The dissolution of Parliament is an essential weapon for government

Before the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act was passed in 2010, a government which, like Boris Johnson’s had lost control of the Commons, had a simple recourse.

It was to ask the Queen for a dissolution. She could, in theory, refuse, but no monarch has done so in modern times.

The Act was enacted at the behest of the Liberal Democrats as part of the coalition agreement, to ensure that the

Conservatives could not end the coalition at a convenient time of their choosing. Under its terms, an early general election can occur only under two conditions.

The first is, if there is a noconfidence vote in the government, and no alternative government commanding the confidence of the Commons can be formed within 14 days. The no-confidence motion also cannot, as in the past, be attached to legislation. In 1972, Edward Heath secured the Second Reading of the European Communities bill which took Britain into Europe by making it a matter of confidence.

The threat brought the rebels to heel and Heath won by eight votes. The Act prevented Theresa May from using the same expedient to secure the Withdrawal Agreement.

The second method, to achieve a two-thirds majority in the Commons for the motion “That there should be an early parliamentary general election”, was attempted by Boris Johnson last week. This too must be in a specified form, and without a date for the election attached, that being for the Prime Minister to determine.

The Act is full of holes. It does not, for example, indicate what is to happen in the 14 day window after a successful no-confidence vote.

Can the incumbent Prime Minister remain in office, playing out time so as to ensure an election; or is he obliged to resign, allowing someone else to test the feeling of the House?

And there is, despite the Act, a third way of securing an early election – through a motion in the form “Notwithstanding the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, there shall be an early parliamentary election on [for example] 15th October”. Such a motion would presumably mention a date. It requires only a simple majority of those voting to pass, not a two-thirds majority, but it is subject to amendment, and, under current circumstances, the opposition parties would probably seek to alter the proposed date. And it would need to pass the Lords as well as the Commons.

The framers of the Act did not perhaps envisage that Her Majesty’s Opposition ever would, for tactical reasons, refuse an election.

Indeed, there seems no previous occasion in parliamentary history when the opposition has rejected the chance of an election – even more striking perhaps in a week in which it characterised the Prime Minister as an enemy of democracy.

Without an immediate election, the British people are being denied the opportunity of deciding whether or not they wish Britain to leave the EU on October 31. But perhaps nothing better can be expected from the wretched and now unviable Parliament elected in 2017.

The Conservatives were right in their 2017 manifesto to propose repeal of the Act.

Dissolution is a vital safeguard against inter-party manoueverings and shenanigans.

Far from being a threat to democracy, it is an essential weapon for the Government if the rights of voters are to be protected.

‘The Conservatives were right in their 2017 manifesto to propose repeal of the Act’

Vernon Bogdanor is Professor of Government at King’s College London and author of ‘Beyond Brexit: Towards a British Constitution’, published by Tauris earlier this year.