Britain goes to the polls
Les enjeux des élections générales britanniques.
Quelques jours après le référendum concernant le Brexit et sa prise de fonction en tant que Première Ministre, Theresa May assurait qu'il n'y aurait pas d'élections législatives avant 2020. Le 18 avril dernier, elle est revenue sur ses propos et a annoncé la tenue d’un scrutin anticipé le 8 juin prochain. Elle a expliqué avoir besoin d'un mandat fort afin de négocier le divorce du Royaume-Uni avec l'Union européenne...
For an event that was supposed to settle a big political question once and for all, last year’s referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union has proved spectacularly disruptive. First it did for the government of David Cameron, who had called it expecting a win for Remain. Then it provoked renewed calls for separation in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which opposed Brexit. Now Theresa May, who entered Downing Street only last summer, has called a snap general election for June 8th, having previously insisted that such a course would cause further “instability”. Britons are facing their third national poll in two years.
MAJORITY RULES
2. Mrs May says the election is necessary to protect the Brexit process from mischievous opposition parties that plan to derail it. That is nonsense: although most MPs, including her own, campaigned to Remain, they have dutifully upheld the referendum result in Parliament. Surely more important in the prime minister’s calculation are the opinion polls that show her Conservative Party more than 20 percentage points ahead of the Labour opposition, which is hamstrung by its ineffectual leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
3.Elections are inherently hard to predict— this one could be treated by voters as a poll about everything from the railways to the National Health Service. But, with Mr Corbyn clinging on and the economy yet to feel the smack of Brexit, Mrs May has a chance to increase her working majority of 17 to perhaps more than 100.
4.For the 48% of voters who, like this newspaper, opposed Brexit, this may look ominous. Mrs May is aiming for a “hard” exit, needlessly taking Britain out of the EU’s single market so she can clamp down on immigration, which would do more harm still. The election looks likely to strengthen her hand. In fact, it offers an opportunity for those who believe in a more open, liberal Britain. A bigger majority would leave Mrs May freer to strike sensible compromises with the EU. And the election provides a chance to give liberals of all political stripes a louder voice in the debate that will dominate the next few years. The outcome could be a less damaging Brexit.
JUNE, THE MAKING OF MAY
5. From a prime minister who has made several U-turns in her nine months in power, this one was dramatic. Only two months ago, her official spokesman insisted: “There is not going to be a general election.” But it is a reversal that might mean fewer U-turns in future. Mrs May will draw up her own manifesto, rather than being half-bound by the promises of her predecessor, which forced her into the embarrassing withdrawal of part of her last budget. 6.If the polls are correct, she will have enough MPs to push through unpopular but necessary solutions to problems such as the housing shortage and the funding crisis in social care, which she has so far approached only timidly. With a proper mandate and some clout in Parliament, the prime minister would have the chance to shake off the “Theresa Maybe” nickname that we gave her earlier this year.
7.Nowhere does that matter more than with Brexit. Having triggered Article 50 last month, Britain and the rest of the EU have two years to negotiate a deal. Almost nobody thinks that offers enough time. After March 2019, unless both sides agree on some sort of transition, Britain will crash ruinously out of the union. Until a new regime is sorted out over a number of years, Britain
Elections are inherently hard to predict
will be able to sell into its most important market only under World Trade Organisation rules.
8.The election makes this less likely. Although Mrs May has sometimes threatened to leave without any agreement, saying “no deal is better than a bad deal”, she has lately accepted the need for a transition arrangement after Brexit. With a larger majority she can more easily stand up to her ultraEurosceptic backbenchers, some of whom seem actively to want Britain to crash out.
9.The election also buys Mrs May time. Holding a vote this year means that she need not face the polls again until 2022, three years after Britain’s formal exit from the EU. Avoiding the pressure of an imminent contest at home will further strengthen her against the headbanging fringe of her own party and the right-wing press, which screams treachery at any hint of the compromises needed to secure a deal with the EU.
MAYBE NOT
10. Just what use Mrs May makes of that freedom depends upon her own preferences for Brexit—which are still not entirely clear even if she sounds tough. Her record is neither rabidly pro (in the referendum she was a reluctant Remainer) nor instinctively against. Crucially, though, to the extent that the hard Brexiteers are pushed to the margins, other voices will be able to enter the debate.
11.In Parliament the election will end the odd situation in which MPs have been bound both by the wishes of their constituents in the previous election and also by the referendum. The next parliament’s MPs will have a mandate to stand up for whatever they advocate on the stump, be it hard Brexit, soft Brexit or complete Breversal. 12.The Liberal Democrats, reduced to just eight seats at the last election, are the most pro-EU force in British politics. Their resurgence—and the likely collapse of the vote for the proBrexit UK Independence Party—would increase the ranks of Remainers in Parliament, and encourage the Conservatives to choose Eurosensible candidates in marginal seats. Last year Zac Goldsmith, a prominent Tory Leaver, was ejected by the Lib Dems in a by-election. Tories fighting seats in Remain-voting areas such as London and the university towns may have to soften their line on Brexit if they are to avoid a similar fate.
13.The debate outside Parliament will matter more, too. Since the referendum those advocating a soft Brexit have been shouted down as anti-democratic. All that changes with the news of an election. Businesses, lobby groups and, of course, private citizens have a chance to make the case for a soft Brexit both during the campaign and after it, during the long months of negotiation to follow. The battle over Brexit was fought last summer. The battle to define what form it should take is far from over.