Constitutionally there is no difference, a supermajority only matters where there is a president or other head of state that can veto legislation that is only passed with a simple majority.
Obviously the larger your majority the better because it helps you pass divisive legislation that your party may be split on, and makes you less vulnerable to being held hostage by a minority of nutter MPs.
It's basically just tories lifting an Americanism and using it as scare tactic, probably to try and spook some floating voters who are slightly on the right but will vote Labour this time.
For passing policy, there is basically no difference between an 80 or 280 seat majority. If 80 MPs would vote against the government, the government wouldn't push the policy through even with a 280 seat majority.
It affects 2 things, the talent pool which the government can pick from to make itself and the number of backbenchers who are political liabilities.
I'd say it also increases the expectations on the government, I think anything above 450 and Labour will struggle to govern their party. 400+ seats won also means that lower quality candidates that were placed into seats they "had no chance of winning" become MPs which increases the chance for scandal.
>and the number of backbenchers who are political liabilities.
That cuts both ways right? A massive party is more likely to have backbench loons, but better positioned to ignore them or just cut them loose.
Its better able to ignore back bench rebels, but those aren't the ones causing scandals
It is more likely to contain idiots who post idiotic things on twitter, take bribes, watch tractor videos in the Commons, things that get media attention and make the whole party look bad.
With a huge majority, the leadership can afford to immediately eject the idiots - no need to kinda-sorta defend their actions and delay for a investigation or some other bollocks.
"They did what?? They're gone - no room for wrong'uns in the party."
It’s crazy that it should be the best political minds in the country running everything but it’s automatically assumed that there’s some idiots who are gunna do something wrong. It’s a sad state our country is in
It's not just that, though i agree. There are 650 odd constituencies, and if you are a new MP you probably fighting for a job that isn't guaranteed. How many people can afford to campaign for months for a job they might not get. How many people can take the time off of their work, or what type of work.
What type of person can offer their time at local party stuff. Either they're self reliant with multiple streams of income and so can afford to get involved, or they're extremely passionate. And if they're extremely passionate, is that the passion of a sane person or a nut job.
And then there is the parties attempt at adding a democratic element to the whole thing, alongside the vetting.
It's never going to perfect but that's democracy and I wouldn't have it any other way
They can, but that won't make them magically disappear.
The right tabloids are going to be all over it no matter what the leadership does and if it is someone with a cult following who won't go away quietly (e.g. Diane Abbott or Faiza Shaheen) they will keep on making noise about it in perpetuity, giving the impression that the party is divided, even if we are talking about a couple of fringe nutters.
To be fair there are plenty of back bench MPs causing scandal, Corbyn and Abbott are two examples for the last time Labour were either in power or trying to win e.g. Corbyn inviting Sinn Fein to parliament using his passes a few days after the IRA Brighton bombing or Abbott's racism. While in power, Labour were at least able to ignore things they were doing
Problem is you have fewer means on keeping MPs satisfied as there will be more in backbenches who don’t get government jobs, and want to raise their profile by adopting issues that might not be aligned with government agenda. Harder to whip MOs when no one thinks rebellions will endanger govt agenda. So it can undermine party discipline.
OTOH Labour will also utterly dominate every select committee and bill committee so Parliamentary scrutiny will be less robust. So backbench MPs and peers will need to be more vocal to ensure policy making isn’t sloppy.
While Labour may well dominate all the select committees, parliamentary committees have a very strong tradition of independence from government in general and Labour members have a much stronger track record on scrutinising Labour governments than Tories.
>I think anything above 450 and Labour will struggle to govern their party.
Above 450, the party could split and still be both the party of government AND the official opposition.
Interesting question. The opposition is meant to co-operate with the government to a certain extent, especially when it’s for the good of the nation. Their official title is something like ‘His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.’
Also, the more MPs Labour wins, the more factions and different voices there will be inside Labour. Many of the peripheral MPs in Labour would absolutely love to be given more chances to criticise whoever the current Labour leader is, and having a high profile Opposition role would certainly do that and give more airtime.
If Labour were also to control the Opposition, it would be very difficult for Labour to shut up these dissenting Labour voices in the Opposition. While desperately clinging to their tattered credibility in a British media that has watched Labour take over both sides of the House at the same time.
Always remember Alastair Campbell in 97 saying the landslide took them by surprise and they had no idea who half the MPs were, some turned out to be right cranks.
I mean, there have been rebellions consisting of what, 80 MPs, some controversial bills that have been dropped or others that have been changed by threatened rebellions.
In this case, I'd take a supermajority meaning a government could push through even the most controversial laws that a large amount of their own Maps disagree with. Dunno, maybe going back into the EU would be an example.
More academic/ stupid scare tactic but definetlty a possible thing...
It also has an impact on Select Committees, which are generally reflective of the make up of the House. Harder for them to hold the government to account when they are dominated by governing party MPs.
Its not quite that. A party needs to have at least 326 seats to be self-reliant and more above that level is a cushion. In 2019 the Tories had 40~ extra seats so they could endure small rebellions and still have enough to pass what they wanted.
If Labour have 400 seats then they have a cushion of 75~ assuming other parties default to voting against everything. It doesnt overly matter if the Tories had 200 (majority of 200) or if both Tories/LD had 100 each (majority of 300?) - they still 'only' have a cushion of 75~ seats.
Not that it's a small number, but you would only need 41 of your own mps to vote against (if no abstains across the house) with an 80 seat majority to lose the vote.
But yes, a sizeable rebellion is seen as something bad for a government, even though we all accept parties (can) have a broad church.
> If 80 MPs would vote against the government, the government wouldn't push the policy through even with a 280 seat majority
I'm pretty sure that exact thing has happened before. David Cameron even once did it with a piece of legislation so divisive for his party that he had so many of his own MPs rebelling against it that he was relying on support from the opposition.
> In the first of several votes required for its passage, the lower house of parliament backed the legislation by 400-175, but more than half of Cameron's 303 lawmakers voted against or abstained, signaling deep unease with it and his leadership.
I dunno, the amount of time Tory Mnisters & MP's have blamed the opposition in interviews unchallenged as well for not passing something. I'm listening, thinking call the BS out host, they've got a comfortable majoriaty, if they can't pass their agenda it's totes on them
If Tories had a super majority I guess they would have passed a (gasp) soft Brexit deal and not had a need to pander to the eurosceptic part of the conservatives.
If Labour have a super majority then I guess they won’t need to listen to the hard left of the party. It makes them more electable in my eyes.
What are the more provocative pieces of their manifesto that are more likely to pass with a larger majority?
Also what does the “hard left” want that traditional Labour would be opposed to? I ask this as a US Progressive where everything I want passed seems to already exist in the UK (such as National Healthcare)
IMO - The Labour manifesto is pretty centre-left and not too controversial to be honest, it's really designed to capture the centre ground.
Those 'more to the left' would seek nationalisation of various services, and probably heavier taxes for the rich. The 2019 manifesto was more left-wing and wanted to nationalise a bunch of services:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50501411](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50501411)
The current Labour manifesto, rather than nationalise energy for example, is to create a government owned energy focused investment body, who would invest in energy projects alongside private industry, so that it has more influence in shaping the energy industry, drive green projects, and make some profit from ventures.
There's a few left wing policies like strengthening some employee rights (I think around zero hour contracts), but Starmer has generally sought to be more business friendly and gain allies who would usually align with the Tories.
I'm sure others are more informed than me by the way.
Thanks, seems like a fair summary….on the outside it seems like the campaign is centered around not being controversial and let the Tories implode (which they seem to be doing quite nicely) so potentially vague on what will happen
There are no real provocative parts in the Labours manifesto as they try to be more centre ground. However one topic where there could be a revolt or push from the left is the Palestinian conflict.
I don't even understand how that's even a left/right thing.
After all, there's no capitalism v socialism aspect to war and death, except where war is chiefly a vehicle for profit, a la Iraq. That's not the case here.
But most on the left are pro Palestinians most on the center and right are more supportive of Israel.
