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Theresa May Calls General Election in U.K., Seeking Stronger ‘Brexit’ Mandate Theresa May Calls General Election in U.K., Seeking Stronger ‘Brexit’ Mandate
(about 2 hours later)
LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May stunned Britain on Tuesday by announcing that she would call an early election, placing a bet that voters would give her Conservative Party a strong mandate as her government negotiates the country’s withdrawal from the European Union. LONDON — Clearly anxious about her thin majority in Parliament before complicated negotiations on the British exit from the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday called for a snap election for June 8, a vote that her opponents will bill as a verdict on her tough brand of “Brexit.”
“The country is coming together, but Westminster is not,” Mrs. May said in an unscheduled appearance outside 10 Downing Street, referring to divisions in Parliament. Mrs. May added that she had “only recently and reluctantly come to this conclusion.” In breaking her often-repeated vow not to call an early election before 2020, Mrs. May stressed the need for unity in Parliament before undertaking what promises to be complex and tortuous negotiations on Britain’s exit from the bloc, known as Brexit.
The election would occur on June 8. “The country is coming together, but Westminster is not,” Mrs. May said in a sudden appearance outside the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, adding that she had “only recently and reluctantly come to this conclusion.”
Mrs. May had repeatedly ruled out a snap election, so her decision on Tuesday represents an abrupt U-turn. Having fired the starting gun for two years of talks with Brussels and the other 27 members of the European Union only last month, Mrs. May is already facing divisions within her own Conservative Party. She is clearly counting on a strong performance in June — before those talks get serious and difficult, before the British economy is seen to be hit by Brexit and before critical German elections in the fall — to carry her government through Brexit, hard or soft, which she has promised to deliver.
In calling an early election, she is betting that voters will give the Conservative Party, which holds a slim majority — 330 seats in the 650-member House of Commons — a stronger mandate. The opposition Labour Party is in severe disarray under its hard-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Within an hour of Mrs. May’s comments, he said that Labour would welcome an early election — even though many of his critics in the party fear that it will lose seats. Certainly, the Conservatives’ election prospects look promising. They are currently riding high in the opinion polls, with the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn in disarray, the centrist Liberal Democrats weak and the shambolic far-right U.K. Independence Party, if anything, more a threat to Labour than to the Tories.
But her announcement is also a huge gamble. Although the margins are sure to tighten, the Conservatives hold a double-digit lead over Labour, which, if it holds up, would translate into a working majority in Parliament of over 100 seats, compared with only 17 seats now.
A new election will reopen some of the country’s gravest divisions. It will give Brexit opponents another chance to soften the terms of the withdrawal from the European Union by voting for Liberal Democrat and Labour lawmakers who favor the bloc. It will give the Scottish National Party, which grabbed dozens of seats from Labour in the 2015 national election, a new chance to reissue its call for Scottish independence. But the decision does carry political risks for Mrs. May. For a politician who has cultivated a reputation as a straight shooter who puts country before party, the about-face on early elections could smack of opportunism. And in a year of election surprises, embittered but highly motivated voters from the Remain camp could coalesce behind one of the parties to register their anger over Brexit.
If Western democracies have learned anything over the past year, it is that elections are unpredictable. And if Mrs. May wins anything less than a commanding majority on June 8, she will be weakened. “She presents herself as someone putting the national interest first, before her party, and someone who does not play political games,” said Steven Fielding, a professor of political history at the University of Nottingham. “It might bite her, but she’ll play the stability versus instability card.”
Many Britons may be exhausted from voting, after a referendum on Scottish independence (September 2014), a general election (May 2015) and the Brexit referendum (June 2016). In addition, local elections are scheduled for May 4. (It was too late to piggyback national elections onto the May 4 vote.) But Mrs. May apparently calculated that the risks of an early vote were small compared with the possible payoff from a strengthened Conservative hold over Parliament.
Mrs. May took power in July; her predecessor, David Cameron, resigned after voters narrowly approved a referendum supporting departure from the European Union, a decision known as Brexit. Mrs. May took office less than a year ago, when David Cameron quit after losing the June 23 referendum on British membership in the European Union. Chosen by her Conservative Party to become prime minister when her most obvious rivals fell away, Mrs. May is now seeking an electoral mandate of her own to deal with her real danger: an unhappy group of anti-European Conservative legislators who are opposed to anything that might smell of compromise with the European Union.
Last month, Mrs. May formally initiated the two-year divorce process, one of Britain’s most consequential decisions since World War II. Without an early vote, Mrs. May said, “the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run-up to the next scheduled election,” in 2020. She added: “Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability to the country.”
On Tuesday, she said her decision to call an election was a response to gridlock created by the opposition. Analysts generally praised her decision to call early elections. “This is the act of a rational politician, but one who had repeatedly promised not to call an early election,” Mr. Fielding said. “But her lead in the polls can only go down as soon as Brexit negotiations start, so why not go now?”
“In recent weeks, Labour have threatened to vote against the final agreement we reach with the European Union,” she said. “The Liberal Democrats said they want to grind the business of government to a standstill. The Scottish National Party say they will vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain’s membership of the European Union. And unelected members of the House of Lords have vowed to fight us every step of the way.” Some were more effusive, all but guaranteeing a Conservative sweep. “It’s a surefire certainty it will be a thumping majority, no doubt about it,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London. “Something terrible about Theresa May would have to emerge between now and polling day for that not to be the case.”
She added: “If we do not hold a general election now, their political game playing will continue.” The last election was only in 2015, when Mr. Cameron won a surprising but thin majority as the Labour Party lost heavily in Scotland and the Liberal Democrats were reduced to just eight seats in Parliament.
