Ending Brazening it Out

The mechanics of getting rid of this New Labour government are:

For the regime to lose a major vote in the Lower House which is confirmed subsequently by a loss of the following vote of confidence.

For a resignation as Leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister to be forced from the Prime Minister by his Party.

In the first case it is hard to think that a compliant Parliamentary Labour Party will alter its acceptance of anything whatsoever from warmongering, policy agreement to torture and rendition, lies to Parliament, casino financial regulation, economic fold, mass unemployment, the steady increase in inequality since 1997, to the installation of the surveillance state backed by policing that brings shudders of recognition. The PLP is not going to grow a conscience or a backbone.

The second case precipitates a general election, for both internal Party reasons, and for external, political system reasons. On resignation of a prime minister all ministerial jobs become vacant. The ministerial payroll in the PLP is around 50%. Half the parliamentary party would lose its place into the hands of the new, temporary Leader appointed by the Labour Cabinet, and the solidity of the Labour majority would fragment. The external political system would cut in at this point too. There is a conflict between the choosing of a new Leader by the Labour Cabinet who then becomes, ex officio, prime minister when the Labour party is in power, and the role of the Head of State in choosing on whom to call to attempt to form an administration on a Labour prime minister's resignation. The monarch does not subscribe to the one-party state model pressed by New Labour and on a prime minister's resignation will take advice from across the political spectrum, starting with the outgoing prime minister and then from the privy council and from other trusted advisors. When she is advised to call on whoever the Labour cabinet agrees on, the chances of the Labour majority fracturing in the subsequent vote of confidence would be so high other advisors and her own experience would make choosing to dissolve the Parliament and hold a general election very likely.

At this point, the Labour party no longer being in power, Ms Harman would become acting-Leader, as did Ms Beckett after John Smith's death, until a new Leader is elected using Labour's notably undemocratic Party procedures. It can be seen at once that this scenario militates against any delegation with revolver and whisky in hand setting out for No 10.

What then? There is no further disaster that can strike the United Kingdom. Its very unitedness is being brought under severe challenge by the rejection of Labour in Scotland and the Scottish possession of both a party and a political means to break away. The Lisbon Treaty or some further transmogrification of it will drain sovereign powers in the economy and in foreign policy, and in our laws, further to the European Union. To say that there will be a general election in the nature of things by June 2010 is to ignore all these realities that undermine the very purpose of a general election.

It is time to dissolve the current Parliament with or without the current Prime Minister's request and call on another politician to seek a vote of confidence in an administration that can unite the country in enabling democratic choices on what is to be done. In another year's time there will be nothing to be done.