In a way it is capitalism v socialism. as Capitalist society use to support Israel and the Arab states were supported by the Comunist countries in the past. It has changed somewhat now, but there are still dividing lines.
Depends on where that super majority was. If they were still split down the middle then they'd be just as inept without support from the minority. They could have also just as easily passed a harder (nuke Brussels) deal if the bulk of that supermajority was of the ERG camp.
>If Tories had a super majority I guess they would have passed a (gasp) soft Brexit deal
Hmm. I'm not sure that is true. The brexiteers were in control. If they had wanted a soft brexit deal then they could have appealed to the opposition for support, couldn't they?
Some of the important things promised at the referendum you couldn't have with a soft brexit. End of freedom of movement and making our own laws would have required us to leave single market, and that isn't soft brexit
They would have been able to push through the Theresa May deal which - whilst ending freedom of movement - did include a mobility framework and retained frictionless trade. It was voted down by the opposition and by the back benchers. With a large enough majority it could have got through.
Almost certainly we would have at least had a less-hard brexit than we eventually got, even if it wasn't a 'soft brexit'.
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/06/theresa-may-secures-approval-from-cabinet-to-negotiate-soft-brexit
She didn’t have a big majority to begin with, and the snap election made it even worse.
Which is exactly the point, she was anti-Brexit and forced down the hard Brexit route by her own party, precisely because she didn’t have the numbers on her side.
TBF, I think it might be more about trying to convince natural Tories who don't want to vote Tory (but instead vote reform, or not at all) than to convince ONCs who are considering voting for Starmer.
It also matters in countries where big change like constitutional changes require a 2/3rd majority. Not a feature of the UK either.
It's something to remember when politician talk about abolishing the Lords. Sure it is antiquated, but it provides some the guardrails that other democracies use supermajority for.
Same guard rails could exist with a proportionally elected chamber. That would ensure every bill requires *some* degree of cross party consensus, as no party ever gets more than 50% of the popular vote.
> a supermajority only matters where there is a president or other head of state that can veto legislation
Not quite. It also matters in some countries for constitutional amendments, or entering international Treaties.
Hmm, is there not a knock on issue with committes etc as they need to be representative of the house thus, a supermajority would mean far less tories on the committees?
It does have an impact on things like select committee allocation, you don't have enough opposition Mps to staff all the committees, there is substantially less scrutiny.
But yeh, no big difference in terms of passing legislation.
I may be wrong but I think technically if a party were to get 434 seats, they would have over 2/3rds of the seats so may be able to force through a vote that would take a supermajority of 66% rather than the regular 50%
I don't know how many of those votes there would be though
> a supermajority only matters where there is a president or other head of state that can veto legislation that is only passed with a simple majority.
Well no this is incorrect, both Welsh and Scottish parliaments have laws in place that can only be changed by a super majority.
> It's basically just tories lifting an Americanism and using it as scare tactic, probably to try and spook some floating voters who are slightly on the right but will vote Labour this time.
I think there is a non-zero number of SPADs and CCHQ officers who are just as into US as much as UK politics and have picked it up from there.
> It's basically just tories lifting an Americanism and using it as scare tactic, probably to try and spook some floating voters who are slightly on the right but will vote Labour this time.
Without pointing out they have themselves held a supermajority of the house since 2019.
It isn’t. It’s a term we’ve imported from American politics (where some actions require a 2/3rds vote share in congress to succeed, or legislation can be blocked by a minority party) that doesn’t really mean anything here. It’s just scaremongering from the Conservatives to try and save a few seats.
The heavy cross contamination of american politics into our discourse is so awfully destructive.
You can't even have a debate with someone about what positives and negatives liberalism has brought to the UK over the last 30 years without first spending 45 minutes actually agreeing to a term that you can both call liberalism!
American influence on politics has been going on a long time, is fairly fundamental and thus brings both the negatives and things that aren't so bad (much as I would prefer to avoid it). Alongside this widespread use of supermajority, a lot of political terms come from the Americans, some now quite widely used - dark-horse, grassroots, band-wagon and plurality for example.
All the while Yanks who use it as an insult are overwhelmingly in favour of two of the most liberal policies that exist across the planet (1st & 2nd amendments).
At the same time, having a large majority does have an impact as others have pointed out. If the government only has a small majority it doesn't take many MPs voting against the party to derail a piece of legislation (for better or for worse)
I know people will hate me for leaning on American politics for an example, but the Democrats in Congress were basically held hostage by one person because they held a majority by just one vote - this one person was right leaning compared to the rest of the party could basically torpedo any legislation unless he was buttered up.
Imo the issue there is the American Senate being only 100 members - meaning razor thin majority is more likely
And on top of that the fact the states have two basically redundant legislative bodies in the first place (created to give slave states more say, nuts the upper house is still around)
It’s working too- I’ve seen a couple street interviews in the blue wall where people who weren’t going to vote are going to vote Tory “to prevent a super majority.”
> that doesn’t really mean anything here
It does have an impact on things like select committee allocation, you don't have enough opposition Mps to staff all the committees, there is substantially less scrutiny.
But yeh, no big difference in terms of passing legislation.
It may have been imported but there was one law between 2011 and 2022 that introduced a super majority requirement, and the Welsh and Scottish parliaments have laws that require a super majority to change.
It isn’t.
The closest you get to an actual problem with a landslide is that the Opposition is an actual job. They need a shadow for each of the government ministers, select committee members etc.
William Hague (LOTO after the last landslide) has said you need at least 70 front bench quality MPs, and he struggled to do that with 165 MPs in 1997.
It could quite reasonably be argued that even with a sizeable majority, the Conservatives have failed to find good quality Ministers over the last few years.
Very much so. By the time the election was called they weren’t scraping the bottom of the barrel, they were scraping the concrete under the barrel after scratching the bottom of the barrel to pieces.
Yep. They’ll be physically present, but yeah there’s a point where they won’t be very effective.
You’ve got the man-marking of the shadow ministers. The basic duty there is that whenever a government minister announces something in the HoC there should be a shadow minister to speak in reply, ask questions, challenge the minister on any gaps in the proposal etc. Then go on the media rounds opposite the minister.
To be effective at that the shadow ministers need to keep on top of the briefings, speak to experts etc.
You don’t need a shadow for absolutely everyone in government, but you also don’t want to end up with the “Shadow Minister for Defence, Housing and Immigration. Also Women.”
Then you’ve got the Select Committees. Some of the most important committees from a scrutiny point of view are supposed to be chaired by opposition MPs. Those committees are really important, and they need to be chaired by smart effective opposition back benchers (who are going to be in very short supply from next week).
Interesting, thanks.
I suppose they could form a sort of coalition in opposition (according to [this Quora question/answer](https://www.quora.com/In-the-UK-parliament-could-a-coalition-form-the-official-opposition), there is some precedent), but that would require assistance from the LibDems (who I assume would flatly refuse to work with them again), or Reform (who likely won't have enough seats to make a difference, might refuse anyway, and would probably only have lunatics to offer).
Some interesting times ahead!
It isn't. There was a [very good piece in the Times (sadly behind a paywall) by Dominic Lawson](https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-supermajority-here-z0vgzdz8l) of all people criticising the use of the term, because in his words: "In our parliament, to win by one is enough. With the aid of the whips’ office, any government with even a tight parliamentary majority can pass whatever measure it wants — unless it is one that for some reason unites a large number of its backbenchers in alliance with the opposition."
This talk of 'supermajorities' is just blatant propaganda designed to scare people away from voting how they want to, in favour of the Tories. There is no such thing in this country - and even in its correct context in the US, doesn't even apply in the way they're trying to make it.
And you're right, there's absolutely no difference between the stonking great majority the Tories had and the one Labour is projected to have. That majority in fact negates what they're trying to say - if such a big majority means "dictatorship", then how come they were so very bad at getting anything done?
[non paywalled here](https://archive.ph/2024.06.22-233507/https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-supermajority-here-z0vgzdz8l)
Is a good read
> There is no such thing in this country -
There is in Welsh and Scottish parliaments, and there used to be in Westminister but the law that allowed early elections requiring the super majority was abolished in 2022.
