Next UK General Election thread

[Gary J]

Does the review of the parliamentary constituencies still have to be approved by Parliament, and if so, will the results of this election prevent that from happening?

The Boundary Commissions are due to put forward proposals in September 2018. Before the new boundaries can be put into law, Parliament will have to approve them. If the changes are rejected, then the existing boundaries will continue in force.

Given that only the Conservative Party is reasonably happy with a 600 seat House of Commons, it must be quite possible but not certain that the results of the boundary review will be rejected.

[Gary J]

Voting intention:
SURVATION
10/06/2017

LAB 45 (+5)
CON 39 (-2)
LIB 7 (-1)
SNP 3 (-1)
UKIP 3 (+1)
OTH 3 (-1)

On leadership:
YOUGOV
09/06/2017 - 10/06/2017

MAY 39 (-4)
CORBYN 39 (+9)

Congratulations, May, you've become Ted Heath 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Though may I offer don't-count-your-chickens advice--Labour could just as well get too cocky and blow it in the other direction, and I'm not even saying so from an anti-Labour standpoint.  Heck, even with a seat plurality *they* could fall short of a majority, and here we go again, *three* elections triggered within the space of a year or so...

Yeah. Labour *cannot* be the ones to call the next election. Plain and simple. I'm not fully aware of the mechanics of calling an election without a Government or a no-confidence vote, but Corbyn and Labour simply can't risk being perceived as opportunistic and inflicting ~another~ election on the UK public.

After all, that was what poisoned May's campaign from the very start this time around.

The constitutional position is relatively clear. Theresa May is and continues to be Prime Minister until she either resigns or the House of Commons demonstrates it has no confidence in her.

If Mrs. May thinks she can command a majority in the House, which she could with the support of the 10 DUP MPs as well as her own party, then she will form a government and present a Queen's speech (which sets out the proposed government legislative programme). If the House passes the usual motion in favour of the Queen's speech then the May government has demonstrated that it has the confidence of the House.

If the House rejects the government programme or passes an opposition amendment, Mrs May would, under the traditional constitutional conventions, have had to either advise another dissolution or resign. Normally, either way, the Leader of the Opposition would be asked if he could form a ministry with the confidence of the House and if so would be appointed Prime Minister.  Of course if the new Prime Minister proved over optimistic, he would then have to ask for a dissolution, which would probably be granted as no viable government could be formed in the present House.

Under the current fixed term legislation, a government defeated on the Queen's speech might either resign immediately or wait for the prescribed formal procedure to be followed.

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[Gary J]

PM Corbyn when?

There is an outside chance of Friday 30 June.

The House of Commons is currently debating a motion to approve the Queen's speech, which sets out the government's legislative programme for the next two years. The vote is due on Thursday 29 June. If it does not pass then it is likely that the Prime Minister will then resign and arguably it would be unconstitutional not to do so.

There may be some doubt about what will happen because the interaction between the traditional constitutional conventions and the provisions of the fixed term parliaments law, have never been tested.

It is likely that a slim Conservative/DUP majority will prevail, so the interesting constitutional issues will not arise, but the numbers involved do not give the Prime Minister much margin of error.

[Gary J]

The outside chance disappeared after my previous post, as the Conservatives and DUP finalised the deal to give Theresa May an overall majority in Parliament.

If Mrs May had had to resign after losing the vote on the Queen's speech then the Leader of the Opposition would be asked if he could form a ministry with the confidence of the House. If the answer was no then presumably Mrs May would continue in office, in a caretaker capacity, while the House of Commons got to vote on an early election motion.

If Jeremy Corbyn's answer was yes then he would get a chance to form a government and dare the other parties to vote it down. Given that there is a convention that there should be at least a few months gap between general elections, there would have been a chance that the Conservatives would abstain on confidence votes whilst they changed their leader. However none of this will happen now.

[Gary J]

The movement surrounding Jacob Rees Mogg appears to be really taking off recently. Let's say they win and Mogg becomes prime minister in 2019 after Brexit is complete. How do you think his premiership would go and how would the 2022 election go assuming the Conservative government lasts?

Jacob Rees-Mogg is a back bencher and likely to remain so. All Conservative leaders for more than a century have been front benchers when selected or elected leader (apart from Andrew Bonar Law in 1922, who had retired from his first term as leader in 1921 due to ill health which he seemed to have recovered from by 1922).