2017 General Election UK Case Study

?

Political context

May used the provision of the act that allows an early election if it is supported by two-thirds of MPs. In a vote taken the day aft er her announcement, 522 out of 650 MPs voted for an election.

Need for certainty and stability as the UK entered the process of negotiating withdrawal from the European Union. ‘The country is coming together,’ she declared, ‘but Westminster is not.’ This was a reference to potential opposition to the government’s handling of the Brexit process from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP.

May seeking party advantage. Conservatives 20 points ahead of Labour in the opinion polls at the start of the campaign = widespread expectations that they could win a majority as large as 100 seats. This would have been an extraordinary improvement on the 17 seat majority that May inherited. An election victory would also enable May to win her own personal mandate, independent of that won by David Cameron, and possibly allow her to jettison policy commitments made by him.

Another reason may have been that, had she allowed the electoral cycle to run its course, May would have been preparing for a general election in 2019–20 – just at the time when the Brexit negotiations would be coming to an end. A prime minister in such a position might struggle to win favourable terms from the EU, and if the talks went wrong it would  damage her chances of re-election.

1 of 6

Campaign- 'Strong and stable'

The mantra of ‘strong and stable leadership’ was repeated endlessly by May and her

supporters. Some commentators noted that she rarely referred to the Conservative Party,

instead emphasising that people should vote to strengthen her hand as prime minister.

Her ‘battle bus’ carried the slogan ‘Theresa May for Britain’ in large letters. This may have

been because she was seeking the votes of working-class former Labour or UKIP voters,

in parts of the country where the label ‘Conservative’ has negative connotations. She

and her supporters depicted Jeremy Corbyn as lacking judgement and experience. They

warned of a ‘coalition of chaos’ if he and his left-wing supporters took office, propped up

by a combination of the SNP, Greens and Liberal Democrats – even though Tim Farron

stated that his party would not enter a coalition. The Conservative line of attack echoed

Cameron’s message in the 2015 election, when he painted a lurid picture of a weak Ed

Miliband government, kept in Downing Street by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and risking

the break-up of the UK.

The Conservatives also criticised Labour for announcing unaffordable spending

commitments. They argued that the money saved from Labour’s intended reversal of

cuts to corporation tax and capital gains tax had been earmarked for too many different

projects, and that they had not costed their plans for the nationalisation of railways,

Royal Mail and water companies. The ‘governing competency’ line of attack was given

credibility when Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary until the final week of the

campaign, struggled to recall figures when explaining how Labour would fund the

recruitment of extra police officers. There was also embarrassment when Jeremy Corbyn

was unable to state how much Labour’s planned expansion of free child-care would cost.

However, these blunders did not significantly affect Labour’s standing in the polls. Many

of the party’s policies were popular. In particular, there was an upsurge in registration to

vote among young people, partly explained by support for the pledge to abolish student

tuition fees. More generally, people responded to Labour’s promise to support public

services and put an end to the limited pay rises of recent yearss

2 of 6

Campaign- Social care

The social care U-turn

Midway through the campaign came a major setback to the Conservatives’ efforts

to present themselves as the party of strong, decisive government. The manifesto

contained a promise that when elderly people needed care, their homes would not have

to be sold during their lifetimes to meet the costs. Instead the money could be taken

from their estates after death, and a guaranteed £100,000 of their assets would be left

untouched. However, there was no announcement of a cap on the amount for which

they might be liable. In addition, for the first time, those who received assistance in their

own home would have its value taken into account as part of their assets. The ensuing

outcry over the weekend of 20–21 May forced the prime minister to announce that

the government was looking at a cap after all, prompting claims that she was actually

weak and vacillating. The Conservatives had started the campaign with a poll lead of

more than 20 points but this fell to single figures, largely because of the unpopularity

of what Labour dubbed the ‘dementia tax’. It looked as though Theresa May was taking

the elderly – normally seen as a key constituency for the Conservatives – for granted.

Unlike Cameron, who had protected benefits for elderly people, she had taken a huge

risk with an important section of the electorate. May was also accused of making policy

with a small circle of advisers, and of not consulting widely enough among senior party

colleagues before setting out the manifesto.