But her critics were quick to jump on the reversal. Labour’s choice of Mr. Corbyn, a man of the hard left, has proved hugely unpopular, but on Tuesday he issued a statement welcoming an early election, as politically he had to do. That makes it likely that Parliament on Wednesday will give Mrs. May the two-thirds majority she needs to call an early election under the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, which otherwise mandates an election in May 2020.
“This announcement is one of the most extraordinary U-turns in recent political history, and it shows that Theresa May is once again putting the interests of her party ahead of those of the country,” Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party, said in a statement. “She is clearly betting that the Tories can win a bigger majority in England given the utter disarray in the Labour Party. That makes it all the more important that Scotland is protected from a Tory Party which now sees the chance of grabbing control of government for many years to come and moving the U.K. further to the right — forcing through a hard Brexit and imposing deeper cuts in the process.” “I welcome the prime minister’s decision to give the British people the chance to vote for a government that will put the interests of the majority first,” Mr. Corbyn said in a statement. “Labour will be offering the country an effective alternative to a government that has failed to rebuild the economy, delivered falling living standards and damaging cuts to our schools and NHS,” the National Health Service.
Supporters of an early election had urged Mrs. May to consider the experience of Gordon Brown, a Labour prime minister who took office in 2007 after his predecessor, Tony Blair, stepped aside. Despite polls showing that Labour would win comfortably, Mr. Brown declined to call a general election at that time, and his popularity was badly hurt during the 2008-9 financial crisis. Mr. Corbyn, 67, was elected after Labour’s bad defeat in 2015 and took the party strongly to the left. He was a weak supporter of the Remain campaign, and efforts by Labour legislators to unseat him have failed. He will lead a badly divided party and, should Labour lose this election too, as expected, will be under considerable pressure to resign.
After 13 years in power, Labour lost the 2010 election, with Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives forming a coalition government with a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats, under a new leader, Tim Farron, have been explicitly against Brexit and have called for another referendum on any final deal with Brussels. Though the Liberal Democrats are expected to win back some seats in June from the Conservatives, the Conservatives are expected to win more seats from Mr. Corbyn’s Labour Party, in that many Labour constituencies in Britain’s hard-pressed northern cities voted strongly for Brexit.
That coalition passed a law making it harder to call an early election. Under the law, the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, two-thirds of the House of Commons will have to vote on Wednesday to support an early election. Given Mr. Corbyn’s support for the resolution, that seems likely. (The next regular election would have been due in 2020.) While a third or so of Conservative voters voted against Brexit, they are considered likely to back Mrs. May, given the alternatives, especially as she has hinted lately that a transitional deal with Brussels would likely involve some compromises in the national interest.
“Labour will be offering the country an effective alternative to a government that has failed to rebuild the economy, delivered falling living standards and damaging cuts to our schools and N.H.S.,” Mr. Corbyn said in a statement, referring to the National Health Service. Mrs. May portrayed the election as one of leadership. “It will be a choice between strong and stable leadership in the national interest with me as your prime minister, or weak and unstable coalition government, led by Jeremy Corbyn, propped up by the Liberal Democrats who want to reopen the division of the referendum,” she said on Tuesday.
The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Tim Farron, also agreed to support an early election. The Liberal Democrats have promised to bludgeon the Conservatives with the specter of a “hard Brexit,” in which Britain would leave the European Union’s single market and customs union without a mitigating trade agreement.
“This election is your chance to change the direction of our country,” he said. “If you want to avoid a disastrous hard ‘Brexit,’ if you want to keep Britain in the single market, if you want a Britain that is open, tolerant and united, this is your chance. Only the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Conservative majority.” On Tuesday, Mr. Farron said that “if you want to avoid a disastrous hard Brexit, if you want to keep Britain in the single market, if you want a Britain that is open, tolerant and united, this is your chance. Only the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Conservative majority.”
Alastair Campbell, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Blair, wrote on Twitter that the state of the post-Blair Labour Party was a factor in Mrs. May’s timing. “With the opposition as it is she thinks she can get away with anything,” he posted.
Mr. Cameron also endorsed the announcement, calling it a “brave — and right — decision.”Mr. Cameron also endorsed the announcement, calling it a “brave — and right — decision.”
The leader of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party, was harsh, saying, “This announcement is one of the most extraordinary U-turns in recent political history, and it shows that Theresa May is once again putting the interests of her party ahead of those of the country.”
Ms. Sturgeon, who favors an independent Scotland but also wants to remain within the European Union’s single market, said the snap election was about “standing up for Scotland in the face of a right-wing, austerity-obsessed Tory government with no mandate in Scotland but which now thinks it can do whatever it wants and get away with it.”
Paradoxically, however, a more confident Mrs. May, with a larger majority, is likely to be able to negotiate more flexibly with Ms. Sturgeon over final Brexit terms and undercut momentum for another Scottish independence referendum.
In recent weeks Mrs. May’s office had repeatedly insisted that an early election was not going to happen, despite considerable pressure to call one from party notables like the former leader William Hague. But British politicians remember well how speculation that a former Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was to call an early election in 2007 rebounded on him when he failed to follow through, destroying his credibility.
Mr. Brown took office after his predecessor, Tony Blair, stepped aside. Despite polls showing that Labour would win a commanding majority and provide him his own mandate, Mr. Brown waited and suffered from the 2008-9 financial crisis, despite his skillful management of it, and Labour lost the 2010 election.