Cameron’s fragile mandate
The euphoria surrounding the Conservative victory in the recent UK elections that gave David Cameron a clear governing majority is likely to be short-lived than most imagine.
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Despite his apparent clear mandate, the fragility of Cameron’s majority and the future of unions with Europe and Scotland will conspire to weaken his administration over the course of the next parliament.
A governing majority of 15 is not sufficiently robust to sustain a government for a full parliamentary period, particularly with the introduction of fixed five-year terms. As always, deaths and defections will trigger bye-elections which by tradition incumbents tend to lose. John Major’s 1992 majority of 21 MPs was quickly whittled down to a dozen as members of his party defected to the late James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party - the precursor to today’s UK Independence Party (UKIP) - as well as the Liberal and Labour parties.
With a rancorous chorus of Euro-sceptic MPs (ranging from people who want to renegotiate the terms of UK membership of the European Union, to those in favour of its outright exit) on his backbenches haranguing him over his EU policies, John Major’s effective majority was no more than one or two for much of that parliament. He looked hapless and out of control and in the end threw down the gauntlet to his opponents in his infamous “put up or shut up” challenge. While he survived that vote of confidence and remained Prime Minister, the rebellion did not stop and his weakened administration limped along until it was swept out of power by Tony Blair in 1997.
David Cameron’s smaller majority exposes him to a much more perilous future than his Conservative predecessor. This is especially so because of the two issues that loom large on his agenda: His promise of an in-out referendum on EU membership and the future of the union with Scotland.
Membership of the European Union
Under pressure from his backbenches and growing political threat from the insurgent Euro-sceptic UK Independence Party, David Cameron has promised a referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union. So in 2017, the UK electorate will be invited to revisit the 1975 mandate and determine whether or not they wish to remain a part of the European Union. The sceptics hold the view that the 1975 mandate was for joining a common market and a free trade area and not the economic and political union the EU is headed towards. What was meant as a sop to right-wing Euro-sceptics, now has the potential to reopen old wounds and throw the Tory party back into disarray.
Reform package
Cameron has said the referendum will be based on a package of reforms he negotiates with his European counterparts. If successful, he is unlikely to vote against his own recommendations but he would have to rely on the opposition Labour, Liberal parties and Scottish nationalists to secure the majority needed to put an end to the long-running dispute over Europe in the country.
The European Commission President Jean Claude Junker has reached out and promised to work with the Prime Minister to secure a package of reforms to address many of publicly stated concerns of the Euro-sceptics. Both Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Francois Hollande, the President of France, are determined to keep Britain in the EU but they have also drawn their own redlines at anything that requires a Treaty change. It is conceivable that the major European powers will give in to UK demands for delaying, even curtailing welfare benefits for EU migrants, but they will stop short of anything that abandons or undermines the principle of freedom of movement. An EU reform package based on eye-catching concessions on welfare and immigration, however, is unlikely to satisfy many Euro-sceptics who have grown in number since John Major’s time as Prime Minister. Many want more substantive repatriation of powers and the right of veto over EU Laws and legislation to reassert the primacy of national parliaments. France and Germany will not accept this downward spiral to an à la carte EU that will ultimately unravel the entire European project.
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Whatever package of reforms is agreed, the outcome of the referendum is far from clear. But one thing is certain: it will not satisfy Cameron’s backbench sceptics and there will be open rebellion. The Tories will either implode or at best split, with the more Euro-sceptic wing making common cause with the UKIP to champion English nationalism as a countervailing force to the tartan nationalism that has arisen north of the border.
Dealing with insurgency
But even before that European referendum, Cameron will have to deal with the insurgency of the Scottish National Party that swept up most of the seats in Scotland and established themselves firmly as the third largest party in the UK. The transfer of additional powers to Scotland is now inevitable and a vote by a majority England to leave the EU will only hasten the end of an already fragile 300-year-old Union. As the First Minister for Scotland Nicola Sturgeon warned during the elections, there will be renewed clamour for another referendum on Scottish independence if the UK votes to leave the EU but majority of Scots do not. And this time, the outcome will almost certainly be an emphatic yes.
Cameron’s fragile majority, the EU referendum and the future of the union with Scotland are a portent of the cataclysmic constitutional changes the United Kingdom will have to contend with over the next five years. These looming constitutional crises are, however, potentially propitious for the Labour party to rehabilitate itself. If it can get its act together and be the voice of reason and moderation on Europe and nationalist aspirations, its electoral prospects in 2020 may not be as dire as they appear today.
Whatever happens, the UK will not be the same again – Scotland could well replace the United Kingdom as a newly independent member of the EU with Britain cast adrift as an independent trading partner much like Switzerland, but with parliamentary sovereignty fully restored to its elected representatives. Even if none of this happens, the bruising battles ahead of David Cameron suggests to me that in all likelihood, the victor of the 2015 elections will not see out his full term. Britain will have another Prime Minister before the 2020 elections.
• The writer lives and works in the United Arab Emirates