There has been speculation everywhere that Boris Johnson will call an election in order to get a parliamentary majority to secure Brexit. Some have said he would need to make an agreement with the Brexit Party before the election, others that the pact would need to come afterwards – but most of what I have read seems to assume that the order of events in the plan is: Call election > Win election (possibly with help) > Leave EU.
Have I missed something? Because it seems to me that Mr Johnson would get a better shot at all his goals by calling an election timed to occur just after Brexit.
The entry for Dissolution of Parliament on Parliament’s own website says,
What happens to Parliament at dissolution?
Parliament is dissolved 25 working days before a general election at a minute past midnight.The formal end to the parliamentary session is called ‘prorogation’. This may take place a few days before dissolution.
So Mr Grieve’s ingenious scheme to make it harder for Parliament to be prorogued is rendered void. While MPs are locked out of the building, the gears turn unimpeded and eventually the great or terrible hour strikes.
House of Commons
When Parliament is dissolved, every seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant. All business in the House comes to an end. MPs stop representing their constituencies. There will be no MPs until after the general election.
And until after Brexit.
MPs can come into Parliament for a few days after dissolution to clear their offices.
Those who wish to be MPs again must stand again as candidates for election.
They will be standing and campaigning for a seat in the post-Brexit House. The whole political environment will be different, and much more favourable to the Conservatives. If Brexit seems inevitable, much of the justification for the Brexit Party’s existence melts away, and so does the incentive for pro-Remain parties to unite in an electoral pact to stop Brexit. To an exhausted electorate “Rejoin” is a much less appealing message than “Don’t leave”, and the attitude of the major opposition parties to it is more split. The Liberal Democrats would want it, but Labour, especially if Mr Corbyn is still at the helm, would probably be happy to kick it into the long grass as a vaguely worded aspiration.
Role of the Commons Speaker at dissolution
The Speaker is no longer an MP once Parliament is dissolved.
Like every other MP, the Speaker must stand for re-election. The Speaker will stand as ‘Speaker seeking re-election’.
However, the Speaker retains responsibility for the management of the House of Commons as they remain the chair of the House of Commons Commission until a new Speaker is elected.
In the circumstances I have described Mr Bercow’s long-delayed departure would be seen by the Tories as the icing on the cake.
It might be that Mr Johnson could be stopped from holding a general election by the opposition voting to deny the government the two thirds majority that the Fixed Term Parliament Act requires it to have to call an election. But when I try to imagine Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell going through the division lobbies to deny themselves the chance of power, or stranger yet to protest that they do indeed have confidence in a Johnson government, I cannot make the vision form.
I probably have missed something quite obvious. Tell me what it is and I will get on with my day.
What if an acceptable deal with the EU materialised after dissolution but before independence?
I don’t know. Like that of a lot of people, including most MPs, my sense of how Parliament works has never really adapted to the Fixed Term Parliament Act. But my guess is that the effect of dissolution would be that it was impossible to process any offer from the EU, now matter how good. The decision to call an election would effectively bring the deadline forward.
This does sound like a bold and cunning plan.
Natalie: “The whole political environment will be different, and much more favourable to the Conservatives.”
You are in the UK, and I am not — so I will take your word for it. But from casual conversations here & there, I get the impression that the Disgust Factor for politicans in the UK is running rather high, especially for the mis-governing Conservatives.
The possible flaw in the scheme is the First Past The Post electoral scheme, which can give very surprising results when more than 2 serious parties are in competition. Knowing that, and expecting at least 4 serious candidates in every seat, there are probably a lot of Conservative & Labour MPs who do not want to risk an election right now, and maybe lose their sweet deal. Expect unprecedented inter-party cooperation between MPs to delay any election for as long as possible.
Prof Paz,
I wasn’t necessarily advocating it. Although I think it is desperately important that the referendum result should be honoured, I do not claim to know what would be the best course of action to fight off those who are trying to stop it happening.
The point of my post was to observe that this seems to be a possible strategy that it would be in Boris Johnson’s interests to pursue.
But Gavin Longmuir makes a good point that in the present state of flux, any election is risky for sitting MPs. In addition to that risk factor, which would apply to any election this year, calling one timed to take place just after Oct 31 would be a doubly bold step because it would be effectively Boris going decisively for No Deal before he had to – crossing the Rubicon, so to speak.
The other possibility is to put a “No Deal BRExit” bill before parliament and hold it as a confidence motion. If it gets enacted then PM BoJo is good to leave on 31st November without a deal. If it gets rejected then we’re in a position (even under the auspices of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act) where PM BoJo can engineer the fall of his own government and making BRExit inevitable (if timed right)
The advantage of this is that there is nothing as “Democratic” as calling an election and it prevents whinging Remoaners like Grieve from forcing a lockout of Parliament (which would, I believe, be the first since Cromwell).
The flaw is that he will likely have the nearly all the same people standing for re-election as presently occupy the posts.
You can’t expect much to change if you simply reshuffle the same hand of cards, particularly if that hand contains all the jokers in the pack.
Besides as Gavin Longmuir correctly points out, I think that the electorate have seen the true nature of the parliamentarians and are likely to vote to get rid of the present incumbents, regardless of their political hue. So they will cling on to the bitter end to preserve their positions.
An election will probably result in actually Brexit, but probably it won’t be Boris in No.10, it will be Nigel 😉
The clock is ticking, and the prospect of an election that could stop Brexit has probably already evaporated. If remain MPs want an election before exit day, their window closes this week. No motion by Thursday, no pre-Brexit election.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/parliament-and-elections/elections-elections/when-might-an-early-general-election-take-place/
But even if remain MPs won the vote on such a motion, Boris controls the date of the election, and could choose to push it to a date after exit day. He could orchestrate it so that Brexit happens in the middle of his election campaign, and he could take credit for it in a fight against remain Labour.
If any of the remain parties vote for a general election, they are walking into a trap. The likes of Grieve would surely prefer to keep parliament in session, in the hope of somehow using procedure to force us to stay in the EU. An early election might not be as inevitable as some commentators seem to believe.
I’m not saying that an early election is inevitable, just that it is an option that PM BoJo has at his disposal to force BRexit on an unwilling Parliament. The very threat of it may well do the heavy lifting required.
Not exactly; under the F-tPA losing a vote framed as a confidence vote doesn’t trust an election; only a vote on a motion “That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government” does that. Unlike a motion to hold an early GE, which needs 2/3 of the House’s support, a properly phrased confidence motion can pass on a simple majority but can be reversed by a bit of confidence within a fortnight.