While David Cameron and Nick Clegg were slapping each other on the back earlier today, their lieutenants were drawing up plans to knife parliamentary democracy between the shoulder blades.
It went almost unnoticed, but the Tory-Lib Dem plans for fixed term parliaments (all in the interests of ‘stability’, you understand) include new rules that will allow Cameron to stay in office even if he is defeated in a confidence motion. Yup, that’s right, Cameron stays unless 55% of MPs vote against him.
This does brutal violence to our constitution. Until now, if there was one thing that was certain about our creaking, cranky old system is was that a government must command a majority in the House of Commons. Not any more. Cameron is special: he will only need 292 votes (maybe less if some MPs abstain or are absent) to remain prime minister for a full five years. Conveniently, there are 306 Tory MPs, so he doesn’t need the Liberal Democrats. Even if they leave the coalition, Cameron stays. For five years.
This wasn’t in either the Liberal Democrat or Tory manifestos. There will be no referendum. Just a bill, which will presumably be rammed through the Commons with the Liberal Democrat support. How a party with ‘Democratic’ in its name can support this is beyond me. New politics? It just goes to show what a sniff of power does.
I suppose no one told Gordon you could do that. If only he’d known that you only need 45% of MPs to form a government, it might have been a different story yesterday. But there you go, the Tories have always been adept at changing the rules to suit themselves. But this is brazen even by their standards. It’s a shame they’ve dragged what used to be a progressive party with them into this shabby assault on our democracy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think, looking a why this is proposed, is that it's to remove the right of the PM to decide to call an election on a whim. It's to do with the fixed term parliaments. The vote of confidence simply majority still stands and almost certainly the PM would have to stand down having lost one. And it would be up to the opposition to try and form a government. I don't think anything changes on that. I think it's there to stop governments getting a lead in the polls after a honeymoon period and running back to the electorate for an increased majority.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's much more than that. If LibTories lose a confidence motion, there will be no dissolution unless the Tories want one. The government would fall, but as the only alternative would be a minority Con government, the Tories would stay in office. How that would work, with no majority, I've no idea. They won't say. Tory-Lib ministers were questioned about it last night on Newsnight and pointedly avoided the question.
ReplyDeleteC'mon Craig, under the circumstances it's a sensible measure to stop disgruntled plotters from knocking the government over the first time there's a contentious issue before parliament and the one thing we know is that there'll be plety of those as we try to deal with the mess left behind. These accusations of sinister subversion of the people do you no credit at all.
ReplyDeleteEqually, the fixed term parliament is as much about demonstrating committment to the coalition as it is to eradicating cynical opportunism.
Lastly, a blog is a place where you present information and opinion upon which others can comment and discuss - if you, as the author contest each comment left you'll discourage discourse.