3 of 6

Campaign- Social care

National security and counter-terrorism

Terrorism became a key issue after a radical Islamic suicide bomber killed 22 people

at a pop concert in Manchester on 22 May, provoking widespread shock. The election

campaign was suspended for three days and the official terror threat designation

was raised from ‘severe’ to the higher level of ‘critical’ for several days, with troops

supplementing police on the streets. May at once shifted from the persona of

campaigning party leader to that of national leader, co-ordinating the government’s

response and making statements about the investigation in an appropriately sombre

manner. Ministers criticised Jeremy Corbyn for giving a speech in which he argued that

the terror threat had been exacerbated by ill-judged British military interventions in the

Middle East. Although he made a point of condemning the atrocity, the speech played

into an established narrative, that Corbyn was too ready to understand the causes of

terrorism, rather than combating challenges to national security. Conservative speakers

and newspapers reminded the public that as a backbench MP he had associated with

representatives of Sinn Fein, Hamas and other groups linked to terrorism. However, the

episode did not benefit the Conservatives, whose poll lead a week after the outrage was

a mere seven points.

On the evening of 3 June there was a further terrorist atrocity when Islamic extremists

drove a van into people on London Bridge and then ran amok with knives, killing eight

bystanders and injuring many more before they were stopped in their tracks by armed

police. Once again political debate centred on issues of security and policing. Labour

drew attention to the Conservatives’ implementation of cuts to police numbers that had

left the country vulnerable. May proposed new measures to crack down on radical Islamic

ideology and announced that the Human Rights Act would not be allowed to stand in

the way of action. The gap between the Conservatives and Labour remained narrow as

polling day approached, although the exact figure varied considerably from one polling

company to another, from a lead of 12 points to just one point.

4 of 6

The conduct of the campaign

The conduct of the campaign

The nature of the parties’ campaigns was controversial. Unlike in the 2010 and 2015

elections, there were no televised face-to-face debates involving the leaders of the two

main parties. This was because the prime minister refused to take part in them. Instead

Corbyn and May appeared on two different TV programmes to take questions separately,

without facing each other. It left a negative impression when May declined to take part

in a leaders’ debate in Cambridge on 31 May, in which Corbyn chose to appear at the

last minute. May was represented by Home Secretary Amber Rudd. With all the other

party leaders present (apart from SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who was not running

for a Westminster seat), May’s absence seemed odd and was frequently referenced by

the other leaders. Beyond the TV studios, Corbyn proved to be an effective campaigner,

energised when he addressed enthusiastic rallies of his core supporters. May tended

to speak at more carefully controlled events, involving smaller numbers of people, and

often appeared ill at ease when confronted with difficult questions. It was widely felt that

the Conservatives had fought a poor campaign, negative and uninspiring in tone, and

too heavily focused on a leader who proved to be insufficiently appealing to voters. By

contrast, the Labour message was one of hope – ending austerity and offering positive

change. Labour was also more adept than the Tories at using social media to reach

younger voters.

5 of 6

Polling day

Polling day: huge shock to the Conservatives, although they remained the largest party in parliament, they lost their overall majority. Far from increasing her personal authority,Theresa May was humiliated.

It was a victory only in the narrowest, most technical sense; the Conservatives had actually lost 13 seats, even if their share of the vote had gone up by more than five percentage points. The surprise beneficiary of the election was Jeremy Corbyn, whose party had not only gained 30 seats but had achieved its largest increase in vote share since Clement Attlee’s 1945 victory. Gains included seats in Londonand southern England such as Kensington, Canterbury and Portsmouth South, which had never been Labour seats.

This strengthened Corbyn’s hold on the party, making it virtually impossible for his centre-right, or Blairite, critics to mount another challenge to his leadership. But the reality was that neither of the two main parties were in a position to form a majority government. For that to happen a party would need a minimum of 326 seats. Even with the support of the other ‘progressive parties’ – such as the SNP and the Green Party – assuming that it was forthcoming, Labour would have fallen short of the required total. As leader of the largest party, May had the constitutional right to make the first attempt to form a government. The only way to make the arithmetic work was for her to seek the support of the largest party in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party.

6 of 6

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar Government & Politics resources:

See all Government & Politics resources »See all UK political parties resources »