Why (and how) there will be a general election very soon

So as a country we've voted for Brexit.

I didn't of course, I voted for Remain. But we are where we are.

One thing that I have been certain of since the moment it started to become clear that Leave were likely to win on Thursday evening is that there will certainly be an early general election, likely very early. It was obvious Cameron would have to resign and therefore that there would be a new Prime Minister within a few months.

Boris Johnson is favourite to be that new PM but even if he isn't the new leader will face a number of pressures the inexorable logic of which will lead to them having to go to the country sooner rather than later.

Firstly there will be the fact that the manifesto that was voted on in 2015 and the mandate that Cameron had has been utterly eclipsed by this referendum result. It is simply not tenable for a new leader to piggy-back off Cameron's win and ride things out until 2020 when everything has changed so fundamentally.

Secondly, Boris's (or A. N. Other leader's) majority will be wafer thin. Given the incredibly difficult task the new PM will have navigating a course through negotiations with the EU trying to execute a tricky and trap-laden divorce settlement will frankly be impossible when a tiny back-bench rebellion on any one vote could bring the whole house of cards crashing down. They will need a decent working majority as a bare minimum.

Thirdly, more pragmatically the recent precedents are not good for leaders who take over and do not win an election of their own within fairly short order. Gordon Brown bottled it in 2007 and his Premiership was dogged by "The Election that never Was". Jim Callaghan also refused to go to the country in 1978 at a time that was likely much more propitious than waiting it out until a vote of no confidence sunk him less than a year later and issued in The Age of Thatcher. By contrast John Major who had the good fortune to be able to eke out the fag end of Thatcher's third term from the end of 1990 through to early 1992 while he was still relatively popular won a huge mandate of his own.

Fourthly, if it is Boris then it is preposterous to expect that someone who has been banging on for months and months about us being lorded over by "Unelected Brussels Bureaucrats" can expect to remain in office for long unelected. He'll need the mandate to have any real credibility given all his on the record statements on this subject.

But, but, but I hear you splutter. What about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act of 2011? Doesn't that mean that we can't have another general election until 2020?

Well technically yes. Unless one of two things happen, both of which are quite possible.

One is that two thirds of the Commons votes for a dissolution of parliament. So effectively that would require both the Tories and Labour to vote for one. That is perhaps the most likely way it will happen. Because I simply cannot see politically how Labour refuses a general election no matter how frit they might be of the consequences (especially if Corbyn is still leader). Can you imagine the utter derision that will be poured on them if they deny the public the opportunity of a fresh election given how fundamentally the tectonic plates of UK politics have now shifted?

But if Labour make that dreadful miscalculation then all the new PM has to do is call a vote of no confidence in him or herself, bring down his/her own government and then wait two weeks. When no stable alternative government can be formed (which of course with the current parliamentary numbers would be impossible) then an election is triggered by default. A bit more messy but would get us to the same place. You could certainly imagine a politician with the sheer chutzpah of Boris Johnson delighting in the opportunity to use a mechanism like this. To bring down his own government in order to rise phoenix-like from the flames in an even more powerful position.

Finally if the new PM wants to short-circuit all of that they could simply invoke emergency legislation to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. That only requires a bare majority in the Commons and I doubt the Lords would do anything to stop it given the current circumstances. Then they would be free to call an election whenever they wanted, old-school style.

So three different ways to achieve the ends required. I would guess number one will happen but even if it has to be one of the other ways I am certain we will have an election within the next 12 months, quite possibly later this year.

In fact as Thursday evening bled into Friday morning and I became more and more convinced that Brexit was going to win I put some money on with the only remaining online bookies who were still taking bets on this market backing a general election in 2016 and covering one in 2017 too. About 30 minutes after I placed this bet the online site took the market down. I got odds of 10-1 for both bets.

I put my money where my mouth is. Mark my words, we'll be going to the polls again before very long.

An open letter to a Leave voter

Dear <**LEAVE_VOTER**>

So here we are. I voted Remain, you voted Leave. You won. It was narrow but clear. 52% to 48%.

I fear that a lot of what the Remain campaign said would happen will now come to pass. I hope I am wrong but I think it is very likely that there will be various negative short and long term consequences of the vote we've just had.

Members of Leave have already started to back-track on the pledges made during the campaign. Nigel Farage for example has said that the pledge emblazoned on the side of the Leave battle bus was "a mistake" and that there will not be £350 million extra per week for the NHS. Daniel Hannan said on Newsnight last night that migration will not be curbed to any significant degree.

I don't know if you voted Leave for either of those reasons but if you did I think you'd be justified in feeling pretty annoyed today.

