Flexibility can help. Why the Prime Minister can choose the date of the UK general election | electoral reform

If Rishi Sunak sounds prickly when asked a question, it is nothing compared to the frustration of many voters. When exactly will there be an election? And, crucially, why is it entirely up to him?

The short answer is that this is the way of British politics. Apart from the recent, very brief and largely failed experiment with a term-limited parliament, election dates remain a gift from the Prime Minister. To borrow a phrase sometimes used about trial by jury, it is probably the worst system in the world, apart from all the others.

One thing is clear. The UK is not exactly a world leader when it comes to the overall stability of its parliament. A study published by a campaign group last month focused primarily on indicators such as how long ministers have been in office, and also presented statistics on the longevity of parliament.

In a league table of 17 countries with broadly similar political systems, the UK ranked fourth from bottom in terms of the proportion of parliamentary terms reaching a given endpoint over the past 50 years. The UK fared worse than countries including Italy and Belgium, at 76%.

It is more of an element of political culture than a rule. At the other end of the table were six countries with completion rates between 98% and 100%. Of these, only one is Norway, which does not have a constitutional provision for early elections.

A parliamentary-centered democracy has different requirements than a presidential-centered democracy. So while as French president, the likes of François Hollande may be limping towards election day with his approval rating firmly pegged at around 12%, for the prime minister this isn't really an option.

Part of that, of course, is that governments today must maintain the trust of their elected parliaments, says Ruth Fox, director of the Hansard Society. This is where flexibility can help. If the government is in trouble, it will want an exit mechanism before Congress's final expiration date.

The need for this safety valve was demonstrated after the UK passed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA) 2011, which designated the first Thursday in May as election day, five years after the last election.

This happened as planned in 2015, but the next four years saw snap elections called by Theresa May in 2017 and Boris Johnson in 2019, both of whom broke the Brexit impasse. May leveraged her ability to circumvent the FTPA timetable with the support of at least two-thirds of lawmakers. Johnson passed a new law requiring only a simple House majority.

Fox recalls being warned in advance that FTPA would not work. This was partly because it was felt that a four-year limit would work better, but also because it was provisionally handed to the Liberal Democrats under their coalition deal with the Conservatives. Keep expected impacts to a minimum.

So it's proven, says Fox. As we saw earlier, if the Prime Minister wants an election and can persuade his political party to participate in the election, he can avoid the law. So what is its additional value? The democratic reform community has spent a tremendous amount of time on this. But what is its purpose?

The Tories abolished the FTPA in 2022 and while the Liberal Democrats want to bring the idea back, Labor has no apparent interest in reviving it. That means Sunak and his successors are stuck with endless questions about election dates in the near future.

What impact will this have on British politics? There is a somewhat broader question. A recent study on political stability by campaign group Make Votes Matter argued that a much bigger factor in Britain's recent trends has been its ultra-post-electoral system.

Defenders of the first position like to claim it brings relief, but the fact that the average tenure of five prime ministers since 2016 and UK cabinet ministers since 2019 has been eight months probably tells a different story .

Joe Owen, a former senior civil servant who now works at a government think tank, points out some of the difficulties with traveling election days. In particular, he points out how officials can overlay the budget set for a fiscal year with a change in government. From June of this year to January 2025.

Owen argues that the impact of this tends to be political rather than administrative. The fundamental point is that civil servants will continue to work for today's government. People often talk about civil servants dragging their feet ahead of elections, but a much bigger driver, he says, is whether ministers are still focused on getting things done.

This provision was amended on April 8, 2024. A previous version stated that Boris Johnson could have used a provision in the Fixed Term Parliaments Act to call an early election in 2019. In fact, his government passed new legislation requiring only a simple majority in the House of Commons.

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