Can a minority Conservative government survive? Let's look at the maths

Following the unexpected failure of the Conservatives to secure a majority in Theresa May’s snap general election, the UK has its second hung parliament in seven years. With 318 seats, the Conservatives fell eight seats short of a majority, though in reality, they are four short, given the abstentionist policy of Sinn Féin, which won seven seats. Labour, with 262 seats, fell short by 60. Attention naturally focused first on whether the Conservatives could form a government.

The available options were a formal coalition with another party or a Conservative minority government. The prospects of a Conservative-led coalition were limited. After the damage inflicted on the Liberal Democrats by their coalition deal with the Conservatives in 2010-15, the centrist party ruled out any reprise. There was also no chance of a Conservative deal with the Scottish National Party (SNP), which won 35 seats but which is resolutely opposed to the Tories on both constitutional and economic questions. It appears that no one has even contemplated a grand coalition between Labour and the Conservatives, an arrangement that works in Germany but which is alien to the UK other than in wartime.

That left one coalition option for the Conservatives – involving Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which won ten seats. While that would have locked in the DUP to unpopular decisions, it appears to have been opposed by many Conservatives. It would have been a particularly difficult pill to swallow for those critical of the DUP’s socially conservative stance on same-sex marriage and abortion.

Theresa May, the prime minister, has therefore sought to form a minority government, relying on support from the DUP. If it entails a “supply-and-confidence” agreement, then the DUP would support the government in confidence votes, including the Queen’s speech (which sets out the government’s legislative programme), and on financial votes, particularly the budget. All other votes would be decided on a case-by-case basis. In return, the DUP would hope to extract some policy concessions, probably on public spending and welfare.
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Rise of 'anti-politics' produces surprise result in the UK election

A little over a week before the 2017 UK general election, the improbable occurred. A poll indicated that Prime Minister Theresa May could lose the Conservative majority. The shadow of a hung parliament was cast over the UK parliament again. It was a claim credible enough to the markets for the sterling to drop. Most political analysts, however, did not take it seriously.

But these are unconventional times. There is an unlikely president in the White House. No pundit predicted Brexit. And now, a Labour Party led by an “anti-politician” in Jeremy Corbyn has delivered a hung parliament.

While Theresa May will soon be on her way to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen’s permission to form a minority government, the unlikelihood of a stable coalition government means Britons may be heading back to the polls much sooner than they expected.

A win for anti-politics?
“Anti-politics” is often used to describe:

a growing distrust of career politicians;

hatred of partisan politics; and

disaffection with democracy.

Among its causes is complacency in rich Western nations, as well as disinterest in institutions (especially from the young). Many see anti-politics as a tide sweeping away much that was previously taken for granted.

According to leading UK scholars, anti-politics is not a democratic de-alignment as much as the result of political realignment. In other words, it is not that we are turning off democracy – but that we are turning away from political elites and major party politics.

A recent Australian survey found righteous indignation among its citizens. This anger is directed at parties and politicians who are swayed by the quest for power and seem to break promises without impunity.
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The UK is in the midst of a national nervous breakdown

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What a mess. Just when you thought that the governing class could do no more to fail in their custodianship of Britain’s political settlement, it surprises us all. And let’s not forget the role of “the people” in creating the current impasse.

The result of the UK general election has made it clear that the nation – the people, the politicians, the media, everyone – have surpassed themselves.

Theresa May, the prime minister, chose to go to the country in order to create “unity” in parliament and unite the country behind her diamond-hard Brexit strategy. That has not happened. The result reveals a country still divided along the lines of age, education, income and geography. Any hopes that people were coming back together after the division and unhappiness of last year’s Brexit referendum have been dashed. And, having squandered a working majority in parliament, May now seems prepared to put the whole Northern Irish peace process at risk in order to struggle on in a minority government with the help of the Democratic Unionist Party.

May’s arrogance and hubris may be the immediate cause of these troubles but what we are seeing now is the effect of many chickens coming home to roost. The UK is the creation of armed force, global expansion, and the projection of power around the world. It was the beating heart of a great empire that brought enormous wealth for the few and knitted a people together in a shared identity. That identity was underpinned by military prowess, material progress and a belief in the superiority of UK institutions, with a centralisation of power in one of the world’s great cities, London.

Today, the empire is long gone and so has the shared belief in the UK and what it means. The military prowess is not what it was, the nation’s material progress has been eclipsed by that of its trading partners, and the belief in the superiority of UK institutions has taken a battering.

Many of the drivers of this decline go back over a century but more recently to the impact of Thatcherism. Labour’s well-intentioned but ultimately fudged programme of devolution and constitutional reform has also driven the constituent nations of the UK apart.

In Northern Ireland, the Troubles may have ended but there is no agreement on the future of the province and a significant minority of its population wants to leave the UK. Despite the most recent electoral setbacks, it’s also only a matter of time before the Scottish National Party finds the opportunity to restage 2014’s independence referendum. And while there is currently no significant support for independence in Wales, Plaid Cymru pushes a strong cultural nationalist message that has been taken up by many in Welsh Labour as well.
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