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We will soon know the Westminster election results but one thing seems certain. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives will win outright. Detailed opinion polls consistently indicate a close race between them but exactly how far either is from the finishing line will determine how fractious the next few days and weeks will be. It is not even certain how many leaders can survive the election or its fall out.
The key question, under new and untested rules, is which party can amass a working majority that can survive a vote of no confidence or win a vote of confidence in the Commons before another election is called. It seems likely that the Conservatives will come first but the numbers may be very tight in securing a working majority with LibDems and Northern Ireland unionists. If the Conservatives succeed, British membership of the European Union will also be in question with a referendum in two years time.
Labour could gain or lose seats in England by a whisker but will probably lose many if not all of its 41 seats in Scotland to the resurgent Scottish National Party (SNP) and come second overall. If the Conservatives cannot sustain a government, Labour would face the harder task of securing a working majority with some or all of a wider and therefore more unwieldy number of supporters: the SNP, nationalists in Wales and Northern Ireland, Greens, even George Galloway, possibly Northern Ireland unionists, and the LibDems.
Neither option requires a formal coalition with sharing out of ministries. Either could be a minority government that seeks to implement as much of its programme as possible. The new rules mean that major policy defeats do not automatically spark a new election. It will only begin to be obvious which of these options is viable when all the results are declared and could then take some time to prove one way or the other.
There is no constitutional bar to the second placed party leader becoming Prime Minister, if the outgoing one cannot do it, and the 'losing' party can show that it can command a majority. But there will be political problems if Labour is second and has to rely on the SNP. The SNP is a legitimate party but wants to leave the UK. One benign analysis is that a Labour/SNP agreement could blunt nationalism and that the SNP could follow Quebec separatists in being seen initially as the best defenders of its corner but unable to leave if a new settlement wins back some who supported independence in last year's close referendum. The malign view is that the SNP is the tail that wags the Labour dog, and provokes an English backlash that hastens Scottish independence. That deep fear of Labour being hostage to a separatist party may yet persuade English voters to switch back to the Conservatives.
Internal debate within the parties has been muted by the need for electoral unity but will soon erupt. Some Labour people will battle to keep Miliband as a leader who exceeded expectations and whose left-wing analysis they wish to extend. A small but more influential Labour Left will be wooed by the SNP and others to soften austerity. Others will ask why Labour did not do better and if it should take the poisoned chalice of government with unreliable partners. Labour has to adjust its appeal to more conservative English voters if the SNP holds on to their new seats within the UK or Scotland leaves. Conservatives will ask why decisive majorities elude them. Some feel they have been hobbled by their LibDem coalition partners, and should move rightwards while others will maintain that modernisation and compassionate Conservatism are more vital than ever. Deals will have to be sanctioned by various party bodies.
Either way, the first past the post system designed for the fading duopoly will, I think, be seen as not fit for purpose in an age of mulipolarity. Any minority or coalition government will come under pressure to reform the electoral system and reinvent the Union to save it or make an orderly transition to relations with a new nation on the same island. One occasionally canvassed option is a temporary coalition between the Conservatives and Labour to tackle these logjams. There may be Constitutional Conventions on reforming the electoral system and the Union.
I could be entirely wrong, of course, in these assumptions and the polls could be inaccurate but my hunch is that the current Conservative/LibDem coalition will survive. Many complain that the long election campaign has been overscripted, but all that is about to change with an explosion of more improvised conversations about what happened in the election and where British politics should go next. The saga may last until the summer or be over in a few days.
* Gary Kent was the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG in the last British parliament. He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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