Is a 2023 election on the
AS in life, timing is everything in politics.
Tucked away in next month’s Queen’s Speech among headline measures on health, the environment, asylum and election rules will be a modest bill designed to give Boris Johnson control over an important political moment, arguably the most important: when to call a General Election.
Before the 2010 Lib-Con coalition, prime ministers could cut short the normal five-year-long Parliament by going to Buckingham Palace to ask the monarch to dissolve Parliament. It was a huge political advantage for any party leader to be able to determine precisely when to put their case before voters.
But when Nick Clegg teamed up with David Cameron, the junior partner in the coalition wanted to ensure that the senior one could not “do the dirty” and cut and run for their own party political advantage. And so was born the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA).
This all but guaranteed a Westminster Parliament would run its full five-year course and made going to the country ahead of time difficult because a Number 10 incumbent would have to rely on Parliament either by getting a two-thirds majority of MPs to agree to a snap poll or by losing a vote of confidence.
In 2017, Theresa May, having set her face against an early election after she succeeded Mr Cameron post the Brexit referendum, changed her mind following a walk in the Welsh hills but, of course, lived to regret it.
She thought she could increase the Tories’ slender 17-seat majority, which would strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations with Brussels.
The Opposition, now under the leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn, agreed to an election three years before it was due, believing support for Labour would increase. He was right and it turned out Mrs May had committed a fateful mistake, which would help bring her premiership to a premature end just two years later.
Psychodrama
With the Lib-Con coalition history, the new Tory leader, Boris Johnson, did not need convincing that returning to a position where the PM controlled the date of an election was a jolly good thing. The Brexit psychodrama would reinforce his belief massively.
Three times he urged MPs to back an early election using the FTPA but each time they stuck up two parliamentary fingers.
Ex-minister Sir Alan Duncan angrily noted at the time how Mr Johnson