Britain’s monster deficit. Now all the talk is of a hung parliament. Speculation about the range of possible post-election political configurations is gripping Westminster. Yet no one seems to have noticed that a UK hung parliament could have profound implications for the way England is governed – and for the future of UK itself. More surprisingly still, should a likely constitutional crisis erupt over the future of England, the case for proportional representation could become irresistible. Indeed PR might be the best way of keeping the UK together.
Why so? The argument comes in two parts. First it assumes that in a hung parliament there are only really two shows in town: a Tory minority government, or some sort of Lib-Lab alliance. A Tory-Lib Dem pact would surely falter over the deal breaker of electoral reform, which the Lib Dems would have every right to demand. If David Cameron was to sign up to a referendum on voting reform, which the Tories fear would usher in a period of permanent centre-left government, it would split the Tory party more dramatically than the repeal of the Corn Laws did in the 1840s. Add to this their irreconcilable positions on Europe, plus real divisions over economic and banking reform and it is difficult to see how Clegg could ever get into bed with the Tories. He could offer to support them on a ‘confidence and supply’ basis, which would ensure they could pass an emergency budget, but after this the Tories would be on their own....
A Tory minority government won’t be a minority government in England. Most recent polls suggest that the Tories will get around 290 seats, almost all of which will be won in England. This would give them a working majority within England, but they would be 30-40 odd short of an overall UK majority (they will still be short even if you include the electoral pact they’ve signed with the Ulster Unionists and any hypothetical deals with the nationalist parties). This fact radically changes the dynamics of minority government politics. The Tories can expect to haggle with the other parties to get UK-wide policy through the Commons but what happens if the other parties use their non-English MPs to veto policy that only applies in England? Labour and the Lib Dems could use their non-English MPs to block Tory policies they oppose such as elected police commissioners or their proposals to allow parents to set up their own schools, even though they would only apply in England, where the Tories would control a majority of the seats.
The Tories would be up-in-arms and left as frustrated as Harold Wilson was during his 1964-66 government, which had a majority of just four seats, and which was endlessly sabotaged by the action of MPs from Ulster who ganged up with the Conservatives to stall his plans for steel nationalisation, even though the policy did not apply in Northern Ireland....
Read entire article at openDemocracy
Why has no one noticed that a hung parliament would trigger a constitutional crisis in England?
This election was supposed to be about the parties plans’ to tackle Britain’s monster deficit. Now all the talk is of a hung parliament. Speculation about the range of possible post-election political configurations is gripping Westminster. Yet no one seems to have noticed that a UK hung parliament could have profound implications for the way England is governed – and for the future of UK itself. More surprisingly still, should a likely constitutional crisis erupt over the future of England, the case for proportional representation could become irresistible. Indeed PR might be the best way of keeping the UK together.
Why so? The argument comes in two parts. First it assumes that in a hung parliament there are only really two shows in town: a Tory minority government, or some sort of Lib-Lab alliance. A Tory-Lib Dem pact would surely falter over the deal breaker of electoral reform, which the Lib Dems would have every right to demand. If David Cameron was to sign up to a referendum on voting reform, which the Tories fear would usher in a period of permanent centre-left government, it would split the Tory party more dramatically than the repeal of the Corn Laws did in the 1840s. Add to this their irreconcilable positions on Europe, plus real divisions over economic and banking reform and it is difficult to see how Clegg could ever get into bed with the Tories. He could offer to support them on a ‘confidence and supply’ basis, which would ensure they could pass an emergency budget, but after this the Tories would be on their own....
A Tory minority government won’t be a minority government in England. Most recent polls suggest that the Tories will get around 290 seats, almost all of which will be won in England. This would give them a working majority within England, but they would be 30-40 odd short of an overall UK majority (they will still be short even if you include the electoral pact they’ve signed with the Ulster Unionists and any hypothetical deals with the nationalist parties). This fact radically changes the dynamics of minority government politics. The Tories can expect to haggle with the other parties to get UK-wide policy through the Commons but what happens if the other parties use their non-English MPs to veto policy that only applies in England? Labour and the Lib Dems could use their non-English MPs to block Tory policies they oppose such as elected police commissioners or their proposals to allow parents to set up their own schools, even though they would only apply in England, where the Tories would control a majority of the seats.
The Tories would be up-in-arms and left as frustrated as Harold Wilson was during his 1964-66 government, which had a majority of just four seats, and which was endlessly sabotaged by the action of MPs from Ulster who ganged up with the Conservatives to stall his plans for steel nationalisation, even though the policy did not apply in Northern Ireland....