The 2017 UK General Election Thread - Voting open today from 7am - 10pm
- Monkey Man
- Member
- Joined in 2008
twitter.com/timfarron/status/854278087713988609
Will May call an early election? - Five reason why she might
Here are some reasons why she might.
Five reasons why she might call an early election
1 - The polls, obviously.
This was YouGov yesterday.
twitter.com/YouGov/status/853920816169406464
And these figures may be even more important than the state of the party polling.
twitter.com/YouGov/status/853921194999001088
And ComRes found an identical lead for the Tories over the weekend.
twitter.com/ComRes/status/853292086082154496
2 - If May is going to call a surprise election, during the Brexit negotiations, now would be a good time to do it. May would be able to get the election out of way within about six weeks, which would not really interfere with the negotiations. The big advantage in having an election now is that during the negotiations she is almost certainly going to have to make compromises that will be unpalatable to hardline pro-leave voters and Tory MPs. If the election is in 2020, as it is meant to be, she may have to go to the polls explaining why the UK is still paying money to the EU, accepting European court of justice rulings etc. If she could win a majority now, she would be safe for another five years.
3 - Labour has said it would vote for an early election, meaning that May would have the two-thirds majority needed to bypass the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.
4 - The Crown Prosecution Service is due to make a decision quite soon about whether to charge Tories in relation to alleged over-spending at the general election in South Thanet and in other constituencies. An election now would eliminate the risk of prosecutions leading to byelections in these seats.
5 - May would have shown that she has learnt the lesson from Gordon Brown’s “election that never was” in 2007. He dithered over calling an election at a time when it would have suited him, but called it off at the last moment, having let public speculation get out of hand. May until now has firmly ruled out an election, meaning that if she called one now, it would come as a complete surprise.