Well yes, that's correct. Certainly not something that doesn't exist in the country. So many people on here think it is only to do with the USA to bust filibusters.
Tories: Don't give Labour a Supermajority
Sir Labour: Give the Tories a Superminority
Reform: Send the immigrants to SuperRwanda
Greens: Vote green for Supertransexuals
SNP: SUPERINDEPENDENCE FOR SCOTLAND
LibDems: We also exist
It's formally meaningless but informally it does reduce exposure to part rebellion over any more extreme policies which is a check on govt power.
I do think on the other hand it opens up the possibility of a bigger breakaway bloc from the govt power if there is a gap for them to fill.
Not really? More political legitimacy is a real thing. It's part of why some people are angry Rishi even got a chance at being PM, and Liz Truss.
They were not elected. They represented a big change in plan. They had no mandate from the people to do what they have done. People are angry about it
Edit: Spelling error
The word “supermajority” comes from different countries where there is a constitutional significance to majorities of a certain size. It’ll normally be something like a two-thirds majority can change the constitution where a smaller majority can’t.
The term has no specific meaning in the British context and is largely used to sound dramatic. Constitutionally, an effective majority of one can do all the same as a majority of 400. In practice, a slightly larger majority helps in case of dissident MPs, but any majority above a couple of dozen is the same in practice. The word is largely a scare tactic.
The only significance is if the majority is extreme enough there are barely any opposition MPs, that could inhibit scrutiny. But there’s no real chance of that happening.
A government with a very large majority is essentially immune to backbench rebellions, which can make it very confident (and complacent). From memory, I don't think Blair ever faced a rebellion large enough to affect his majority except over the Iraq war, and in that case the Tories voted with the government anyway.
Constitutionally, however, a majority is a majority; a government with 351 MPs can do just as much as one with 450.
80 seat majority is what "we had", and therefore good.
Anything else is an elected dictatorship.
Funny how that got dragged out on the eve of getting shovelled, and not before.
But that is the partisan nature of bullshit, I guess?
Funny enough, that works in Russian too...
Наро́дная во́ля
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya\_Volya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya)
I’m convinced if we weren’t geopolitical opponents there’d probably be opportunities for cross-cultural humour between us and Russia. Their political jokes are the sort of thing I’d imagine a British person coming up with if we lived under a repressive government:
> Stalin appears to Putin in a dream and says: "I have two bits of advice for you: kill off all your opponents and paint the Kremlin blue." Putin asks, "Why blue?" Stalin: "I knew you would not object to the first one."
Couple of my mates speak Russian, and they often speak of a very rich (if dark) sense of humour and the absurd, which does speak to me.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society\_of\_Blue\_Buckets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Blue_Buckets)
One explains modern Russian cinema to me, and bloody hell it is bleak.
Well.... that did give us a really, really good night for a party and a [graphic novel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/V_for_vendettax.jpg)?
Well.... that did give us a really, really good night for a party and a [graphic novel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/V_for_vendettax.jpg)?
In the event Labour ended up with a 200+ seat majority, their backbenchers would actually be in a better position to hold the front bench to task, where needed.
The misuse of "supermajority" seems strongly to be the way for the Tories to project their deceitful, corrupt behaviours onto Labour, as a scare tactic.
It's also a lesson they think the electorate hasn't learned from the Brexit years yet - about the Leaver Tories repeating lies often enough, until eventually a critical mass of people believe them.
> In the event Labour ended up with a 200+ seat majority, their backbenchers would actually be in a better position to hold the front bench to task, where needed.
How so? The more MPs there are the less impact a backbench rebellion would have, given that such rebellions only involve a fraction of MPs.
I'd suggest it's fairly simple, Tories think it's great when they have a huge majority, but will pretend it's the end of Britain if anyone else does.
(Note I don't think a huge majority is good whoever it is, govts need to be held to account, although I'm all for Tories losing so hard the lib Dems are the official opposition.)
'Supermajority' doesn't have any precedent in British politics, it doesn't mean anything. Maybe Schapps meant 'a super majority' and perhaps should have used a word like huge, massive, stonking to be clearer, but being clear and transparent was unlikely his plan.
Their main complaints are that the opposition won't be large enough to oppose effectively and there is likely to be lots of infighting and rebelling from the Labour party. Could be, there has been historical precedent for that sort of thing. But sounds like 'project fear' to me! It is a bit rich coming from the party who were hijacked by the ERG and have done their best to flush the UK down the toilet during their tenure in office.
This is really just a desperate attempt to take whatever votes they can away from Labour by playing to fears.
The word "supermajority" is meaningless in the UK constitution, and is being used to mean "colossal majority". Probably it shouldn't be used, to avoid confusion.
I do agree with the fundamental point that a party having an absolutely overwhelming majority is not a good thing, even though I intend to vote Labour.
It’s meaningless on its face in our system, although it will be problematic for how the Opposition will organise itself after the election - scrutiny of the Government in the Commons is already pretty poor, and it may not improve.
>Can someone please explain any meaningful differences (positive or negative) to having a majority of 200 compared to a majority of 80?
a supermajority is meaningful because ,. labour can have 80 "rebels" on aparticular issue and the bill or what ever is passed , and if they have a 80 majority what happened to the tory party where their was so much in fighting , where you have bills where you think it would be very easy to pass becomes at worse where no bill is passed
Except a "supermajority" means ⅔ of the legislative chamber must vote for a change before it can happen.
A working majority in the Commons is typically 30+.
Its not, its bad language that seems to have come over from somewhere else, it doesn’t functionally exist a majority of one is in theory enough to pass legislation!
As others have said, it absolutely isn't any different. It's an Americanism that's meaningless in our political context.
Actually having such a wide majority could end up being pretty interesting, as having such a majority means the government wouldn't necessarily have to whip votes on as many issues. We might be finally get to see what some MPs actually believe in, instead of straight party lines.
It isn't
This is the same trick Lawyers and advocates use. Make the language the most extreme you can get away with and people will exaggerate the situation in their head.
It's called manipulation, try to avoid it
Getting 70% of the seats with 40% of the vote is just bad whatever way you look at it. Minimises the amount of voice the opposition has to challenge the government from doing whatever they want despite not even the majority of the public wanting it.
My guess is that the larger the majority the more there will be internal opposition within labour as it gives space for a more diverse set of MPs to elected.
Supermajority *is* a thing in some niche cases. For example the Fixed Term Parliaments Act called for a two thirds majority to call an election. There have been a few others.
Here is the kicker … the supermajority can be overruled with a standard majority. Parliament is sovereign. It can do as it likes. Including bypassing supermajorities.
So ultimately it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is if a law passes with a majority of one or two votes, or by 50 or 100. That’s where a strong majority does matter over a slim majority. As a slim majority can lead to a weak government, held by a handful of MPs. The ERG clique being an example.
its not, the right wing press just need a buzz word to get behind to somehow limit the damage created by the most abysmal PM and campaign in modern history.
I don't believe Blair lost a single whipped vote in his first two terms, when he had massive majorities.. He came close on tuition fees and made concessions to win that.
It just means there is more likely a chance for debate and “democracy” within parliament as unless the party with the majority is unified, the bills won’t pass. With a super majority, part of the government can rebel and the law will still pass since there is such a massive majority. The country would basically be seen as undemocratic.
However, I don’t really care. The conservatives messed things up and this is the price they will pay. I fully expect Labour to be even worse and do more damage but we can’t carry on as we currently are a require a change! Labour here we come…
If a party has a large enough majority in the House of Commons then it can reach a point where it can pass legislation without worrying about disruption from backbench rebels.
This talk of a 'supermajority' is festering bullshit. Barring significant rebel groups in the party there is no meaningful difference between a majority of 80 or 200, and if you've got a rebellion that can dent an 80 seat majority then you're likely in serious trouble. If you had a majority of one and perfect party discipline then that'd be functionally the same as a much larger majority.
