The parties prepare for a hung, drawn and quartered parliament
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Version 0 of 1. We need to talk about Nigel. No, not that Nigel. We’ve had more than enough of him for the moment. The Nigel we need to talk about is Nigel Dodds. Mark the name. For within a few months, he is the Nigel who could be an absolutely pivotal player in the politics of our country. It is not impossible that he could even get to choose who becomes our next prime minister. Which would be quite a feat when no one in England, Scotland or Wales will have voted for him. It would be a fair guess that no more than one in 100 of voters outside Northern Ireland even have a clue who he is. If you are struggling to identify him, you are in good company. A few nights ago, I mentioned his name to an important member of the cabinet. The minister responded with a blank expression. Some silent seconds passed as he rummaged around his memory bank. Finally, he replied: “Oh, yes. Him.” Nigel Dodds is the leader of the Democratic Unionist party at Westminster and number two in his party as a whole. He’s tipped to succeed to the overall leadership of the DUP when Peter Robinson stands down. I mean no disrespect to him and his fellow politicians in Northern Ireland – this is simply an observation of how things are – when I say that they rarely intrude into the consciousness of the rest of the United Kingdom. In so much as they attract attention from the national media, it is only when a Northern Irish row becomes so serious that it prompts an intervention by the prime minister. Even then, interest is limited, not least because the rows in Northern Ireland tend to be about flags, marching and other things that baffle the rest of the country. Very soon, that may have to change. We could all suddenly have to start paying them a lot of attention. I recently attended a stimulating series of presentations by the British Election Study, a collaboration between political scientists at Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford universities. One of the fascinations was that the speakers spent most of their time talking about the likely performance of the smaller parties. In so much as Labour and the Tories were discussed, it was mainly in the context of how they were being affected by the insurgent rivals that are snapping at their legs and tearing chunks out of their vote. There was a fair bit of consensus that things look bleak for the Lib Dems. There was disagreement about whether the Tories or Labour had most to fear from Ukip. There was discussion of the likely prospects for the Greens and the nationalists and what surging support for them could mean for the big two. One of the panellists in the final session was Andrew Cooper, who used to be David Cameron’s in-house pollster at Number 10 and retains very close links with the Conservative party. He forecast that the general election next May will result in a “messy hung parliament”. He was joined by Greg Cook, the Labour party’s head of strategy and a man with many years of election experience under his belt. He did his duty by Ed Miliband by saying that he expected Labour to win, but it is fair to say that Mr Cook did not exactly radiate confidence that his party is storming to victory. If the psephological soothsayers are right, neither of the big two will do well enough to win a parliamentary majority. More, neither may be able to get a majority even with the support of however many MPs the Lib Dems have managed to cling on to. We currently have a hung parliament. The next one could be a hung, drawn and quartered parliament. In which case, the minor parties at Westminster are going to become major players. We may find ourselves hanging on every word that passes from the lips of Mr Dodds and his seven fellow unionists from across the Irish Sea. What do they think about the future of the NHS? Have they a view on the right course when it comes to deficit reduction? Does Mr Dodds’s party take a position on the future of schooling in England? Does he prefer David Cameron or Ed Miliband as prime minister? This could all suddenly matter very much. It might prompt Sinn Fein, whose five MPs currently boycott the Commons, to start turning up at Westminster on the grounds that they shouldn’t leave all the opportunities to influence events to their Unionist rivals. Tory and Labour strategists are already war-gaming various scenarios. Some permutations can probably be ruled out. The Scottish nationalists declare that they could never do a deal with the Conservatives. It would certainly be gobsmacking to their voters if they were to jump into bed with David Cameron when they have spent decades denouncing the Tories as the Great Satan. The SNP has recently been suggesting that it could strike a bargain with Labour. That would be a better ideological fit, but it would still look pretty strange, given that the Nats have also spent years depicting Labour as not much different from the Great Satan. What would the SNP want? More powers and more cash for Edinburgh, obviously, and anything that might advance their separatist agenda which, if ever successful, will be poison to Labour’s future prospects. The Tories are already casting come-hither looks at Mr Dodds and his fellow Ulstermen and women. In his recent autumn statement, George Osborne offered to devolve control over corporation tax to Northern Ireland, something that has long been clamoured for by all its parties. There is some bad blood in the history of the relations between the Tories and the DUP, but also potential areas of agreement. The DUP agrees with the Tories that there should be a referendum on membership of the European Union. Labour, too, has been putting out some quiet feelers to the Unionists. The price of their support has traditionally been goodies for their part of the world. In the late 70s, the Ulster Unionists propped up Jim Callaghan’s ailing Labour government for a while, and they did the same for John Major’s wilting Tory government in the late 90s, in return for getting favours for Northern Ireland. If I were Ed Miliband, I’d be searching my family tree for any Orange ancestry and telling Ed Balls to set some money aside for lubricating Ulster men. The hung, drawn and quartered parliament would make life nightmarishly difficult for whoever is prime minister. The current government is effectively a three-party coalition between David Cameron’s Tories, the Lib Dems and the phobic right of the Conservative party. That’s been pretty fractious and turbulent, but it could end up looking like the acme of stability and principle if a further one, two or three elements have to be added to the equation to get to a parliamentary majority. A Con-Lib-Ukip coalition anyone? A Lab-Nat-Unionist coalition? One senior Lib Dem forecasts that this sort of hung parliament “would be a disaster”. And these are the guys who like the idea of coalition governments. It is more probable that we’d end up with a minority government seeking to get its business through, day to day, item by item, hand to mouth, by striking ad hoc deals. This is not going to be an edifying way of doing government and nor will it look it. I doubt voters in the rest of the UK will respond well to a Labour government having to bend the knee to the Scottish Nationalists every time it wants to get something done. Nor will there be wide appeal to the spectacle of a Tory prime minister having to bribe the Ulster Unionists whenever he needs to pass some legislation. After that, my crystal ball begins to mist over. It could be that disproportionate influence being wielded by small, sectional parties will prompt voters to swing back to the big two. It could be that there will be pressure to revisit the question of our electoral system. The big claim made for first past the post by its defenders is that it produces decisive single-party governments. It may be crude. It may fail to translate votes into seats in a fair way. It may leave many millions of voters unrepresented. But at least, its apologists always say, first past the post gives you a clear result and a stable government. It failed to deliver that at our last election, but at least the resultant coalition has lasted the course. It looks highly likely that first past the post will fail to do what it says on the tin even more spectacularly at the next election. Proportional systems tend to guarantee that no one gets to rule on their own. What that also means – this is how it usually works on the continent – is that the contenders lay out in advance who they are likely to go into coalition with. The electorate gets some idea of the choice before it. Months away from our next election, we don’t have a clue what sort of government we might end up with and which currently obscure player from a minor party could be calling the shots. This is not first past the post. It is political roulette. |