Category: BRINO

Will ‘Super Tuesday’ lead to an October General Election ?

State of the parties at 06.00am. See story ELECTION Main. PA Graphics

It is said that the odds on ( yet another ) General Election are shortening by the day though some would say that the Brexit Negotiations make one inevitable. Tuesday 12th June is what the Americans might call ‘Super Tuesday’ all 15 Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawl Bill will be voted on in one long day in the House of Commons. The government will be asking MPs to reject them all.

It doesn’t require much effort to imagine the right conditions arising to trigger an Election this Autumn.

The Prime Minister has managed to get to the end of phase one of Brexit talks ( last December) and agreed on a transition phase just before Easter. The hardcore Leavers in the Conservative have grumbled a little but have largely stayed loyal.

The next ( and main) stage of negotiations are underway and as expected to prove very difficult both within Government and with the EU.

The splits in the Conservative Party are getting wider.’Super Tuesday’ will be the biggest test yet.

The Government expects to win all 15 votes but who really knows.

However, the return of the EU Trade bill in July will see a full-blown rebellion from Remainers in the Conservative Party. If Labour does finally endorse staying in the Single Market having already backed staying in a Customs Union we may have deadlock and the Government won’t be able to get its Brexit strategy through Parliament.

May’s pursuit of a smooth, orderly, and some would say very soft Brexit looks increasingly like its pushing Brexiteers too far and will trigger a coup against her. Tim Shipman of the The Times Today suggests this will come as soon as July when the Withdrawl Bill receives Royal Assent.

A new Conservative leader (and PM) may feel that they need to go to the Country not only to break the parliamentary deadlock but also to get a mandate for a harder Brexit assuming they are a Leaver of course.

Its very unlikely Labour would decline the opportunity to have an election so passing the threshold of 66% of MPs needed to trigger a GE should be no problem.

 

The Guardian

On the other side of the equation, however, we should consider :

  1. There is no public appetite for one – you can hear ‘Brenda from Bristol’ warming up her vocal cords as we speak. Another election is likely to be divisive and bitter.
  2. Aside from a few burnt Conservative fingers from 2017 to put off a new leader -Its highly likely an election would produce another Hung Parliament albeit with a different composition to the current one. The polls haven’t shifted very much and Hung Parliaments are the new norm and majorities are the exception.
  3. A Conservative Leadership election could easily see Theresa May win and face down her critics and its unlikely she would be very keen to go to the Country again.

So the answers as so often are ‘who knows’. Political chaos continues. Brexit truly is the only show in town.

UK Politics will certainly remain interesting for those who follow it closely but probably baffling for everyone else.

Richard Dawson

Local Elections 2018 – ‘Nothing has changed’

Theresa Mays’s now infamous retort has now entered the political lexicon after her manifesto u-turn last year.

Unlike elections and referendums in 2015 2016 and 2017, we got a result where little changed at least outwardly. In the Local Elections 2018 we saw the largest parties achieve a score draw. Had this been a Westminster Election we would have had another Hung Parliament with similar numbers to 2017.

Sky News

So what can we deduce from the Local Elections 2018?

As usual, there is the caveat that locals are not historically a great predictor of General Elections but they do show us the undercurrents in our political system and shape the media narrative.

Let’s not also forget strength at local council level is the key to capturing Parliamentary seats.

The Conservatives won the battle of expectation management and post results spin. To lose seats and councils but get a media narrative as positive as this was a real achievement.

Conversely, Labour lost the expectation setting game (See HERE) despite winning the most votes and the most seats albeit not gaining any Councils. Its fair to say Labour activists were doing victory laps on social media in the final week of the campaign and party HQ failed to put that right in the mainstream media.

bbc.co.cuk

bbc.co.cuk

 

The Conservatives were predicting (deliberately) an electoral ‘bloodbath’ (see HERE ) in London that never materialised.

There seemed little doubt that the Anti-Semitism row affected Labour in key areas yet the Windrush scandal hardly seems to have dented the Conservatives.

The Liberal Democrats results were better than they expected and fed a media narrative of a slow but now steady recovery from near wipeout in the 2015 General Election.

The Conservatives will be pleased with Labour’s perceived ‘failure’ to break through but more concerned at the Lib Dem revival.

BREXIT

It seems certain that the results of the Local Elections 2018 show us that the redrawing of political loyalties we saw in the 2017 General Election are here to stay.

The Conservatives are truly the party of Brexit now with 75% or so of their vote coming from Leave supporters. That will embolden Conservative Brexiteers to push for a ‘harder’ Brexit and may sound the death knell for the ‘Customs Partnership’ option favoured by the Prime Minister. That’s assuming, of course, the House of Commons don’t force the Customs Union option upon the Government in the next few weeks.

PEAK CORBYN

Many commentators are talking about ‘Peak Corbyn’ and saying that these results show Labour can’t win a General Election.

We should be cautious about this as in a General Election turnout would be twice as high and the Campaign much more intense and high profile.

That said if an Election isn’t held soon then it’s inevitable that Corbyn won’t be such a fresh face anymore. Remember no Opposition Leader has won a second General Election in the last 40 years.

THE NEW REAL DIVIDE IN UK POLITICS

Where once we talked about the North-South divide and the Working Class Middle Class divide these results confirm what we saw in 2017. A new divide is now plain to see

Younger Metropolitan Voters v Older Socially Conservative Voters

Big Cities versus Towns and Rural Areas

Leave versus Remain

The Conservatives have precious little representation in all the major UK cities bar London yet govern the country that’s a very different picture to 20 years ago.

In a couple of days time, the Local Elections 2018 will be forgotten and I suspect Brexit will top the News Agenda again. In the meantime the political world takes the briefest of Bank Holiday breaks to catch up on lost sleep before hostilities resume.

Richard Dawson