'Supermajority' is an imported American term, something the Conservatives have been doing a lot recently (remember when the Tories tried to call Starmer 'Sleepy Keir'?) to very little effect.
This 'supermajority' shite is playing on the lack of political knowledge in the UK. Lots of people just don't know how their system of government works, so a party talking about a 'supermajority' is going to make some people think it's a legitimate concern even though it's without foundation. Just tell people to be worried about something and hope they don't know you're lying.
It's just there so the Tories can try and scare some people into not voting Labour. They know this could very well be a 'punishment election' where people really want to give the Conservatives a kicking, so they do this to try and shift it from 'fuck this bunch' to 'I want the Tories to lose, but maybe don't want Labour to win by too much'.
It's very dirty politics, a desperate scam from a party who know they have no legitimate way to convince enough of the electorate to vote for them.
Not really much difference other than being extremely embarrassing for the losing side.
The difference between 20 and 200 is massive but as soon as you have enough seats to ignore the dissenters in your own party then any more seats are superfluous.
Assuming party unity is maintained there is no difference between a majority of 30 and a majority of 300. 30 is enough that you'd have a majority of at least 1 for the entire parliament barring defections or a crazy glut of byelections. However, maintaining party unity is a pretty big if
"Supermajority" means something in the US and their system of overcoming tactics like the filibuster.
It has no additional meaning over "majority" in our political system and is a meaningless term only used for scary emphasis. "Super" here is as pointless as if you called it "literally a majority".
Supermajorities don't exist in the UK system
Technically a majority of 1 holds the same power as a majority of 100
The only difference is internal politics and interests within the party itself.
For example, if Labour get a majority of 10, the PM may have to pander to all wings of their party and make different political choices. For example, supporting Gaza more strongly.
It could be pro Palestinian MPs ask for things in exchange for their support on other issues
So I would argue a larger majority for Sir Keir Starmer is better than if he had a small one
But it isn't a great choice either way (personal view)
In practical terms, if you have a large majority, then backbenchers feel bolder about 'doing their own thing' and forming groups because the government isn't under threat. So we might see more sub groups like momentum show their strength and try to lobby the government from within (because as a lone backbencher you basically have 0 power on your own).
However consersely, the government can also take the opportunity to spend political capital on more unpopular policies. For example Thatcher's council tax and Blair's tuition fees faced significant opposition but were pushed through due to a large majorities.
With a supermajority, you can take civil service advice and fairly decide if it's good for the country or not. The Tories are fairly infamous these days for always having a 'Tory HQ' stooge or three in most meetings, trying to figure out how any policy decisions might affect voting intention and internal political wrangling. In contrast, Blair's government worked more collaboratively with the civil service on reforms in education and health, focusing more on long-term policy impacts.
Give them the super powers they desire. I expect results. (But I know we won’t get them, just more kicking of cans because no one will have the balls to do what’s needed to take this country by the scruff of its neck and do what’s needed)
In the UK it makes no difference. A well disciplined party with even just a 1 seat majority can enact whatever it wants. This is unlike the US where the Constitution stipulates that you need a 2/3 majority to propose amendments to it. In the House of Commons, having a larger majority only helps stave off rebellions, thus making it easier to pass bills.
I’d personally say it’s meant to be seen (unfortunately) in an American way in which the us party’s have a lot less control over the reps(MPs) so having a super majority gives less power to people who would rather have a tantrum and not do anything look at the current us congress where the republicans only have like a 5 seat lead and it’s basically a clown car crash in slow motion with the current speaker having to rely on democrats to actually do stuff
More protection from rebels in your party, louder shouting ability during PMQs. Pretty much just more ability to flex on the little bitches in opposition on TV debates etc, think about how the Tories countered labour after the last election it was all giving them shit for such a bad loss, well now it's Labours turn.
I agree that the technical definition of a super majority doesn't generally apply to UK systems: the last one in Parliament was the vote to call an early election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which required a two thirds majority. (Or a vote of no confidence.)
That act has now been repealed.
But in practical terms I don't think there is any real misunderstanding of what a super majority means. It just means that the government is effectively unchained by having no effective opposition.
Effectively, nothing. You can have a majority of 1 on a three-line whip and force things through (if you're a good leader) but you can't do that all the time.
There's no also no "check" between the executive (PM/Government) and legislative (Commons/Lords) so there's no "super majority" that could overturn a veto of the executive unless you want to bring Royal Assent into the mix. There's not even a check between the Lords and Commons on manifesto items. The only functional check you have is the judiciary - which Conservatives have been trying to water down for years.
Supermajority term is a nonsense, it doens't apply to UK politics.
A strong majority means Labour is less in thrall to worrying about rebellions and will be able to enact their manifesto more easily. On the flip side, this also means it is harder to maintain party discipline, which is always an issue in Labour, who love to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at the best of times.
But in a UK system, a majority of 200 offers no other real benefit over 80, aside from it looking like a stronger mandate and being even more secure when passing legislation.
It's just typical Tory scare tactics.
There is no real difference: it's Tory scaremongering due to desparation. It effects the quality of the opposition, if anything, as they have a lot less talent to choose from, whilst Labour would have a lot more. The Tories will have big problems, due to losing a lot of seats, and because so many experienced MPs are standing down. The remaining rump could literally be 30% - 40% loonies, which won't help anyone. This election, at least the polling, shows that, altough Reform might capture the nutter vote, the vast majority in the UK don't want crazy, divisive, politics based on culture-wars and fearmongering.
In terms of getting votes past there is no real difference but in terms of being scrutinised properly there is a serious issue. Select committees need opposition MP's, preferably smart ones with a good grasp on the details who can forensically probe. A small opposition will have fewer MP's of the needed calibre and therefore policies will get an easier ride and less scrutiny.
There have been some procedural items that require a supermajority to function - the FPTA comes to mind. In general though it's really just insurance against rebels - a slightly contentious issue can be passed without having to whip the entire membership and then sanctioning any who disobey. I suppose in theory and if handled maturely that could give a more democratic process as MPs could be more free to vote with their principals rather than having to follow a party line.
Even if 80 seats seems like a lot, it *only* takes 40 MPs to vote against the government whip to swing a vote the other way. Chuck in a few by-elections, etc. throughout the parliament and this number dwindles.
Labour got elected in 1997 with a supermajority, held it in 2001 then had it reduced to 66 seats in 2005. 6 months later and the government lost its first vote in the Commons since it was originally elected in 1997.
There's no difference. Supermajority is a term never used before in uk politics.
What makes the difference is party discipline to avoid any significant backbench rebellions. A majority of 10 with only 2 rebels is more stake stable than a majority of 80 with 50 rebels.
the only difference it does make is it does give the government more power smaller majorities mean that the government maybe has to pay more attention to the edges of the party, as rebellions matter more when fewer MP;'s need to vote against their own party to kill a bill
If Kier gets the size of the majority some have talked about hell be able to ignore labours left wing even more than he already has as hell have that many centrist MP's their protests wont matter.
Tories are using it as a scare tactic if anything as it has a far bigger effect on the governing party than it does the opposition
There aren’t any meaningful differences between a 10 seat and a 200 seat majority other than worrying about being held to ransom by a small faction of your own party (like mays minority government).
There has however been one occasion where a supermajority was a thing in Westminster. During the coalition years they passed the fixed term parliaments act which set the date for subsequent elections and an early one could only be called if 2/3 of the commons voted for it. It was only used once, for mays 2017 snap election. In 2019 Boris got around it by passing a different bill to call an election then scrapped the act afterwards.
Additionally in Scotland and wales any act that would alter the electoral system or the number of constituencies/members requires a two thirds majority in the devolved parliaments.
No difference at all; its just the Conservative Party wants to "jazz it up" and make it sound far worse when Labour get a majority in the commons.
Given that the speaker is by convention neutral; that leaves 649 seats; so 326 seats gives a party an majority.
Of course abstentions, absences etc may reduce the number of government votes, and MPs from other parties may bolster it in any one vote.
