November's Political Intelligence
By Rafaella de Freitas
The Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after losing his majority in the Commons and failing to secure the votes to approve the calendar of the Withdrawal Agreement, determined that a general election was the only way out of the Brexit impasse. But the Brexit election quickly grew to cover much more than that. The debate has grown to include the future of the NHS, education and tuition fees, and following the tragic London Bridge attack last week, sentencing and criminal justice laws.
Until 2011, the Queen had the prerogative power of calling a general election, as requested by the sitting PM. However, the realisation that the procedure largely benefits the incumbent Prime Minister led to passing of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 set a default general election date on the first Thursday of May on the fifth year since the previous general election. The Act also allowed for general elections to be initiated under two circumstances:
If a motion for an early general election is agreed either by at least two-thirds of the House, or without a division of the House.
If a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative government is formed in the Commons within 14 days.
In this case, the general election was resultant of the first scenario, after receiving backing from the opposition party. The motion was supported by the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose conditional supported depended on Johnson’s promise to keep a no deal Brexit off the table. This was fulfilled after an extension to the exit deadline was granted by the EU, and moved to the end of January 2020, allowing sufficient time for an election and for the winning party to propose an alternative solution to the exit.
Critiques considered this election to be a Brexit election - voters would base their voting preferences on their MP candidate’s party’s position on Brexit rather than the wider party manifesto. Brexit opinions are not party-oriented and transcend ideological divides, which would prove a very demanding challenging feature for candidates campaigning, as they would have to satisfy voters with very different stances on Brexit.
In line with the Brexit election position, smaller parties have attempted to align themselves in their Brexit agenda: the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party formed an electoral pact. Announced soon after the election was called, the parties agreed not to stand against each other in 60 seats, to avoid splitting the Remain vote. The parties not standing against each other in selected constituencies is justified if: one of the parties already represented the constituency in the previous election, or if one of the parties were the second most voted and the elected MP had a small majority. The pact followed from their agreement in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election earlier in the year, in which the Greens and Plaid Cymru did not stand candidates against the Lib Dems, successfully driving out the sitting Tory MP, Chris Davies.
The same rationale was employed by the Leave candidates, and after an attempt to pressure the Tories into a Brexit pact, the Brexit Party announced that it would not contest 317 Tory-won seats so as to not split the Leave vote. The Party leader Nigel Farage targeted the Labour party as their main challenge. The Brexit Party has a particular relevance in Wales, after its candidates took two out of the four Welsh seats available for the European Parliament.
As the campaign period progressed, and parties released their manifestos, the election became about more than Brexit: Corbyn’s Labour Party promises a radical transformation of the UK, emphasising the current social injustice present in the UK, remedied through measures such as taxing the rich (focusing on billionaires) and corporations, protecting the NHS from foreign intervention, especially the USA, and scrapping tuition fees. Corbyn’s radical manifesto puts a strain on budget, and promises an ambitious increase of £83 billion in spending. This contrasts with the Tory plans of increasing spending by £2.9 billion, and a more restrained Lib Dem agenda of increasing spending by £50 billion. However, as noted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, both Labour and Tory plans are not realistic. On the one hand, the Conservatives would likely end up spending more than they promised, which would be funded by either an increase in borrowing or an increase in taxes. On the other hand, the sudden increase in spending promised by the Labour party is unrealistic, and the public sector does not have the capacity to generate the additional funds required within five years.
In addition to budget, the parties also have very differing views across all aspects of society and the economy. Trending topics include sustainability and climate change, workers rights, education and healthcare. Following Theresa May’s declaration of a climate emergency and the promise of net-zero emissions by 2050, this was the first election which put climate change in the forefront. However, commitment ranged from the Tory promise of £640 to plant 30 million trees to the Lib Dem pledge of 60 million trees planted in one year. The Labour party’s focus was more industry-oriented, including taxation measures, job creation and R&D funding for new technologies. Following from their pledge to nationalise utilities, the Labour manifesto also promised a new National Energy Agency to own and maintain national grid infrastructure. Labour’s approach to sustainability takes a structural angle, contrasting to the Tory measures which can be seen as superficial, especially when juxtaposed with their liberal and deregulated market proposals. For example, flood defense boosts are very necessary but fail to address the causes of flooding, but their £800m proposal to develop a carbon capture storage by the mid 2020s could prove an effective tool against climate change.
In terms of immigration - a topic largely associated to Brexit - the Labour agenda defends freedom of movement with the EU despite the Brexit outlook as well as extending family reunion rights to non-EU citizens, whereas the Conservatives take a harsher stance on immigration, promoting selective and restrictive freedom of movement. The Tory immigration proposal has the goal of favouring business, which is also clear by its business proposals, which favour corporations rather than workers, whilst the Labour economic proposals are worker-oriented. For example, the Conservatives would maintain current Corporation tax at 19%, and reduce tax rates for business tax, R&D tax, construction tax and employers’ national insurance contribution. The Labour manifesto pledges to force big multinationals to declare their profits in the country where their economic activity occurs, and increase the main rate of corporation tax from 19% to 26%, and the small profits rate to 21%. Lib Dems intent to raise corporation tax to 20%. A breakdown of the different party positions on workers rights by Fashion Roundtable can be found here. A breakdown of party positions regarding the main public policy themes can be found here.
From the Brexit outcome to the future of the NHS, it appears that much is at stake in the current election and voters seem to be dedicated to issues that cross party boundaries. The election period has popularised the practice of tactical voting, in which people’s vote do not necessarily represent their political views, but are instead a tool to vote in or vote out parties with a certain agenda. Farage, for example, urged a tactical vote to ensure that the elected party or candidate in a given constituency would deliver Brexit. Tactical voting also works on the Leave/ Remain divide, or for the purpose of preventing a Conservative/ Labour government. The Telegraph provides a detailed guide on tactical voting on the Leave/ Remain angle, and argues that tactical voters will most likely cancel each other out.
Whatever the results, the election is hugely important for a number of reasons. The majority party will determine the terms for the EU exit, which does not settle Brexit but will lay the groundwork for future negotiations on trade and regulation with the EU and globally. The election result is also decisive for a further Scottish Independence vote – a topic that resurfaced after the EU referendum. The signals sent by Number 10 seem to clearly indicate that a Scottish Independence vote would not be supported in the case of a Conservative majority. Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn defended that they would not agree with a Scottish independence referendum in the early years of government, whereas the Liberal Democrats were the only party committed to “stopping Brexit and independence”, according to Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie. Furthermore, if a Labour government were to deliver on their campaign promises, a victor could mean the end of austerity and a reform in the UK’s social and economic dynamics. Finally, the referendum proved divisive, and the winning party will have the arduous task of restoring faith in the political system and of uniting the UK with a coherent social and economic strategy, that speaks to both leavers and remainers.