Electoral Registration and Administration act 2013

Given the political divisions over the government’s Brexit strategy and the state of the Article 50 negotiations, speculation about a general election has increased in recent weeks. Alan Wager analyses the scenarios that could lead to a fourth parliament in as many years, and how the current timeframe imposed by Article 50 and the Withdrawal Act might complicate matters.

How will the current Brexit impasse be broken? If the government can’t get its Brexit deal through parliament, there are two potential ways of getting through the deadlock: a referendum, or a general election.

The Constitution Unit’s recent report, The Mechanics of a Further Referendum on Brexit, set out two sets of obstacles standing in the way of a Brexit referendum: problems of political will, and issues of political timing. It convincingly showed that issues of timing were far from insurmountable, but would likely require an extension of the Article 50 process. To make that extension a viable prospect, and for parliament to support a referendum, will in turn require significant political will.

The path to a referendum is fraught, but the route to a general election is no less difficult to map out. Westminster is quickly getting to grips with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA), a piece of legislation which many wrote off as dead following Theresa May’s successful snap election in 2017. Stated simply, there are two ways parliamentary gridlock could lead to a general election. Firstly, the government could, as Theresa May did in April 2016, seek the approval of 434 MPs in the House of Commons to trigger an election. Secondly, if the Prime Minister lost a vote of confidence in the Commons by a simple majority, and no majority could be found in parliament for a new government after two weeks, then a general election would be the result.

These procedural hurdles are forbidding, but far from insurmountable. Labour would undoubtedly support Theresa May in parliament if she called a general election. It is hard to see the circumstances where the Prime Minister would wish to risk seeking the support of 434 MPs to trigger a general election. It is less difficult to imagine a new Conservative leader, if May lost a leadership election, doing so in order to gain a mandate. The second path, losing a confidence vote, would require some Conservative MPs to vote against their own government in parliament. This would, in short, require a fracture in the party system. Continue reading →

A major 2011 shake-up of the rules governing how the UK’s parliamentary constituencies are drawn has proved controversial. While the new rules deal with the long-standing issue of substantial inequalities in constituency electorates, they also threaten frequent major disruption of the country’s constituency map. But attempts to square the circle by revising the 2011 legislation seem stalled, and the new rules themselves have yet to result in new constituencies. Charles Pattie, Ron Johnston and David Rossiter offer their view of where we are, and where we should go from here.

Largely unnoticed outside Westminster, an important debate has been going on over how to redraw the UK’s constituency map. The current rules for doing so are enshrined in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 (the Constituencies Act). But since the start of this year, two major proposals have been made to revise aspects of the Act. In February, the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) published a report setting out its proposals (and in late May, the government responded). And a private member’s bill sponsored by Labour MP Afzal Khan, containing a different set of recommended changes is still making its way through parliament. Continue reading →