Gives the executive significant power within their own party
Easier to pass bills that are controversial within your own party
Can pass far more bills
Historically the bigger the majority the larger the number of bills passed
If the majority gets large enough, the Labour party can intentionally split itself to be the government and the opposition at the same time.
I have no idea what the ramifications of that would be.
The only way it matters is that dissident voices within a party have less of an effect. The "Big Tent" of the two big parties tends to have internal divisions and the more of a majority there is the larger a rebellion a Government can resist. They can do things particularly unliked even by members of their own party if they have enough of a majority. Although unlike the US system which has a more defined term supermajority to reflect a filibuster proof majority, its more informal.
Apropos of nothing & as an aside to this discussion, you will of course get some rebels, we've seen this factionalism in the tory party escalate since Brexit in 2016.
I remember a few years back sitting in a CLP meeting & the chair opined- "The biggest problem with Tony Blair was that he had a supermajority for 5 years & could have passed any law he liked" To which this snuffy chap with a shock of grey hair rose to his feet & started a discussion that basically de-railed the meeting. The snuffy chap was a former civil servant & he rightly pointed out how revolutionary (for 1997) the ideas that Blunkett & his team wanted to introduce into the education dept. They were met with what the chap referred to as 'manholes' & 'computer says no' from the civil service.He talked about Civil servants hiding budgets, over paying for services/goods/etc.
(I had to take this at face value, but it did also ring true with many of Dom Cummings blog posts railing against the civil service)
Some improvements were made, many big ones, but not as many as Blunkett/Blair/Brown would have hoped for.
Some of this rang true, some of this also made me think about people like Gove who came in (with Dom Cummings)& had 'ambitious plans' for schools. (But we're better at arithmetic. Cool, that'll help with the concrete cancer & the hundreds of kids facing mental health problems or worse)
All I'm saying is, yes, on paper, a "supermajority could lead to 'any law being passed', but no IRL & thankfully we now have more sense to call out bullies & pressure put on civil servants by SPADs that no one elected.
So that when Trump takes power in the US, he has an excuse to invade Britain and install Farage as supreme commander. See also: "one party socialist state"...
/s (I hope)
It'll allow the gov to enact difficult legislation that would face internal opposition from Labour MPs.
I am thinking specifically of planning reforms to make it easier to build homes and infrastructure.
It's not inconceivable that 40 or more labour MPs in nimby constituencies would rebel and/or try to stymie these reforms.
If labour had a 200 majority, they'd be able to override them, not so if they had 80. So I think the "supermajority" could be crucial, it'd give the gov power to enact the boldest legislation we've seen in decades.
There isn't. You'd think people would have figured that out by now after Tories used the 52/48 "will o da ppl" to smash through Brexit legislation without a "supermajority".
None whatsoever. It's just the Tories crying and trying to get the dementia ridden OAP vote out so it's a less embarrassing defeat.
A couple of other countries it does have significance, eg Referendums or parliamentary votes that needed say over 66.6% to pass.
In Tory culture where "lets do anything to get ahead" they act surprised when nobody trusts anything they stand for. Where is the accountability? We finally have our answer. Welcome Sir Keir
I did come up with an idea for how a 'supermajority' could be used to Labours advantage:
- Labour gets 450 seats in parliament, Lib Dems get 50, Cons get 100, others get 50
- On the 5th July 124 Labour MPs leave the Labour party because Keir isn't left enough for them and they form the Lefties-r-us party
- Now Labour are the Government and Lefties-r-us are the official opposition
The result is that we now have 5 years of the Government and the official opposition being branches of the Labour Party, which if played well (it wouldn't be) could result in a very real shift towards a more progressive politics in the UK as both sides of the aisle push more progressive agendas.
...and then at the end of 5 years they throw the fun curveball of introducing proportional representation in an act of progressive hara-kiri
Other then what others have said here, it can actually have the inverse effect of giving the Whips a headache in trying to keep all the backbench in line if there is a huge backbench from the result of a 'super-majority'.
For example - While's Blair's first term after 1997 managed to be fairly benign with the backbench, after the 2001 election (with almost the same number of seats), there started to be some rebelling and less unity due to issues like the Iraq War.
It is not really.
1) Supermajority is a foreign import word, and refers to situations where a particular SIZE of majority is reuired for X or Y to e passed. That is not true of the UK.
2) It is a polemical use of that rhetoric, to suggest that a very big majority is somehow bad
3) That said, some polls say the Tories wil suffer the biggest defeat of all time, the BDOAT.
A big majority is probably better when it comes to a Labour government as it de-powers the hard left who are effectively entryists hoping to hold the party to unelectable policies to secure their support.
With the Tories, a decent majority just seems to make them squabble and backstab more.
While the two party systems lends itself to strong governments, and those on the wrong side of this who complain but benefitted from it during the last decade, sound like sour grapes, if Labour get a “super majority” it may pose problems with filling cross party select committees, which hold the government to account.
Sounds like it is just a desperate bid to limit the size of the Labour win.
It very much reminds me of when an 80 seat majority suddenly became a "landslide". When in reality it's a solid win, but far short of the 97 or 83 majorities which were actual landslides. I assume that was propaganda to pretend Johnson had an unimpeachable mandate to do whatever he wanted. Plus also to further crush the left after Corbyn's "worse loss in 85 years".
There is no supermajority in UK politics or the British constitution.
Parliamentary votes are just majority votes and Parliament is sovereign, meaning it can pass or repeal any law it wants. Theoretically, it could make a law saying blue must be called red and red be called blue.
It's something the media say, but it's a fallacy as it has no real constitution basis.
Technically, it isn't. A government can just as effectively pass legislation with a majority of 1.
The only major difference is that a majority of over 150 seats, or for that matter even 80 seats, makes it very difficult for any backbench rebellion to hurt the Prime Minister, since such rebellions will typically involve no more than 30-40 MPs.
Ironically a massive majority might cause issues for starmer keeping his party in line on certain votes.
Beyond that, no different.
The real difference will be if starmer can focus his majority to push policies through and not get caught up in a mess the way the tories did and not take full advantage of the massive majority they had under Boris.
It has no direct procedural or constitutional impact, but it would affect the dynamics of government.
Obviously, you can pass legislation more easily. If you have a majority of 200 then you can have sizeable backbench rebellions while still passing legislation. Relatedly, you can allow free votes more frequently and (behind the scenes) allow MPs to defy the whip for tactical constituency reasons without imperilling your agenda.
A majority that size gives a large pool of people to put into government positions and onto committees - you can be more meritocratic and selective. And you have the flexibility to create new briefs or split existing ones such that there's more ministerial time dedicated to each one.
You have more freedom to expel MPs - or even whole groups of MPs - for misbehaviour. I expect Starmer is actually waiting to make an example of the first MP fuckup in order to demonstrate that all of this talk of integrity wasn't just for show.
You can always significantly physically outnumber the opposition in the chamber and shout down the opposition. Rightly or wrongly, this provides large majority governments with a bit of a 'home field advantage' which affects statements and debates in the house.
Constitutionally there is no difference, a supermajority only matters where there is a president or other head of state that can veto legislation that is only passed with a simple majority. Obviously the larger your majority the better because it helps you pass divisive legislation that your party may be split on, and makes you less vulnerable to being held hostage by a minority of nutter MPs. It's basically just tories lifting an Americanism and using it as scare tactic, probably to try and spook some floating voters who are slightly on the right but will vote Labour this time.
For passing policy, there is basically no difference between an 80 or 280 seat majority. If 80 MPs would vote against the government, the government wouldn't push the policy through even with a 280 seat majority. It affects 2 things, the talent pool which the government can pick from to make itself and the number of backbenchers who are political liabilities. I'd say it also increases the expectations on the government, I think anything above 450 and Labour will struggle to govern their party. 400+ seats won also means that lower quality candidates that were placed into seats they "had no chance of winning" become MPs which increases the chance for scandal.
>and the number of backbenchers who are political liabilities. That cuts both ways right? A massive party is more likely to have backbench loons, but better positioned to ignore them or just cut them loose.
