Living without a majority

John Mackintosh

The current political situation shows that the old, simple remark in the textbooks, 'Governments must resign or go to the country if they are defeated in the House of Commons' needs some elaboration. In reality, minority governments can last for some time, enact a volume of legislation and play a large part in determining when and on what issue they will accept defeat or hold an election. If the Opposition were to propose a motion of no confidence in Mr Callaghan's administration and this was carried, that would be the end. But the Liberals do not want an election and would be unlikely to vote for such a motion. Mr Powell has also said he might, in these circumstances, back the Government.

So the Government is only likely to be defeated on some substantive motion or proposal. For this to happen an issue has to be found on which the Labour Party is on one side while the Conservatives and all the minority parties feel they are obliged to unite on the other. Such issues do not come up often and usually only arise if the Government is enacting some positive left-wing policy which is sufficiently left orcentralising in its implications to alienate even the very pro-Labour members of Plaid Cymru. Examples of such votes were the Dock Labour Regulation Bill and the Bill to nationalise the aircraft and shipbuilding industries. But there are two points about such issues in the Commons. The first is that it is up to the Government whether it brings forward proposals of this kind and, secondly, it is entirely a matter for the Government whether the votes on these proposals are built up into votes of confidence or not.

For instance, the first MacDonald Government need not have taken its defeat on the Campbell case as evidence of lack of confidence but the Prime Minister felt so personally involved that he chose to make it an issue on which the Government would, if defeated, go to the country. in fact, Mr Attlee had no need to call an election in 1951 but he and his government were tired and dispirited and decided 'better a fearful end than an end full of fear.' The Labour governments of 1964-66 and February 1974 to October 1974 chose their own moments for holding an election, but their situation was markedly better than that of the present government. They were in a much stronger economic position, they were not under IMF surveillance and some of the old Keynesian techniques could still be used to create appropriate economic conditions.

Given that a favourable scenario for an election cannot be staged in the next eighteen months or two years, the Government's chances of hanging on depend very much on its own morale, or its will to survive and its capacity to develop new practices. One of these practices is a willingness, once again, to put proposals to both Houses of Parliament and to committees of the Commons in which it has either a minority of votes or equality and rely on the strength of its case. If necessary, it will have to accept defeat and show a willingness to concede, to compromise and to rethink certain aspects of its policies.

Few outside the Commons realise what a total and painful readjustment this will require on the part of many ministers and MPs. Michael Foot, for instance, was a great House of Commons man but his belief was in the Chamber as the cockpit of the contest for political power, not as a place where one side contemplated concessions to the other. Last summer and before Walsall and Workington, he was saying that it was intolerable if the Government could not carry what it wanted when it wanted and that there might have to be an election in the spring of 1977.

This explains Foot's reactions when the Speaker ruled that the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Bill contained elements which might make it a 'hybrid' Bill. Michael Foot could have said this was an unprecedented announcement four-fifths of the way through a Bill. He could have gone on and accepted the Speaker's decision, and have said he would ask the advice of the Select Committee on Procedure as to how to proceed. Instead, directly the Speaker ruled, he felt it necessary to propose a motion to override the relevant section of Standing Orders so that the Bill could continue as if nothing had happened.

Is then the Government capable of showing more flexibility and of surviving for another year or two? Looking ahead, it has certain obvious hurdles to surmount. Probably the first will be the economic package necessary to obtain the IMF loan. This may well include further cuts in public expenditure and increases in taxation. There is a majority in the House for any such package but probably the Government could get by on its own. Left-wing MPs and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party are opposed both to the existing cuts and to any more that may be proposed but they are highly unlikely to join any MPs on the opposite side in voting against the Government. They are concentrating on who will be left in control of the Labour Party after any general election defeat and they are determined to be able to say both 'it was not our policies that led to the defeat' and 'it was not we who caused the defeat by voting with the Opposition.' So, though they will con

duct demonstrations against the package, sign motions, make speeches and embarrass Mr Callaghan as much as possible, in the last resort their bluff can be called.

