What Gives a Prime Minister Their Power?
- Created by: ellabbear
- Created on: 25-01-22 09:44
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- What determines a prime minster's power?
- Party unity
- No matter the majority size, if the party is unified then they will always be successful.
- Easier to unify one party than all of the opposition, which would need to take place to overthrow a minority.
- Majority
- Under a healthy majority, party rebels and division is easy for government to deal with
- Rebels under Blairs 178 majority didn't voice oppositon, whereas May suffered 28 defeats due to no majority
- Mandate
- Clear electoral mandates squash opposition as all MPs are shown that this is what the electorate want
- Without a clear mandate, May had to drop some manifesto pledges such as social care reform
- First-term government
- A new government will always be given a sort of "honey-moon" where people tend to hope for the best
- Problems can be blamed on the prior government for the first term, May was held responsible for all of the Tory's problems
- Prime ministerial coattails
- New MPs that receive seats based on the PMs popularity will be loyal to the PM as they are keen to keep their seats.
- Under May, there were barely any new MPs and many of them didn't agree with her Brexit deals
- New MPs
- New MPs are more likely to remain loyal to the government as they don't yet have the experience and reputation needed to rebel without being removed.
- New MPs lost their seats often in Mays government removing her majority
- Exercisable threats
- Formerly, the government could use the threat of calling an election or resigning to gain support by MPs who feared intra-party fights or losing their seat
- Due to the addition of the Fixed Term Parliament Act, it was impossible for May to use threats in order to gain support on any of her Brexit deals
- Low salience of issues
- If a PM isn't facing any polarizing issues, they will have more power, because public and party opinion won't be spilt
- Brexit, and specifically the deal the the UK left the EU with, were very polarizing issues that left May with little support
- Party unity
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