Reports that Boris ‘will not resign as Prime Minister’ if he loses a vote of confidence are astonishing. His hit men in Downing Street are putting the idea about that he does not have to resign and can instead hang on to power by calling a general election after he pushes through a No Deal Brexit. Their argument is that the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 empowers him to do this. Meanwhile Labour has indicated that if such a thing were to happen Corbyn, as Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition, would request to see the Queen and demand the opportunity to become prime minister and form a government.
The FTPA allows, after a vote of confidence has been lost, two weeks for parliament, not the prime minister, to approve a new government. It does not actually specify the details of what the defeated PM should do, since it clearly assumes that the existing constitutional arrangements are unchanged by the Act. The only PM in my lifetime to lose such a vote (Major survived by one vote) is Jim Callaghan in 1979. He is also the only PM to lose a vote of confidence in the Queen’s reign. He at once resigned and asked the Queen for a dissolution, led Labour into a general election and lost to Margaret Thatcher, whose motion had brought his government down. So precedent has been established in an unwritten constitution founded on a mixture of precedence and statute.
If the Boris plan is serious we are headed for a big constitutional bust up and outrage is being expressed at the thought of dragging the Queen into politics. But at this level of crisis, as Head of State, ornamental or real, she has no choice. It could be done quite discretely. A private word from her Private Secretary to the Cabinet Secretary that if Boris loses, he either resigns and asks for a dissolution or she will sack him and send for Corbyn. The only way Downing Street’s current regime to work their plan, is to lose a vote close enough to Halloween to ensure that No Deal happened before the 25 working day campaign period required for an election. They might get away with that, but certainly not with ignoring the will of parliament if ousted early in September.
Which brings us to the mandate of the 17.5 million people who voted to leave. It is not legally a mandate at all, it was advisory not binding, although parliament declared it would act as advised. Leaving that detail aside it is in a democracy impossible and improper to ignore the wishes and interests of the 16.25 million who voted to stay. In a democracy it is a condition of its natural survival that the winner governs for all. A No Deal Brexit was never on offer or explained by either side, nor were its implications for the economy and social mobility understood. Because of that the only way to validate this claimed mandate, now that so much more is known, is to renew it. This is where we get to either a general election or a second referendum, before Brexit happens.