A constitutional crisis ahead?

 

More than three quarter of those who cast a vote in the only by-election so far in this Parliament did so for either the Labour or the Reform candidate.  One of them got 26 more votes than the other.  It is arguable and ironic that the Rejoin EU candidate’s 129 votes was what won it for Reform.  Our one-member first-past-the-post elections throw up almost random results like this all the time.

Low levels of turn out also produces a further anomaly within our electoral system.  The new Reform MP elected then had the active support of less than one fifth (17.9%) of the registered electors in that constituency.  She is not unusual; my Labour MP had the active support of only 25.5% registered electors at the last General Election.

And don’t get me started on the way more people voted in the 2019 General Election for parties offered a ‘second referendum when we can see the terms of a Brexit deal’ policy (including Labour, Lib Dem and SNP) than for those which offered a ‘get Brexit done now’ one (including Conservative and Reform).

But something worse may be coming.  It is quite possible that the next General Election will have an unworkable result.  And it will do so just at the point at which it becomes even more obvious that no Government can deliver something which meets both the population’s wide spread aspirations and its desire for manageable levels of taxation.

Assume turnout is as poor as 60%.  This is plausible given recent General Election figures and political disconnection.

Assume that each individual who votes will vote one of five ways: for the present Government party (Labour); for the previous Government party (Conservative); for the ‘third’ party by current number of seats (Lib Dem); for the ‘third’ party by who is doing best in current polls (Reform); and for any one of the wide range of further alternatives (including the Greens and the Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh parties).

The split in votes won’t be exactly five way (12% of registered voters for each of the five options), but whatever it is it will produce some quite eccentric outcomes in terms of the split in seats.  It is plausible that no single party will achieve a quarter of the seats (compare the Conservative’s present 18.6% of seats).

Present polling gives the possibility that Reform would do much better than one fifth of the votes cast and be the largest party.  Even then the polling doesn’t suggest it would have an overall majority of seats, and with the Conservatives (their only realistic coalition partner?) perhaps at their present level of seats. 

What if no plausible coalition would achieve 50% of seats?  Not just a Reform-Conservative one, but also a Conservative-Lib Dem one or a Lib Dem-Labour one.  What would we do then?

Reform are among those who are clear that the 2016 Referendum (when 37.5% of registered voters turned out to support leaving the EU) produced an unchallengeable democratic mandate.  What is they are clear that they have a democratic mandate to govern (27% of votes according to present polls, the active support of 16.2% of registered voters if turnout is 60%) but are being denied the opportunity to do so?  And no alternative Government can be formed either? 

It is hard for people to see the detail of the Lincoln Imp high up at the Cathedrals west end, but the huge pub sign at the Lincoln Imp on the city’s Ermine estate is very clear.