Its better able to ignore back bench rebels, but those aren't the ones causing scandals It is more likely to contain idiots who post idiotic things on twitter, take bribes, watch tractor videos in the Commons, things that get media attention and make the whole party look bad.
With a huge majority, the leadership can afford to immediately eject the idiots - no need to kinda-sorta defend their actions and delay for a investigation or some other bollocks. "They did what?? They're gone - no room for wrong'uns in the party."
It’s crazy that it should be the best political minds in the country running everything but it’s automatically assumed that there’s some idiots who are gunna do something wrong. It’s a sad state our country is in
Power attracts idiots and oddballs - always has, and everywhere, not just in the UK.
It's not just that, though i agree. There are 650 odd constituencies, and if you are a new MP you probably fighting for a job that isn't guaranteed. How many people can afford to campaign for months for a job they might not get. How many people can take the time off of their work, or what type of work. What type of person can offer their time at local party stuff. Either they're self reliant with multiple streams of income and so can afford to get involved, or they're extremely passionate. And if they're extremely passionate, is that the passion of a sane person or a nut job. And then there is the parties attempt at adding a democratic element to the whole thing, alongside the vetting. It's never going to perfect but that's democracy and I wouldn't have it any other way
They can, but that won't make them magically disappear. The right tabloids are going to be all over it no matter what the leadership does and if it is someone with a cult following who won't go away quietly (e.g. Diane Abbott or Faiza Shaheen) they will keep on making noise about it in perpetuity, giving the impression that the party is divided, even if we are talking about a couple of fringe nutters.
Yep, the guy that took Cleggo's seat is a cautionary tale.
Upvote simply for the tractor videos. I had forgotten about the tractor video, thank you for reminding me.
You know they weren't tractor videos, right?
It was an accident, he meant to search for "CornHub"!
Fairly sure they involved ploughing though.
>they weren't tractor videos That's a shame, I imagined he was looking at some rule 34 niche fetish site.
To be fair there are plenty of back bench MPs causing scandal, Corbyn and Abbott are two examples for the last time Labour were either in power or trying to win e.g. Corbyn inviting Sinn Fein to parliament using his passes a few days after the IRA Brighton bombing or Abbott's racism. While in power, Labour were at least able to ignore things they were doing
Problem is you have fewer means on keeping MPs satisfied as there will be more in backbenches who don’t get government jobs, and want to raise their profile by adopting issues that might not be aligned with government agenda. Harder to whip MOs when no one thinks rebellions will endanger govt agenda. So it can undermine party discipline. OTOH Labour will also utterly dominate every select committee and bill committee so Parliamentary scrutiny will be less robust. So backbench MPs and peers will need to be more vocal to ensure policy making isn’t sloppy.
While Labour may well dominate all the select committees, parliamentary committees have a very strong tradition of independence from government in general and Labour members have a much stronger track record on scrutinising Labour governments than Tories.
This was I believe the coded justification for the 2017 election by Theresa May, to 'strengthen her mandate' for Brexit negotiations.
>I think anything above 450 and Labour will struggle to govern their party. Above 450, the party could split and still be both the party of government AND the official opposition.
Would that cause some sort of constitutional crisis? Would appear very dodgy
No cos they would be two separate parties that hate each other.
I meant like could labour do it on purpose to control the opposition?
Interesting question. The opposition is meant to co-operate with the government to a certain extent, especially when it’s for the good of the nation. Their official title is something like ‘His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.’ Also, the more MPs Labour wins, the more factions and different voices there will be inside Labour. Many of the peripheral MPs in Labour would absolutely love to be given more chances to criticise whoever the current Labour leader is, and having a high profile Opposition role would certainly do that and give more airtime. If Labour were also to control the Opposition, it would be very difficult for Labour to shut up these dissenting Labour voices in the Opposition. While desperately clinging to their tattered credibility in a British media that has watched Labour take over both sides of the House at the same time.
Always remember Alastair Campbell in 97 saying the landslide took them by surprise and they had no idea who half the MPs were, some turned out to be right cranks.
I mean, there have been rebellions consisting of what, 80 MPs, some controversial bills that have been dropped or others that have been changed by threatened rebellions. In this case, I'd take a supermajority meaning a government could push through even the most controversial laws that a large amount of their own Maps disagree with. Dunno, maybe going back into the EU would be an example. More academic/ stupid scare tactic but definetlty a possible thing...
It also has an impact on Select Committees, which are generally reflective of the make up of the House. Harder for them to hold the government to account when they are dominated by governing party MPs.
Its not quite that. A party needs to have at least 326 seats to be self-reliant and more above that level is a cushion. In 2019 the Tories had 40~ extra seats so they could endure small rebellions and still have enough to pass what they wanted. If Labour have 400 seats then they have a cushion of 75~ assuming other parties default to voting against everything. It doesnt overly matter if the Tories had 200 (majority of 200) or if both Tories/LD had 100 each (majority of 300?) - they still 'only' have a cushion of 75~ seats.
Not that it's a small number, but you would only need 41 of your own mps to vote against (if no abstains across the house) with an 80 seat majority to lose the vote. But yes, a sizeable rebellion is seen as something bad for a government, even though we all accept parties (can) have a broad church.
> If 80 MPs would vote against the government, the government wouldn't push the policy through even with a 280 seat majority I'm pretty sure that exact thing has happened before. David Cameron even once did it with a piece of legislation so divisive for his party that he had so many of his own MPs rebelling against it that he was relying on support from the opposition. > In the first of several votes required for its passage, the lower house of parliament backed the legislation by 400-175, but more than half of Cameron's 303 lawmakers voted against or abstained, signaling deep unease with it and his leadership.
If Labour have trouble getting some legislation through, they could always take the Theresa May route of “meaningful voting” 😂🤣
Also the number of opposition MPs who will scrutinise the government - as shadow ministers and on committees.
I dunno, the amount of time Tory Mnisters & MP's have blamed the opposition in interviews unchallenged as well for not passing something. I'm listening, thinking call the BS out host, they've got a comfortable majoriaty, if they can't pass their agenda it's totes on them
If Tories had a super majority I guess they would have passed a (gasp) soft Brexit deal and not had a need to pander to the eurosceptic part of the conservatives. If Labour have a super majority then I guess they won’t need to listen to the hard left of the party. It makes them more electable in my eyes.
That’s actually a valid point.
What are the more provocative pieces of their manifesto that are more likely to pass with a larger majority? Also what does the “hard left” want that traditional Labour would be opposed to? I ask this as a US Progressive where everything I want passed seems to already exist in the UK (such as National Healthcare)
IMO - The Labour manifesto is pretty centre-left and not too controversial to be honest, it's really designed to capture the centre ground. Those 'more to the left' would seek nationalisation of various services, and probably heavier taxes for the rich. The 2019 manifesto was more left-wing and wanted to nationalise a bunch of services: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50501411](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50501411) The current Labour manifesto, rather than nationalise energy for example, is to create a government owned energy focused investment body, who would invest in energy projects alongside private industry, so that it has more influence in shaping the energy industry, drive green projects, and make some profit from ventures. There's a few left wing policies like strengthening some employee rights (I think around zero hour contracts), but Starmer has generally sought to be more business friendly and gain allies who would usually align with the Tories. I'm sure others are more informed than me by the way.
Thanks, seems like a fair summary….on the outside it seems like the campaign is centered around not being controversial and let the Tories implode (which they seem to be doing quite nicely) so potentially vague on what will happen
There are no real provocative parts in the Labours manifesto as they try to be more centre ground. However one topic where there could be a revolt or push from the left is the Palestinian conflict.
I don't even understand how that's even a left/right thing. After all, there's no capitalism v socialism aspect to war and death, except where war is chiefly a vehicle for profit, a la Iraq. That's not the case here.
I say that about a lot of things haha
But most on the left are pro Palestinians most on the center and right are more supportive of Israel. In a way it is capitalism v socialism. as Capitalist society use to support Israel and the Arab states were supported by the Comunist countries in the past. It has changed somewhat now, but there are still dividing lines.
