One of the dumbest laws from the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition was the solution in search of a problem, the Fixed Term Parliament Act.
This law makes it very difficult for a governing party to call new elections. In the United States, fixed election dates works quite well due to the nature of government and the staggered terms of elected office holders. In the UK, it is pure nonsense.
Without the FTPA, the UK would certainly have held new elections either before or after the triggering of Article 50. I’d strongly support the calling of new elections, Conservative leader and former Prime Minister David Cameron has resigned, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband resigned as well as Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The Conservative manifesto that elected the Conservatives as the majority party has basically been abandoned.
The flexibility to call new elections doesn’t exist any longer and it should. The majority party always has a risk when they go the country for new elections, but they should be able to do so.
I agree with you but early election has to be called by the governing party (unless a vote of no confidence). What makes you think Theresa May would have done that? She seems to believe (incorrectly IMO) that she still has a mandate and “will of the people”.
In principle, I agree with the OP. However polling indicates an election now would turn the Conservatives’ slim majority into a landslide, and that’s depressing.
I don’t know that that would gain them many seats, though. A 15% share of the vote in Scotland in the 2015 general election got them just 1 seat. In the same election a 24% share of the Scottish vote got the Labour party just 1 Scottish seat.
Presumably a 30% share would get the Tories more than 1 seat. But not necessarily very many more.
I rather like the fact that election cycles are now not at the behest of the party in power. Unless something major happens they should run full term.
One thing I think should automatically trigger a new election is the installation of a new PM. Shouldn’t be allowed without a new GE to follow within six months.
The big unintended consequence of that would be to strengthen the position of an unpopular Prime Minister. A party in government doing badly in the polls would think twice about trying to solve the problem by getting rid of its leader. The thought of an early general election could well be the most powerful weapon that the PM would have to keep the more cowardly of their wavering MPs in line.
On the general issue, I’m not sure that one system is obviously better than the other. Both have advantages and disadvantages which tend to cancel each other out in the long run. However, the one time when a fixed term did make sense was during the 2010 Parliament. The coalition would have been much less stable than it was had both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats not known that they were locked into their partnership for the full five years. Both sides needed the Fixed Term Act as their pledge of good faith to the other.
And that would apply if coalitions seemed to be becoming the norm - and particularly if we had a more proportional electoral system, which would be much more likely to produce coalitions.
Similarly, what if there’s a disaster of some sort: Britain becomes the target of major terrorist attacks and they take out the PM? If the PM’s party has a solid majority in the Commons, maybe even supported in a national unity government by the Opposition, why have an election? Assassinating the PM might be seen as a way to destabilize the U.K.
I’m originally from Australia, and i’ve always been annoyed at the way that government can inflict elections on the populace whenever it seems in the government’s interest to do so. The OP has certainly made no compelling case about why the majority party should be able to call an election whenever it likes.
I’d reduce the time frame. Three months, or maybe even six weeks.
LOL.
What percentage of voters in the parliamentary system go to the polls thinking more about their MP than about the government that’s going to be formed, and the Prime Minister that will head it?
Is it greater than about five percent? I doubt it.
I’ve lived about two-thirds of my life in parliamentary systems, and i’ve known plenty of people who barely know who their actual MP is, but know which party they want to form the government, and which person they want to be PM.
Is that a good thing? Possibly not, but to suggest that it’s not the case is to deny how parliamentary politics works in the real world.
The same criticism can be said in the US of people voting for Congressmen, when they simply vote for ‘the Republican/Democrat’. But when the President changes for whatever reason, they don’t have new elections.
Indeed; but that doesn’t mean that (in your words) “That those MPs form governments is secondary” to most voters, whatever constitutional precedent says.
When people make their political decisions, their own perceptions and preferences are, in a very real sense, more important than the underlying theory of government and representation.
If people in a parliamentary system make their voting decisions based more on the idea of forming a government and choosing a Prime Minister than they do on a preference for a particular individual as their own MP, then that’s the political reality, whether or not you wish it were otherwise. Also, as a politically conscious person who has lived and voted in parliamentary democracies, i don’t believe that there’s anything irrational or irresponsible about focusing one’s political attentions in this manner.
One reason for this is that many parliamentary systems tend to expect, and get, a lot of party loyalty from MPs. There is not as much of a horse-trading and floor-crossing in the UK or Australian parliament as you get, for example, in the United States Congress. And as a result, the effect of the national government on any particular person’s life tends to be result of which party controls the government and has the Prime Minister, rather than which party happens to win your own particular electorate.
I remember, in Australia, living in an electorate where my favored Labor candidate won a seat in parliament, but where the Liberal/National coalition won the election. Having my local Labor candidate on the minority benches was far less useful, in my opinion, than having my favored party in power. If some magic power had said to me, “You can have a Labor victory, but you have to give up your own electorate to the other party,” i would take it every time, and so would most other people who live and vote in the Westminster system.