Should Britain adopt fixed Parliamentary terms?

No

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by Ellen Langley

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Two assumptions seem to lie quietly unspoken at the heart of this question about whether or not the UK should adopt fixed-term government; firstly, that without hard-coded prescription as to length of term, UK governments are invariably allowed to run on and on; and secondly, that fixed term government would solve real or perceived malaise within British politics. However, as other contributors to this debate have already pointed out, these basic assumptions are wide of the mark.

While the UK may not have a written constitution, it does have a very robust system of constitutional law, honed via both statute and convention over nearly 1000 years. Enshrined within this law is the convention that governments do not run much past five years without standing for re-election and there have been no instances of this being allowed to happen in the years since the First World War, so the system could be said to be working pretty well.

If you believe that forcing the object of your political loathing to call a general election a few months earlier than s/he might otherwise have done is going to make a profound difference to the state of British politics in any given era, chances are you're either completely new to the "democratic process" in the UK, too young to have voted yet, or oblivious to the tensions that existed in British politics during the Thatcher/Major and Blair years. Our leaders on both sides of the political spectrum during these stuck faithfully to the principle of "five years" for calling an election, but as any Blair or Thatcher hater discovered to their chagrin, this didn't make a blind bit of difference, because voters in their wisdom, simply went and voted the hated one (and his or her political party) back in again.

I suspect that what advocates of fixed term politics are really after are fixed and absolute terms for Prime Ministers. The most disenchanted thinkers also somewhere, deep down in their heart of hearts (even though they can't say it because it represents a fundamental attack on notion of democratic election), hanker after fixed terms for parliamentary parties to remain in power an unthinkable proposition.

While the experience of being governed by a single party, of whatever persuasion for 18 years as we were under the Margaret Thatcher and John Major during the 1980s and 1990s, is one which I don't relish repeating, I'm vehemently opposed to changing our current system.

My reasoning goes a little deeper than the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

To place a limit on the number of years an individual can hold the post of Prime Minister is to tacitly acknowledge the death of a parliamentary system of government, in which both perceived and real power is more evenly spread across government, in favour of a presidential system such as that of the U.S, where the real locus of power lies chiefly with the president. While there are many who would argue that British politics has already succumbed to this system, they fail to take account of the check and balances that exist and which are used on an almost daily basis to clip the wings of a Prime Minister who gets above his or her station.

The fixed-term is an arbitrary one which takes no account of the circumstances a country finds itself in. While most nations with fixed term governments stipulate a term between four and five years, the reality is that governments tend to require a minimum two terms to bring their policies to fruition. The evidence is that unless a government messes up big time, the electorate are inclined to give them the benefit of doubt, and to vote them in for a second term anyway, so why the big fuss over fixed term?

If you're not confident that the carping and adversarial style of British politics is sufficient to call government to heel when necessary, you can surely rely on the electorate to ensure that the system "rights itself". Whether you like it or not, British voters may take their time, but they eventually become uneasy when one party holds to power for too long even the man on modern-day equivalent of the Clapham omnibus will readily offer his opinion that "we could do with a change". Ministers and political parties who hold power too long become complacent, they slip up, make bad judgements. When those mistakes start hurting, a once forgiving electorate lets government know about it in no uncertain terms, and will out them.

The way I see it, there is no real danger of the UK being stuck with a government it can't ultimately get rid of, even under the notoriously unpopular "first past the post" system we live with. When Gordon Brown starts rounding up the judiciary and his political opponents in the two Houses a la Zimbabwe and Pakistan, I'll start worrying about the potential for parliamentary dictatorship under a long-serving Labour or Tory government. Until then, I have absolute faith that although the wheels may at times grind unbearably slowly, I and my fellow voters are well-placed to effect any necessary change (notwithstanding the homogeneity of politics these days) via the ballot box whenever the next opportunity comes around, without the need for the date to be set in stone way ahead of time.

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