LibCons must come clean on 55%

People seem to be finally waking up to Liberal-Tory proposals to change parliamentary rules so that 55% of MPs are required to being down the government and force an election (see yesterday’s post). Defenders of the coalition (see here for an example) are claiming that if the government is defeated on a confidence motion, Cameron would still have to resign, although there would be no election. It would be up to other parties to try to form a government to carry on for the rest of the five year term. If that isn’t possible, then…well, nobody seems to know. We have to wait for the detail, apparently.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt was asked about this by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight last night, but pointedly evaded the question, brushing it aside as a ‘minor change’. William Hague seemed pretty unequivocal when he spoke yesterday, saying there would be no early election, and even naming the date of the next election as 7 May 2015.

Given the events of the last few days, it’s pretty clear that other parties won’t be able to form a government with a majority in this parliament if the LibCon coalition falls apart. But the new rules mean there would be no election unless the Tories want one. So we’d presumably end up with a minority Tory government without a majority and unable to pass any legislation until such time as the Tories feel ready to grant us an election. How this would work is anyone’s guess. We could in theory end up with the government which is defeated on a confidence motion every day and has to keep resigning and reforming itself.

We await the detail, but it’s hard to see how you can reconcile the ‘no dissolution without 55% support’ with the rules on a government having to enjoy the confidence of the House, except by except by extending the 55% rule to confidence motions as well, which I suspect is what they really mean to do.

To LibCons seem to be planning to slip this change through via a ‘binding resolution’ of the House, probably as soon as they can next week, and then deal with details in legislation later. By that time, it might be too late to do anything much about it.

The new government needs to come clean about what they’re planning to do right now. In the meantime, we need to start putting some pressure on them. There is already a website, Say No to 55%, and debate is contuning on the Twitter hashtag #noto55

Update (13.20pm):

A far more learned and erudite explanation than I can manage available from Carl Gardner. LibCons seems to tying themselves in constitutional knots trying to explain how this will work. I think we all know how they want it to work.