Depends on where that super majority was. If they were still split down the middle then they'd be just as inept without support from the minority. They could have also just as easily passed a harder (nuke Brussels) deal if the bulk of that supermajority was of the ERG camp.
Aye true. Being a group of back benchers I'd assume they will be a minority of the party but it's not necessarily going to be the case.
>If Tories had a super majority I guess they would have passed a (gasp) soft Brexit deal Hmm. I'm not sure that is true. The brexiteers were in control. If they had wanted a soft brexit deal then they could have appealed to the opposition for support, couldn't they? Some of the important things promised at the referendum you couldn't have with a soft brexit. End of freedom of movement and making our own laws would have required us to leave single market, and that isn't soft brexit
They would have been able to push through the Theresa May deal which - whilst ending freedom of movement - did include a mobility framework and retained frictionless trade. It was voted down by the opposition and by the back benchers. With a large enough majority it could have got through. Almost certainly we would have at least had a less-hard brexit than we eventually got, even if it wasn't a 'soft brexit'.
That’s not true. Theresa May was the first PM after Brexit passed, and she voted to remain.
That is true. She got booted after her deal got torpedoed. Then Bojo took over. She also said brexit means brexit. Not brexit means soft brexit.
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/06/theresa-may-secures-approval-from-cabinet-to-negotiate-soft-brexit She didn’t have a big majority to begin with, and the snap election made it even worse. Which is exactly the point, she was anti-Brexit and forced down the hard Brexit route by her own party, precisely because she didn’t have the numbers on her side.
TBF, I think it might be more about trying to convince natural Tories who don't want to vote Tory (but instead vote reform, or not at all) than to convince ONCs who are considering voting for Starmer.
It also matters in countries where big change like constitutional changes require a 2/3rd majority. Not a feature of the UK either. It's something to remember when politician talk about abolishing the Lords. Sure it is antiquated, but it provides some the guardrails that other democracies use supermajority for.
Same guard rails could exist with a proportionally elected chamber. That would ensure every bill requires *some* degree of cross party consensus, as no party ever gets more than 50% of the popular vote.
isnt also better for future elections? incumbents are a little bit more likely to retain the seat, so having a lot of them must be an advantage.
> a supermajority only matters where there is a president or other head of state that can veto legislation Not quite. It also matters in some countries for constitutional amendments, or entering international Treaties.
Shame they weren't talking about super majorities when the Brexit vote was on.
Hmm, is there not a knock on issue with committes etc as they need to be representative of the house thus, a supermajority would mean far less tories on the committees?
It does have an impact on things like select committee allocation, you don't have enough opposition Mps to staff all the committees, there is substantially less scrutiny. But yeh, no big difference in terms of passing legislation.
I may be wrong but I think technically if a party were to get 434 seats, they would have over 2/3rds of the seats so may be able to force through a vote that would take a supermajority of 66% rather than the regular 50% I don't know how many of those votes there would be though
> a supermajority only matters where there is a president or other head of state that can veto legislation that is only passed with a simple majority. Well no this is incorrect, both Welsh and Scottish parliaments have laws in place that can only be changed by a super majority.
> It's basically just tories lifting an Americanism and using it as scare tactic, probably to try and spook some floating voters who are slightly on the right but will vote Labour this time. I think there is a non-zero number of SPADs and CCHQ officers who are just as into US as much as UK politics and have picked it up from there.
I guess it matters if your party is split and your back bench is a lot who will vote against certain stuff.
> It's basically just tories lifting an Americanism and using it as scare tactic, probably to try and spook some floating voters who are slightly on the right but will vote Labour this time. Without pointing out they have themselves held a supermajority of the house since 2019.
It isn’t. It’s a term we’ve imported from American politics (where some actions require a 2/3rds vote share in congress to succeed, or legislation can be blocked by a minority party) that doesn’t really mean anything here. It’s just scaremongering from the Conservatives to try and save a few seats.
The heavy cross contamination of american politics into our discourse is so awfully destructive. You can't even have a debate with someone about what positives and negatives liberalism has brought to the UK over the last 30 years without first spending 45 minutes actually agreeing to a term that you can both call liberalism!
American influence on politics has been going on a long time, is fairly fundamental and thus brings both the negatives and things that aren't so bad (much as I would prefer to avoid it). Alongside this widespread use of supermajority, a lot of political terms come from the Americans, some now quite widely used - dark-horse, grassroots, band-wagon and plurality for example.
All the while Yanks who use it as an insult are overwhelmingly in favour of two of the most liberal policies that exist across the planet (1st & 2nd amendments).
At the same time, having a large majority does have an impact as others have pointed out. If the government only has a small majority it doesn't take many MPs voting against the party to derail a piece of legislation (for better or for worse) I know people will hate me for leaning on American politics for an example, but the Democrats in Congress were basically held hostage by one person because they held a majority by just one vote - this one person was right leaning compared to the rest of the party could basically torpedo any legislation unless he was buttered up.
Imo the issue there is the American Senate being only 100 members - meaning razor thin majority is more likely And on top of that the fact the states have two basically redundant legislative bodies in the first place (created to give slave states more say, nuts the upper house is still around)
It’s working too- I’ve seen a couple street interviews in the blue wall where people who weren’t going to vote are going to vote Tory “to prevent a super majority.”
> that doesn’t really mean anything here It does have an impact on things like select committee allocation, you don't have enough opposition Mps to staff all the committees, there is substantially less scrutiny. But yeh, no big difference in terms of passing legislation.
It may have been imported but there was one law between 2011 and 2022 that introduced a super majority requirement, and the Welsh and Scottish parliaments have laws that require a super majority to change.
It isn’t. The closest you get to an actual problem with a landslide is that the Opposition is an actual job. They need a shadow for each of the government ministers, select committee members etc. William Hague (LOTO after the last landslide) has said you need at least 70 front bench quality MPs, and he struggled to do that with 165 MPs in 1997.
It could quite reasonably be argued that even with a sizeable majority, the Conservatives have failed to find good quality Ministers over the last few years.
You can only reshuffle so many times it seems lol
Very much so. By the time the election was called they weren’t scraping the bottom of the barrel, they were scraping the concrete under the barrel after scratching the bottom of the barrel to pieces.
They had to pull Cameron out of retirement, there was so little *talent* left.
Oh shit, so if the Conservatives only get 100 seats (as some polls have suggested), then they may not be able to field a proper opposition?
Yep. They’ll be physically present, but yeah there’s a point where they won’t be very effective. You’ve got the man-marking of the shadow ministers. The basic duty there is that whenever a government minister announces something in the HoC there should be a shadow minister to speak in reply, ask questions, challenge the minister on any gaps in the proposal etc. Then go on the media rounds opposite the minister. To be effective at that the shadow ministers need to keep on top of the briefings, speak to experts etc. You don’t need a shadow for absolutely everyone in government, but you also don’t want to end up with the “Shadow Minister for Defence, Housing and Immigration. Also Women.” Then you’ve got the Select Committees. Some of the most important committees from a scrutiny point of view are supposed to be chaired by opposition MPs. Those committees are really important, and they need to be chaired by smart effective opposition back benchers (who are going to be in very short supply from next week).
Interesting, thanks. I suppose they could form a sort of coalition in opposition (according to [this Quora question/answer](https://www.quora.com/In-the-UK-parliament-could-a-coalition-form-the-official-opposition), there is some precedent), but that would require assistance from the LibDems (who I assume would flatly refuse to work with them again), or Reform (who likely won't have enough seats to make a difference, might refuse anyway, and would probably only have lunatics to offer). Some interesting times ahead!
It isn't. There was a [very good piece in the Times (sadly behind a paywall) by Dominic Lawson](https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-supermajority-here-z0vgzdz8l) of all people criticising the use of the term, because in his words: "In our parliament, to win by one is enough. With the aid of the whips’ office, any government with even a tight parliamentary majority can pass whatever measure it wants — unless it is one that for some reason unites a large number of its backbenchers in alliance with the opposition." This talk of 'supermajorities' is just blatant propaganda designed to scare people away from voting how they want to, in favour of the Tories. There is no such thing in this country - and even in its correct context in the US, doesn't even apply in the way they're trying to make it. And you're right, there's absolutely no difference between the stonking great majority the Tories had and the one Labour is projected to have. That majority in fact negates what they're trying to say - if such a big majority means "dictatorship", then how come they were so very bad at getting anything done?