But it is very difficult to hold the Leave campaign to account. They were made up of politicians of different parties and now the campaign is over they have scattered to the wind.

Except that some of the leading lights in that campaign are likely to be part of the next government of the (currently United) Kingdom. Michael Gove for example is quite likely to be a senior cabinet minister. And Boris Johnson (who is most readily identified with that battle bus with the £350 million emblazoned on the side) is odds on to be our next Prime Minister.

I suspect that if (when) Boris becomes Prime Minister he will feel duty bound to call a snap general election in order to give himself the mandate to move forward with his negotiation plans with the EU.

When this happens I urge you to think very carefully about what has just happened. How quickly the Leave campaign has backed away from its promises.

If you are suffering from "buyer's remorse" right now. If you are one of the growing band of Regrexiteers who feel they've been sold a pup don't think there isn't anything you can do about it.

We have a representative democracy in this country and the chances are good that you will be able to send another message via the ballot box quite soon.

Please do not waste this chance. You need to speak to the politicians who will be in a position to do something about it in a language they understand.

All the best

Mark

House of Comments - Episode 110 - Small is Beautiful

Episode 110 of the House of Comments podcast "Small is Beautiful" is out. This week I am joined by Green Party activist Sian Berry and leader of The Pirate Party UK Loz Kaye to discuss Cameron's pledge to resign if he can't get an EU referendum, Fracking, copyright law and how the UK political system treats small parties.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 110 - Small is Beautiful’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 84 - Universal Discredit

Episode 84 of the House of Comments podcast "Universal Discredit" is out. Myself and Emma joined by the editor of The New Statesman blog The Staggers George Eaton to discuss the latest Universal Credit debacle, the NHS A&E crisis, the latest on an EU referendum, the ending of shipbuilding in Portsmouth and whether there's a link to Scottish independence and finally oversight of spending on the monarchy. Warning - contains republican ranting.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 84 - Universal Discredit’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 66 - Falkirk Fallout

Episode 66 of the House of Comments podcast "Falkirk Fallout" is out. This week myself and Emma Burnell are joined by Liberal Conspiracy's Sunny Hundal to discuss the fallout from the Falkirk selection debacle, how Ed Miliband's proposals to respond to this might affect the future of the Labour Party and the further recent discussions about an EU referendum.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 66 - Falkirk Fallout’ on Audioboo

If you are a political blogger and wish to be considered as a future guest please drop me an e-mail at markreckons@live.co.uk.

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us and especially to Audioboo's James O'Malley who has helped us out getting relaunched. James is also editor of The Pod Delusion podcast which is about "interesting things" and is well worth a listen too! We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

The toxic legacy of the AV referendum campaign

If I am honest I am still quite bitter about the 2011 AV referendum campaign and its outcome. Let's not kids ourselves that AV would have been a panacea. It definitely wouldn't have been. But it would have been a small step in the right direction, introduced people across the country to the idea of preferential voting and helped to ensure our MPs had a moderately stronger claim to each be there with in some cases broader support than they get under first past the post. So I am disappointed about the legacy the loss of the campaign has bequeathed us.

But what I am despondent about is the legacy that the winning No2AV campaign has bequeathed us.

Because that camp has post-hoc legitimised the misleading and outright stupid tactics that they pushed. Never mind about the truth, let's just pretend that AV is going to cost £250 million. By the time the Yes side has come up with a response the lie will have taken hold and they will be on the back foot. I've got a good wheeze: Let's publish a picture of a soldier and strongly imply that if people vote for AV they will not get the bullet-proof vests they need.  No, no hang on! I've got an even better one. Let's publish a picture of a new-born baby and even more strongly imply that if people vote for AV, sick children will not get the equipment they need. Oooh, I've got it! Let's come up with a spurious and tendentious set of reasoning that suggest the BNP will benefit from it. Oh, hang on the BNP are against AV. Who gives a shit! Let's say it anyway! Once we've released the boogeyman from the jar the Yes campaign will be playing catch-up trying to rebut it.

And so on, and so on.

I'm not saying the Yes campaign were perfect, they certainly weren't. But the No side exhibited all the characteristics of a "Whatever we need to say to win and hang the truth" campaign.

And of course they did win. Massively.

So with the Scottish independence referendum campaign coming up next year and a likely EU in/out referendum campaign in the next parliament I genuinely fear what sort of utter bollocks is going to be pushed, probably by all sides.

We've already seen huge arguments over North Sea oil where as far as I can tell misinformation is being heavily pushed by both sides and also scare stories about Sterling (Scotland could easily carry on with the pound if they wanted but why let the truth get in the way?).

