Party Leaders End British Election Campaign More Energized Than Voters
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — BBC Radio 4 had a laconic, one-word weather forecast Wednesday morning: “changeable.” But the political forecast for Thursday’s British election has been stagnant for some time: a hung Parliament, with no party able to command a clear majority from a fragmented and skeptical electorate. On the final day of campaigning, party leaders crisscrossed the country regardless, trying to swing the results of one of the tightest elections here in decades. Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party was in northwest England, Scotland and the Midlands on a 36-hour bus tour, visiting marginal constituencies that could be decided by handfuls of votes. Citing gradual economic improvement during his five years in office, he appealed for support to “finish the job” and warned that the opposition Labour Party would blow apart the budget and be beholden to the more left-wing Scottish National Party. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, was in northern England, where his party is usually strong, visiting marginal districts held by the Conservatives. He repeated his main campaign themes: Working people deserve a better deal, the rich should pay more taxes and the National Health Service is in danger. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, who serves in Mr. Cameron’s coalition government as deputy prime minister, was traversing Britain from south to north on his own long tour, from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland, arguing that his centrist party was needed to keep a brake on the others and provide political stability to any new government. The final polls suggest that the country remains deeply divided, that neither the Conservatives nor Labour has a clear advantage and that many voters are dispirited by the choice in front of them. “I’m a bit sick of it all; it all sounds the same,” said Gayle Lazda, 29, who works in a London bookshop. “They have that way of speaking where it all sounds meaningless, and I can’t be bothered to listen. I don’t pretend to myself that it’s going to make a difference.” Greg Pittard, a film editor, called the campaign lackluster even as he noted the rise of smaller parties offering new approaches. “Another day, another gimmick, and it’s just not satisfying,” he said. “The only interesting aspect is that different voices are breaking through. In that sense, it’s exciting.” All three main party leaders were essentially trying to manage the consequences of their likely inability to claim a clear victory, while maneuvering to see how they could form or join a government that could survive more than a few months. A number of models suggest that the two main parties will roughly split two-thirds of the vote. The Conservatives are projected to win the largest number of seats, but short of the 326 seats needed to form a majority (the number falls to 323 if Sinn Fein, which does not take its seats in Parliament, keeps its current five seats; the speaker does not normally vote). The Conservatives may even be unable to achieve a majority in combination with their current coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, plus the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party and the tacit support of the U.K. Independence Party. Labour is projected to do well in England but suffer a blowout in Scotland, losing many of its 41 seats there to the Scottish National Party. The Scottish party’s resurgence under its new leader, Nicola Sturgeon, since losing Scotland’s independence referendum last year has been the most striking shift of the campaign. A big setback in Scotland could deny Labour the chance to win the most seats and more easily form a government. But it is possible that Mr. Miliband could end up as prime minister anyway, supported by a hodgepodge of anti-Tory parties, including the Scottish nationalists. That possibility has led to a debate, led by Mr. Cameron and his supporters, about the “legitimacy” of a second-place party forming a government, but the rules are clear: Any party that can form a majority in Parliament has the right to govern. Not since 1923 has a second-place party managed to form a government; that government lasted less than a year. Labour’s opponents have also argued that any government that relied on support from the Scottish nationalists would lack credibility, since it would be dependent on the votes of a party that is committed to an independent Scotland. Labour has said that it will make no formal deal with the Scots, though Mr. Miliband has signaled that if it came time to test whether he could command a majority, he would simply put his party’s program to Parliament and dare the Scottish National Party to vote against it. In 2010, the Conservatives won 306 seats, Labour 258, the Liberal Democrats 57 and the Scottish National Party six. To form a government, the Conservatives are thought to need around 290 seats this time — 300 would almost certainly be enough to allow them to continue in office in partnership with the Liberal Democrats. But many projections have them at around 280 seats, with the Liberal Democrats getting fewer than 30. So even with the Democratic Unionists and the U.K. Independence Party, expected to get at least a tenth of the vote but only a handful of seats, Mr. Cameron may find himself short of a majority. The same projections have Labour at 266 seats or so — meaning it would need to gain the support of the Liberal Democrats and also the Scottish National Party, which polls suggest could win 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats. The S.N.P. is farther to the left than Labour and wants more spending than Labour considers wise. The parties also disagree fundamentally on Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which the Scottish nationalists want to scrap. Still, the S.N.P. and other smaller parties have vowed to keep the Conservatives out of Downing Street, and together with Labour, they may command a majority big enough to do that, even if the Tories get the most seats. Mr. Cameron, who remains prime minister until he resigns or Parliament votes a motion of no confidence, could hold on until May 27, the date of the Queen’s Speech, which formally opens the new Parliament and sets out the projected government agenda. But if the election returns are bad for him, he might resign beforehand. Everyone will start doing the math by about dawn on Friday, but the leadership and composition of the next government may not be clear for at least a week and possibly more. The campaign has focused almost exclusively on domestic issues, but the outcome of the election will be important for other big questions, too. Mr. Cameron vows to hold a referendum on continued British membership in the European Union by the end of 2017 and wants to get back more control over some issues from Brussels; Mr. Miliband has avoided backing a referendum and argues that Britain is better off in Europe, so long as new powers are not transferred to the Continent. Both main parties also acknowledge that they will continue to cut military spending, which is already slipping below the NATO guideline of 2 percent of gross domestic product. And there is an increasing sense, especially in Washington, that Britain is slipping away from its close partnership with the United States, particularly on military matters. A “Little England,” as Jeremy Shapiro of the Brookings Institution wrote recently, “does not augur well for a U.S. foreign policy which aims specifically to empower like-minded states to share the burdens of leadership.” Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 10 p.m. A nationwide exit poll, shared by all the national networks, will be released soon after the polls close. |