Labour leader Ed Milliband made a bold gamble on BBC question time on Thursday night.
Responding to an audience member’s question, he stated that he would rather walk away from power than do any deal with the Scottish National Party to win the office of Prime Minister.
In front of a large UK audience, he looked and sounded tough. Under no circumstances would he allow the elected representatives of Scotland to have any say in the running of their country unless they returned MPs from London parties.
It was a bold gamble.
Realising that Scotland was already lost and few of Labour’s 41 MPs would save their seats, his appeal was to a middle England and the English media. If such tough talking succeeded, maybe as many as 10-15 marginal seats in England would swing his way. That would not get him to the 326 seats needed for an outright win, but it could get him close enough that Labour and the Liberal Democrats together would.
It was a bold gamble and probably the right one in the short term, even though it lowered the plummeting reputation of Labour in Scotland even further and probably for longer.
With four days hindsight, it appears not to have worked. Firstly, his ministers and aides started back tracking from it to create some wiggle room in media with lower viewerships than the BBC. Secondly, the effect in England on the polls was negligible in an election where the needle has hardly moved in voting intentions for months.
If anything, the late swing seems to be towards the Conservatives although it is more a matter of former voters returning to the fold as crunch time nears. Some Conservative voters had dabbled with United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which was seen as more hardline on immigration and more anti-European. UKIP has failed to progress in the polls enough to win a raft of seats, and natural Tory voters may baulk at supporting it when such vote could only serve to allow Labour a chance of winning the seat.
Nate Silver’s 538.com has Labour as low as 267 seats which would signal a really poor result given that they should be easily regaining the seats lost in their poor 2010 result, and the implosion of the LibDems their direct competition for the anti-Tory vote should have allowed more key marginals to come their way.
The pro-Labour Guardian is hardly more encouraging in its prediction. It has Labour at 270, four behind the Conservatives.
The better news for Labour is that in both scenarios, the Conservatives and their erstwhile Liberal coalition partners fall well short of reaching the magical 326. They would combine to 307 on 538.com’s prediction and 301 in the Guardian.
Even with Northern Ireland’s right-wing Ulster Unionists, there would not be enough seats to get a Queen’s Speech passed and David Cameron would have to tell the Queen he could not deliver. She is not going to deliver a speech that would be voted down. Cameron would then sit tight in Downing Street but Ed Milliband would visit the Queen to discuss alternatives.
On both predictions, Labour and the SNP would have enough to pass a speech.
The SNP have said they would vote for a Labour Queens speech if they had been consulted and it made no reference to renewing the nuclear Trident missile system or welfare cuts. Labour could omit those and see their speech passed. However Milliband would have to backtrack on his bold statement and talk to them first. Such things happen in politics.
When Labour wanted to renew trident or slash welfare, it could later rely on Conservative votes in individual bills.
That said, those votes could elicit rebellions in Labour ranks. There are still some remaining left-wing Labourites who are close to SNP policy on both matters than their own leaderships.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has threatened a second election
WHAT PRICE ANOTHER 2015 ELECTION?
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg warned of a second election unless his party is included in any deal. He criticised Labour and the Tories for not being open and inclusive enough to including his party while bizarrely also categorically stating he would not allow the SNP or United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) into any coalition he is part of.
Putting Clegg’s hypocrisy to one side, calling a second election is not as easy to it used to be.
Before 2010, a Prime Minister could call a snap election whenever he felt like it. However, the new Fixed Term Parliament Act (FTPA) prevents this. Only a Vote of No Confidence in the government or 2/3 of the entire Commons calling one triggers a new election. None of the parties really want this as they have all run out of money and the people might not forgive them for failing to work together to get the job done.
Put another way, a second vote might not necessarily force people back into voting for the main parties because they refused to work together. It might have the opposite effect.
Such are the forces ranged against them, the Tories would lose any No Confidence vote on any variety of the predicted numbers. Labour might not lose one if the SNP just abstain and the Liberals support them, which they might if they have just seen the Tories unable to form a government.
That would keep Labour in power but unable to pass much legislation unless the SNP or Conservatives vote with them on individual bills. The stagnation in UK government suits only the SNP who rule a Scottish Parliament which already controls many of the big matters like health, policing and education.
That, alongside the stagnation in Westminster, and the media vilification of them and (as they see it) the Scottish people in this campaign, might nudge them to a belief that they can win a second independence referendum in 2017.
Mass transportation of Tartars, arresting the Red Army officer core and genocide of the entire Cossack people is not current SNP Policy although the Daily Mail probably wishes it was
They’d need a mandate to call one though and would have to ask for it in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, a risky thing to put in a manifesto so soon after the 2014 referendum loss.
That England’s government has ground to a standstill in the meantime may not be anything they’d lose sleep over.
However both Milliband and Cameron will have both responsibility for stagnation and potential leadership challenges from over their shoulder to focus on.
The Conservative Party can be quite ruthless with its leaders. If 15% of Tory MPs write to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, a no confidence vote is triggered. Eccentric London Mayor Boris Johnson is widely seen as waiting in the wings for this to happen.
Milliband has never been loved by the the wing of his party loyal to Tony Blair. He defeated his more Blairite brother David for the leadership. He has also irritated some on the left of his party with his refusal to work with the SNP, whose polices are not far away from those held dear on the left wing of the Labour Party. However, a party conference seems to be needed before he can be challenged. Liberal Democrat leader Clegg may not even hold onto his Sheffield constituency.
Internal pressure to resign is more likely to succeed in all cases. The Tories are most likely to be ruthless though. Any Labour blame game will be messier.
These are just a few more uncertainties unlikely to be resolved within 24 hours of the result being known
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