And with the incipient EU campaign there are signs of where this is all heading with Nigel Farage leading the charge claiming that 75% of our laws are made in Brussels. This is simply a lie. It is 10% at the absolute most. And the pro-EU side has been at it too with Nick Clegg claiming that 3 million jobs are at risk if we withdraw which is such an extreme reading of the possibilities that it is effectively a parody.

I'm not saying the AV referendum campaign has caused all of this. But it has taught everyone involved in politics a toxic lesson. No matter how ridiculous the lie during a referendum campaign there is no effective oversight or consequences so make em big and make em scary.

All that matters is that you win.

How can Lib Dems credibly claim we only wanted an EU referendum "if things change"...

...when we were putting out leaflets like this before the election?

House of Comments - Episode 45 - Europe - The Final Countdown?

Episode 45 of the House of Comments podcast "Europe - The Final Countdown?" was recorded on Sunday and is out today. This week myself and Emma Burnell were joined by UKIP head of press Gawain Towler to discuss Cameron's announcement of an in/out EU referendum in 5 years time, the intemperate comments of Lib Dem MP David Ward about Israel and the blacklisting scandal.

Around 10 minutes in for a few minutes the sound goes slightly echoey. We sorted it out after that but apologies. It gets better if you listen on!

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here (note - this is a new feed so if you used to subscribe to the old feed a couple of years ago you'll need to do so again).

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 45 - Europe - The Final Countdown’ on Audioboo

If you are a political blogger and wish to be considered as a future guest please drop me an e-mail at markreckons@live.co.uk.

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us and especially to Audioboo's James O'Malley who has helped us out getting relaunched. James is also editor of The Pod Delusion podcast which is about "interesting things" and is well worth a listen too! We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

UKIP will soon have to decide if they want to be a party or a pressure group

With Cameron's EU referendum promise (by 2018) yesterday on a renegotiated EU membership for the UK the "tectonic plates" of British politics have now shifted again.

UKIP deserve credit for having contributed, perhaps decisively to Cameron's decision to opt for this plebiscite. It's even more impressive when you consider that they do not even have any MPs.

However the announcement could provoke an existential crisis within the new upstart right-wing party. Their main (although by no means only) policy is for an in/out referendum on Europe. It's why the party was formed and is really the only policy that they could honestly say their entire party will coalesce around. Cameron has shot that particular fox.

Come 2015, UKIP will have an important decision to make. Should they fight tooth and nail for every seat in the country as a truly national political party would? The risk with this is that it splits the vote on the right and could directly lead to the Tories losing the election. With Miliband already on the record against an EU referendum the effect of that could be to prevent the very referendum they want. Our bizarre electoral system could mean that a substantial vote for UKIP means that ironically we end up further away than ever from a vote on EU membership.

So maybe they ease off on the gas a little, especially in Conservative seats. But that is not what a true political party would do. Surely UKIP members, certainly in those blue seats will start to wonder why they are bothering if they are (either tactily or even overtly) asked to rein it in for 2015. Expect a fair bit of leakage back to the Tories of both voters and members if that was to happen threatening UKIP's viability in the longer term.

The other possibility is that there is some sort of pact with the Conservatives. I think this is unlikely but if UKIP call their bluff and continue to push hard Cameron may feel he has no choice but to entertain the idea. This would be a disaster for the smaller party. They would effectively be subsumed by the much larger party and whilst they may get a few MPs there will be huge swathes of UKIP supporters all over the country who are denied a chance to vote for a UKIP candidate. Again, not the actions of a party that wants to maintain widespread and popular support.

I don't know which way things will go but I know that however they do play out UKIP now face a threat to their very existence.

I'm sure this was at least a little bit in Cameron's mind when he made his speech yesterday.

The Lib Dems should support Cameron on an EU referendum

As I type David Cameron is delivering a speech on Europe in which he will promise an in/out referendum on Europe after the next election following a renegotiation of terms of membership for the UK.

There are lots of comments from across the political spectrum both for and against the PM's move. Many on the left are attacking him as "weak", the argument being he has capitulated to his backbenchers and is running scared of UKIP. There may be some truth in that but politically being on the side of "the voters" and giving them "the choice" is pretty damn hard to argue against.

And that is where the danger lies for the Lib Dems. Senior parliamentarians have been active in recent days making it clear that we are not in favour of an EU referendum unless something significant has changed (which technically has been our position since Clegg took over). I have argued previously that our position was too nuanced. We used to be for a referendum (and caveats were often not applied before the election), now we appear to be rowing back. There will be a temptation to try and distance the party from Cameron and fall in with the criticisms of him being "opportunistic". That would be an error and also failing to respond to the suddenly shifted ground.

