It is breakfast time on 8 May. The people have spoken – and for the second successive election they have denied a Commons majority to any single party. As the polls suggested and most of the pundits predicted, we have another hung parliament.
What happens next?
Just when they are at their most sleep-deprived, politicians will be scrambling to do a deal that will put them in power. There are 650 MPs. In theory, this means the target is to assemble a combination of two or more parties with at least 326 seats between them. That would achieve a majority of two. In practice, the bar is lower because Sinn Féin says it will continue with its policy of not sending its five MPs to Westminster and the speaker does not normally vote. (See below for the extraordinary circumstances in which he would have the deciding say.) So the target for a majority is really 323. And a government can be viable with less than that, because it could only be brought down if everyone else ganged up together against it.
Does another hung parliament have to lead to another coalition?
No. Since 1900, there have been 11 hung parliaments. Six resulted in a coalition. On the five other occasions, there was a minority government that relied on the acquiescence of other parties to win the key votes.
A halfway-house between full-blown coalition and no deal at all is a “confidence and supply agreement”. In exchange for some things they want, smaller parties let the government win motions of confidence and pass its budget by voting in favour or abstaining. A minority government has usually led to another election not long afterwards.
Bookies say the Tories will have most MPs but Miliband may be prime minister. How can that be?
Because it looks likely there will be more potential dancing partners for Labour than for the Tories. The Scottish Nationalists are pledged to do all in their power to eject David Cameron. The Welsh Nats and the Greens likewise. Northern Ireland’s SDLP also favours Labour. Ukip’s prime demand would be a referendum on Europe, which makes the Tories a likelier bedfellow for the Kippers, but it doesn’t look as though they will have many MPs to bargain with. In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionists have cleverly – or perhaps cynically – left themselves open to offers from both Labour and the Conservatives. The Lib Dems say they will talk first to the largest party. It is possible that one of the bigger parties could be ahead in vote share while the other has most seats. Nick Clegg has swerved saying what he would do in that event.
Does vote share matter?
Constitutionally, it is irrelevant. What matters is the number of MPs. In February 1974 the Tories had the larger vote share while Labour had the most seats. Labour formed a minority government. But politics isn’t just maths. It is also chemistry. Were the prime minister to be the leader of the second-placed party in votes or seats, and more so if he were the runner-up in both votes and seats, he could be attacked for lacking a mandate to govern. Smaller parties might be leery of striking deals if the result could be portrayed as “a coalition of the losers”. Nick Clegg says that the Lib Dems would be nervous of supporting the second largest party because it would “lack legitimacy”.
What will be the role of the Queen?
To keep her head down until it becomes clear who can form a government. Buckingham Palace is absolutely paranoid about the Queen becoming embroiled in any sort of constitutional controversy that would compromise her role as the impartial head of state. While she formally invites someone to become prime minister, she will not do so until told by politicians and civil servants who that person should be. It is rumoured that she will seclude herself at Windsor Castle until the horse-trading is concluded.
Where will negotiations take place?
Last time the meetings that were public knowledge took place in the Cabinet Office and at Portcullis House. But there were also clandestine encounters. Underground tunnels of wartime vintage were used to convey Gordon Brown to a secret conclave with Nick Clegg.
How long will the haggling go on?
The Con-Lib coalition which has governed for the past five years took five days to negotiate, which was strikingly swift compared with how long it often takes on the continent. Most people expect the bargaining to take longer this time around. It looks likely that it will be a much messier hung parliament than the last one and quite probable that the Lib Dems alone won’t have enough MPs to be able to supply a majority to one of the larger parties. On top of which, there is a lot less willingness among MPs to accept deals struck by their leaders. Tories have demanded a proper ballot on any new coalition agreement involving their party. The Lib Dems have to take it to a special conference of their members. Labour MPs would, at the very least, expect to be consulted by Ed Miliband.
While all this is going on, who has his finger on the nuclear button?
David Cameron carries on as prime minister until it is clear whether he can stay on at No 10 or needs the services of a removal company. The rules about this are fuzzy, but the convention is that he shouldn’t tender his resignation until it is clear that he won’t be able to govern and there is a viable replacement. Other ministers remain ministers until a new government is formed and do so even if they are no longer MPs.
What is the first test of the new government?
To pass its Queen’s speech. That is scheduled to take place on 27 May, three weeks after polling day. If there is a coalition with a guaranteed majority and an agreed programme, this hurdle should be easy to leap. In the case of a minority prime minister, he might gamble on winning the vote without having struck formal deals with other parties. Ed Miliband has suggested that he would propose a Labour Queen’s speech and dare smaller parties, especially the Scottish Nationalists, to vote with the Conservatives at their peril.
Fixed-term parliaments doom us to five years of zombie government, say some. Is this right?
This is widely believed, but it is a lot more complicated than that. The 2011 act was agreed by the Tories and the Lib Dems so that they couldn’t do the dirty on each other. It does make it harder for the prime minister to call an early election. The traditional right to ask for a dissolution of parliament has been removed. But there are still mechanisms which can trigger another election.
What are they?
One parliament cannot bind another, so the act could simply be repealed if there were a majority for doing that. If a government loses a confidence vote and a second confidence vote is not passed within 14 days, the act says there will be an election. A prime minister desiring a second election in the hope of bettering his position could try to engineer a vote of no confidence in his own government. Tricky presentationally, but not impossible.
What if there’s a vote that decides who will be the government, and it’s tied?
The speaker has the casting vote. Before he took the chair, John Bercow was a Conservative MP. But given the animosity shown towards him by senior Tories – just before the election, they plotted to unseat him – the Conservatives might be unwise to expect him to favour them.
