The UK General Election Prediction Thread

[Gary J]

A Labour minority government seems to be the most likely outcome of the general election. I think there is quite a good chance, under current law, that such a minority government could continue in office until the next fixed term election due in 2020; without necessarily needing a formal confidence and supply agreement from the SNP.

The traditional Westminster model treated the ability of a ministry to obtain supply from the House of Commons as being essential to demonstrate that it retained the confidence of the House.  Thus if a government was defeated on any vote it declared a matter of confidence (which by convention would include any major financial vote) it was required to either resign or advise the monarch to dissolve Parliament and order a general election.

A past Labour government got away with relaxing the traditional conventions. On 10 March 1976, the government were defeated 284-256 on a motion approving public expenditure. A subsequent vote of confidence was won 297-280 and the ministry continued in office. Other votes were lost on quite major legislation, but the government did not treat them as matters of confidence. The ministry eventually fell on a formal Conservative motion of no confidence which passed 311-310 on 28 March 1979.

Historically, from the adoption of Home Rule for Ireland as Liberal policy in 1886 until the First World War, whenever there was no Liberal majority and the Unionists (Conservatives and Liberal Unionists) were in a minority in the House of Commons the result was a Liberal minority government. This was not due to formal agreements between the Liberals and the Irish Nationalists, but to a general understanding that only a Liberal government would pursue home rule. In 1892-95 and 1910-15 Liberal governments were in a minority, but they did not fall because they lost nationalist support.

The old conventions about when a government has lost the confidence of the House now seem to have been replaced by the statutory provisions about no confidence votes in the fixed term Parliament legislation. If that is right a government could now be defeated on its budget but still win a statutory vote of confidence, thus being able to remain in office if not precisely in power (unless the Prime Minister decided to resign because his position was too humiliating to go on).

Perhaps a Parliament where the government is unable to pass just about any law it wants, but has to seek support from outside its own parliamentary party, will serve the country better than the usual Parliamentary dictatorship of a majority government.