Post-election minority governments have not had a good history
‘The new Parliament is probably even more skewed towards Remain than the one of 2015’
Since 1918, three general elections have been followed by minority governments. All were Labour administrations. None of them lasted long or achieved much.
The first, led by Ramsay Macdonald in 1924, lasted for just 10 months before being defeated in the Commons by a combination of Conservative and Liberal votes. The second, in 1929, lasted just over two years before breaking up over public spending cuts. The third was led by Harold Wilson after he defeated Edward Heath in the February 1974 general election.
In October, Wilson dissolved, hoping to secure a working majority. In the event, he gained a majority of just three. By 1976, that majority had disappeared through by-election losses and defections, but in March 1977, Wilson’s successor, James Callaghan, negotiated a pact with the Liberals, similar perhaps to the agreement which Theresa May hopes to secure with the DUP.
This sustained him until October 1978, after which Callaghan continued leading a minority government until the general election of 1979 when he was defeated by Margaret Thatcher.
In 1992, Thatcher’s successor, John Major, unexpectedly won the general election with a majority of 21. But by 1996 that majority had been lost through by-election defeats.
Mr Major nevertheless continued with the support of the Ulster Unionists until the 1997 election when Tony Blair won a landslide victory.
None of the minority governments were to do much to resolve Britain’s economic problems. The two Labour minority governments of the 1920s proved helpless in the face of mass unemployment. The Wilson/ Callaghan governments of the 1970s found themselves at the mercy of the trade unions, which destroyed Labour in public sector strikes in the 1978-79 winter of discontent.
Mrs May called a general election with two aims. The first was to secure a mandate for a gentler private enterprise system, which would do more for the struggling families of Middle England. She appreciated that the referendum was not only a vote against the EU but also a protest against market-oriented economics.
The main reason, however, was to resolve the conflict which the 2016 EU referendum had created between Parliament and the people. For, while they had voted Leave, about 75 per cent of MPS were for Remain. She hoped that the new Parliament would support a genuine Brexit, where Britain left the EU’S internal market and customs union.
That hope, too, has been dashed. The new Parliament is probably even more skewed towards Remain than the one of 2015. Both houses will probably become more emboldened to favour an arrangement similar to that of Norway, by which Britain remains a member of the internal market and accepts EU law but plays no part in making it.
The election also reopens the Irish Question. The Good Friday peace agreement of 1998 rested on a delicate balance between the Unionist and the Nationalist. The EU referendum undermined that balance. Northern Ireland rejected the advice of the DUP by voting Remain.
The British Government is a guarantor of the Good Friday agreement. But it will now be beholden to one of the communities at the expense of the other.
The 2017 election has made it more difficult than ever to resolve two fundamental issues – the European Question and the Northern Ireland Question – which have been at the heart of British politics for many years.