Then there is the legislative programme for the 1976-77 session of which the main items are the Devolution Bill, direct elections to the European Parliament and a Bill to introduce workers' representatives into the boards of large companies. All these measures have their opponents on the Government's back benches. The only one that is entirely safe is direct elections, for though it was rejected by the Labour Party Conference and the Left will vote against it, the Conservatives, Liberals and Nationalists are in favour. On devolution, the situation is far more complex but the opponents of the measure suspect that the Government would not build this up as the kind of issue on which the Government would resign. The Government, for its part, has to be cautious as, if it indicates that a defeat would not be construed as a disaster, this may lead to many more of those with doubts voting against the Bill. The workers' democracy legislation has opponents both on the Labour left and the Conservative right.

Will the Government show enough resilience and flexibility to work its way through a session in which it must allow its backbenchers to cross-vote and face the necessity of carrying measures with the aid of Conservative and Liberal votes? In one sense, the answer is yes. The Cabinet still contains a number of people who want to survive and who want the party to survive; there are, so far, only a few signs of nervous exhaustion.

But there is one further reason why fears of cross-voting are so much greater than seems reasonable. It is the very real sense that the coalition of people and opinions in the Labour Party is !flowing such signs of strain that if groups of MPs do cross-vote, they may go on doing so till the creaking combination on the Government side is In danger of breaking up. Richard Crossman, at the end of 1966, brilliantly spotted Sir Harold Wilson's tremendous strength In that he was able, by his presence at its head. to prevent the Labour Party ever having to decide about its own nature and purpose. Was it to be 'a proper socialist party'? or to be a social democratic party like the German SPD ? Was it to be pro-European, trail along on its world role memories or become a socialist off-shore island ? Was it for centralised, authoritarian state control or for decentralisation, participation and pluralism? Sir Harold's existence meant that all horses could be ridden in all these directions but, the moment he went, the act could not be repeated. The Labour Party now has an uneasy feeling that it will have to make some of these choices. This explains the alarm that was felt when Mr Jenkins worked so easily and happily with Mr Whitelaw and Mr Steel in the referendum campaign. But that passed over and Mr Jenkins has gone to Brussels.

Now the fear is that if the Manifesto group of MPs find themselves voting with

the Conservatives' on the economic package, on direct elections and possibly on industrial democracy, then the left will be isolated. And what will the Cabinet do ? Will Mr Callaghan accept sort from the other Side? If the left, for fear of this, cling to the Government but insist on regular concessions of an ideological nature, suppose some MPs on the other wing of the party break away and refuse their support ? Does this presage some realignment on the part of these people?

Much, in this alarming situation, depends on the stance taken by Mrs Thatcher and her lieutenants. The left in the Labour Party are relieved by any evidence of right-wing extremism among the Conservatives which flakes cross-voting harder and less likely to be habit-forming when it does occur. In a sense, the alarm is understandable. The twoParty system and party loyalties have developed to such an extent in post-war British politics that any co-operation in the lobbies with members of another party is taken not just to mean strong feelings on that Particular measure but is seen as evidence of a deeper realignment. And this view is strongly held not only in the House but among the constituency parties. Abstention, if it is of a left-wing kind and is done to make a point without damaging the Government, can be permitted but cross-voting which involves collaboration with the Conservative enemy and may enforce a change in the Government's plans, is a heinous crime.

Thus the Government will survive in the sense that it is unlikely to be defeated on a straight vote of no confidence. But if it is to avoid building up votes on specific issues into the kinds of crisis of credibility where defeat would seriously damage its morale and standing, then it must be prepared to accept voting practices which are now largely foreign to the House of Commons and are deeply suspected by many MPs and by the more intransigent activists in the constituency parties. It will also involve taking risks, not only on the floor of the House of Commons but with the cohesion of the Labour Party which may be too weak to take such drastic changes and such acceptance not only of diverse views but of diverse conduct. But the choice is between taking these risks and the more obvious and clearcut danger of defeat in a generalelect ion.