UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Gary J]

If Parliament has not been dissolved by 4 May, the writ (in theory a royal command) for the by-election to be held will remain in full force. It is irrelevant how long the new MP serves before the disolution.

If Parliament is dissolved before 4 May, then the by-election will be cancelled.

BBC is just announcing that the Parliamentary vote for an early general election (requiring support from two thirds of the members), will be held tomorrow.

[Gary J]

UK Independence will last a thousänd yeärs...

Heil EU!

This reminds me more of the comment by the Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell in 1962, that:-

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Gaitskell at the time was considered a rather right wing figure in the Labour Party, but he offended younger similar politicians (notably Roy Jenkins) by taking an anti European Economic Community stance.

[Gary J]

Electoral pacts are difficult to arrange due to the tribal nature of British political parties. Now the norm is that Labour, Conservative and the Liberal Democrats will contest every seat in Great Britain, apart from the Speaker's constituency and very occasional special cases like Martin Bell in Tatton in 1997.

Two generations ago there was not the expectation that the major parties would contest every seat.

Before 1964 there were local pacts, in two northern English boroughs with two seats, to have a Conservative candidate in one seat and a Liberal in the other. In 1964 Labour won both seats in Bolton and Huddersfield.

[Gary J]

What is interesting about this election is that for the first time the CON vote share will most likely be above LAB + LIB vote shares combined.  I do not think this has even taken place in the modern era.  The only exception seems to be 1955 but LIB contested so few seats that year I do not really count that.

I would say the modern political era starts in 1922, when the Labour-Conservative two party syste, became firmly established.

The Conservatives outpolled Labour and Liberals combined in 1931. Admittedly that is a special case, as the Conservatives and Liberals were both supporting the National government and the Labour Party was split.

Again in 1935 the Conservatives outpolled the other two. The Liberal Party was no longer supporting the National government by that point.

British Electoral Facts 1832-2012 does not suggest that 1955 was an exception, C 49.3%, Lab 47.4%, Lib 2.8%.

[Gary J]

Corbyn is a very implausible coalition Prime Minister. He cannot agree with the majority of his own MPs, let alone those from other parties.

I think if Corbyn got the chance to form a government, he would produce a Labour minority administration. He would do no deals with anyone and just dare the opposition parties to combine and vote him out.

This is not a formula for a very productive period of government, but like Ramsay MacDonald in 1923 it might be thought that the fact of a left wing government for a few months would make future ones more likely.

[Gary J]

Anyways, will campaigning be suspended and if so for how long?

It is possible the election could be be postponed until two weeks from now.

There is no legal provision for a general election, which has already started, to be postponed except in the case of the death of the monarch. The House of Commons briefing paper on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 explains the situation.

 [quote]3.5 Demise of the Crown
The Act creates a new section 20 of the Representation of the People
Act 1985. This section deals with the position following the demise of
the Crown in the days before polling day. Where a demise occurs seven
days or fewer prior to dissolution or once Parliament has been dissolved,
the election will be delayed by 14 days (or to the next working day
thereafter if the 14th day is not a working day).[/quote

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/SN06111%20(1).pdf

David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, just told the BBC (on the Andrew Marr show that I am just listemimg to live) that he did not think there was any power to postpone a general election. He also pointed out that it would need a change in the law and with Parliament dissolved for the general election there was no one who could amend the law.

[Gary J]

I think you would need something catastrophic, like a nuclear attack, before the executive would act outside law to postpone a general election.

I believe that there was a plan during the Cold War that, if attack was imminent and Parliament could not respond in time, emergency powers would be enacted under the royal prerogative. The constitutionality of using a power to legislate without Parliament, for the first time since about the 13th century, was extremely dubious. However if the emergency were big enough, no one would be bothered about formalities.