Cameron's speech gives us the chance to get back on track. We should agree with allowing a referendum once terms have been negotiated. That will help to neutralise it as an issue. It's perfectly consistent with our position as we can clearly argue that renegotiated terms are a change and therefore our promise of a referendum should then kick in.

This actually gives us a way out of the political cul-de-sac we have got ourselves into on this issue in recent weeks. We should take it and back Cameron.

Stephen Tall is right on an EU referendum. And also very wrong.

Stephen Tall has recently been promoting the fact on Lib Dem Voice that the Lib Dems only ever promised a referendum on membership of the EU when there was a fundamental change in the relationship.

Stephen is absolutely right about that. That has been the line since 2007 and it hasn't really changed since then.

But he is also wrong. Wrong in that the fact he is right is largely beside the point.

We called for an in/out referendum. I remember our spokespeople before the last election saying things like "It's about time the British people had their say" and "We think the real question should be in or out". I also remember Clegg referring to those who were questioning this as cowardly. 4 years ago he wrote a piece that included these comments:

"..time for a debate politicians have been too cowardly to hold for 30 years - time for a referendum on the big question. Do we want to be in or out?"

and:

"This generation deserves its chance to say where we stand on Europe - in or out."

To most people's minds those sort of statements are pretty unequivocal. If we row back from them now we look shifty and like we are the ones who are cowards.

Guido and others have been making hay in recent days with Lib Dem leaflets from a few years back that called for a referendum. There were no caveats attached and we were clearly trying to neutralise Europe as an issue in order to win votes from those who might want to vote "out".

So whilst on a technicality we might be able to point to the fact that the context was in discussions around the Lisbon treaty and how if there was going to be a referendum on that treaty we'd be better off with it being an in/out referendum. But that won't cut much ice with most people. There are too many on the record Lib Dem statements of how "the people should decide". We look like we are backing away from a referendum.

One final point. This referendum is going to happen. It is a racing political certainty. The time has come. As Clegg pointed out in that piece nobody under the age of 51 (now 55) has ever voted on membership of the EU/EEC. If it is inevitable as it is, far better to be on the side of those calling for it from a strong principled position rather than looking like the shifty bunch who called for a referendum a few years back but now are denying that's what they really meant. During any referendum campaign "they never wanted to have this vote in the first place" will form a plank of the "out" campaign. We're giving them unnecessary free ammunition.

We've already dug a hole for ourselves here. We need to get out of it and accept we called for a referendum. Not keep wriggling on the hook. We have precious little political capital left. We should not be spending it on this futile exercise.

Lib Dems should not have whipped against EU referendum

Apologies for lack of posting recently. I've been a bit busy and will likely continue to be for a good while. I will dip in and out as I can though.

I really felt that I had to comment though on the debacle of the Lib Dems having been made via a 3 line whip to vote against a referendum on membership of the EU.

Frankly, what the hell were we playing at? I lost count of the number of times I heard party spokespeople in the run up to the election last year repeat the mantra that we should have an "in/out referendum". Over and over again. It was clearly a device to try and neutralise an issue on which the party recognises it is in the minority ay least on superficial polling evidence. I know that the actual manifesto commitment was if there was to be a transfer of powers to the EU then there should be a vote but frankly that nuance will be lost on most people and the caveat was not always invoked when it was discussed either. The man/woman in the street will just vaguely recall having heard that the Lib Dems were in favour of a referendum to give people their say on the EU and then watched only 1 Lib Dem MP (Adrian Sanders) vote for it with the rest either abstaining or voting against.

Way to go guys. In the wake of the tuition fee catastrophe you would think giving ammunition to those who accuse us of breaking our pledges would be avoided at all costs. But apparently not.

I cannot understand why Clegg and the party leadership did this. They could easily have pointed at the manifesto and said "Sorry Dave, we're not going down this road again" and fulfilled the spirit of the pledge. Instead it's more fodder for those who would love to see the Lib Dems destroyed as a political force which includes lots of Dave's own party.

Numerous people quit the party over tuition fees. I have already seen at least one Lib Dem blogger quit the party already over the EU vote. I have not seriously entertained this thought but I am one of those footsoldiers who has stood on doorsteps trying to persuade people to vote for us in the past. Where is my motivation to do this in future if it turns out that even when we are perfectly politically able to fulfill our pledges we choose not to? I could see how difficult the tuition fees situation was but this latest one is 100% self-inflicted.

I just hope the leadership reflects in the aftermath of this and resolves not to put us in such a position again.