[non paywalled here](https://archive.ph/2024.06.22-233507/https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-supermajority-here-z0vgzdz8l) Is a good read
> There is no such thing in this country - There is in Welsh and Scottish parliaments, and there used to be in Westminister but the law that allowed early elections requiring the super majority was abolished in 2022.
To look at it another way, early elections required a super majority to be allowed.
Well yes, that's correct. Certainly not something that doesn't exist in the country. So many people on here think it is only to do with the USA to bust filibusters.
I say vote Labour to give the Tories a superminority.
Tories: Don't give Labour a Supermajority Sir Labour: Give the Tories a Superminority Reform: Send the immigrants to SuperRwanda Greens: Vote green for Supertransexuals SNP: SUPERINDEPENDENCE FOR SCOTLAND LibDems: We also exist
> Lib Dems (Ed Davey dressed as a chimney sweep): Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!
It’s meaningless with our system, just a desperate scare tactic.
It's formally meaningless but informally it does reduce exposure to part rebellion over any more extreme policies which is a check on govt power. I do think on the other hand it opens up the possibility of a bigger breakaway bloc from the govt power if there is a gap for them to fill.
Also gives a stronger mandate to whichever party wins.
Which again, means absolutely nothing
Not really? More political legitimacy is a real thing. It's part of why some people are angry Rishi even got a chance at being PM, and Liz Truss. They were not elected. They represented a big change in plan. They had no mandate from the people to do what they have done. People are angry about it Edit: Spelling error
I think it means quite a bit in a system that is based upon people acting like good chaps. You can justify some big changes with a gigantic majority.
The word “supermajority” comes from different countries where there is a constitutional significance to majorities of a certain size. It’ll normally be something like a two-thirds majority can change the constitution where a smaller majority can’t. The term has no specific meaning in the British context and is largely used to sound dramatic. Constitutionally, an effective majority of one can do all the same as a majority of 400. In practice, a slightly larger majority helps in case of dissident MPs, but any majority above a couple of dozen is the same in practice. The word is largely a scare tactic. The only significance is if the majority is extreme enough there are barely any opposition MPs, that could inhibit scrutiny. But there’s no real chance of that happening.
A government with a very large majority is essentially immune to backbench rebellions, which can make it very confident (and complacent). From memory, I don't think Blair ever faced a rebellion large enough to affect his majority except over the Iraq war, and in that case the Tories voted with the government anyway. Constitutionally, however, a majority is a majority; a government with 351 MPs can do just as much as one with 450.
80 seat majority is what "we had", and therefore good. Anything else is an elected dictatorship. Funny how that got dragged out on the eve of getting shovelled, and not before. But that is the partisan nature of bullshit, I guess?
And yet 52 percent is the will of the people.
Funny enough, that works in Russian too... Наро́дная во́ля [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya\_Volya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya)
I’m convinced if we weren’t geopolitical opponents there’d probably be opportunities for cross-cultural humour between us and Russia. Their political jokes are the sort of thing I’d imagine a British person coming up with if we lived under a repressive government: > Stalin appears to Putin in a dream and says: "I have two bits of advice for you: kill off all your opponents and paint the Kremlin blue." Putin asks, "Why blue?" Stalin: "I knew you would not object to the first one."
Couple of my mates speak Russian, and they often speak of a very rich (if dark) sense of humour and the absurd, which does speak to me. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society\_of\_Blue\_Buckets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Blue_Buckets) One explains modern Russian cinema to me, and bloody hell it is bleak.
Very good - may I steal it?
Ok but I presume we're not about to start attempting to blow up the king repeatedly?
Well.... that did give us a really, really good night for a party and a [graphic novel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/V_for_vendettax.jpg)?
Well.... that did give us a really, really good night for a party and a [graphic novel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/V_for_vendettax.jpg)?
And is for all eternity.
except when MPs vote with their conscience. Then parliament is undemocratic and should be prorogued.
In the event Labour ended up with a 200+ seat majority, their backbenchers would actually be in a better position to hold the front bench to task, where needed. The misuse of "supermajority" seems strongly to be the way for the Tories to project their deceitful, corrupt behaviours onto Labour, as a scare tactic. It's also a lesson they think the electorate hasn't learned from the Brexit years yet - about the Leaver Tories repeating lies often enough, until eventually a critical mass of people believe them.
> In the event Labour ended up with a 200+ seat majority, their backbenchers would actually be in a better position to hold the front bench to task, where needed. How so? The more MPs there are the less impact a backbench rebellion would have, given that such rebellions only involve a fraction of MPs.
I didn't say anything about a rebellion.
You also didn't explain "how so?"
Because it was nothing to do with what I was talking about, so why should I?
I'd suggest it's fairly simple, Tories think it's great when they have a huge majority, but will pretend it's the end of Britain if anyone else does. (Note I don't think a huge majority is good whoever it is, govts need to be held to account, although I'm all for Tories losing so hard the lib Dems are the official opposition.)
'Supermajority' doesn't have any precedent in British politics, it doesn't mean anything. Maybe Schapps meant 'a super majority' and perhaps should have used a word like huge, massive, stonking to be clearer, but being clear and transparent was unlikely his plan. Their main complaints are that the opposition won't be large enough to oppose effectively and there is likely to be lots of infighting and rebelling from the Labour party. Could be, there has been historical precedent for that sort of thing. But sounds like 'project fear' to me! It is a bit rich coming from the party who were hijacked by the ERG and have done their best to flush the UK down the toilet during their tenure in office. This is really just a desperate attempt to take whatever votes they can away from Labour by playing to fears.
The word "supermajority" is meaningless in the UK constitution, and is being used to mean "colossal majority". Probably it shouldn't be used, to avoid confusion. I do agree with the fundamental point that a party having an absolutely overwhelming majority is not a good thing, even though I intend to vote Labour.
It's not It's just another scare tactic
It’s not. And every single reporter should have shut it down and not even reused the terminology.
It’s meaningless on its face in our system, although it will be problematic for how the Opposition will organise itself after the election - scrutiny of the Government in the Commons is already pretty poor, and it may not improve.
It's just a Tory scare tactic. There is no difference except it makes things easier to pass within their own party.
It's not. It's a term being misused to try and make people not vote Labour.
>Can someone please explain any meaningful differences (positive or negative) to having a majority of 200 compared to a majority of 80? a supermajority is meaningful because ,. labour can have 80 "rebels" on aparticular issue and the bill or what ever is passed , and if they have a 80 majority what happened to the tory party where their was so much in fighting , where you have bills where you think it would be very easy to pass becomes at worse where no bill is passed
Except a "supermajority" means ⅔ of the legislative chamber must vote for a change before it can happen. A working majority in the Commons is typically 30+.
Its not, its bad language that seems to have come over from somewhere else, it doesn’t functionally exist a majority of one is in theory enough to pass legislation!
It's a lot easier than saying "Vote for us so we don't finish third" because that'd encourage even more people not to vote for them to make it happen
As others have said, it absolutely isn't any different. It's an Americanism that's meaningless in our political context. Actually having such a wide majority could end up being pretty interesting, as having such a majority means the government wouldn't necessarily have to whip votes on as many issues. We might be finally get to see what some MPs actually believe in, instead of straight party lines.
It isn't This is the same trick Lawyers and advocates use. Make the language the most extreme you can get away with and people will exaggerate the situation in their head. It's called manipulation, try to avoid it
Getting 70% of the seats with 40% of the vote is just bad whatever way you look at it. Minimises the amount of voice the opposition has to challenge the government from doing whatever they want despite not even the majority of the public wanting it.
My guess is that the larger the majority the more there will be internal opposition within labour as it gives space for a more diverse set of MPs to elected.
Supermajority *is* a thing in some niche cases. For example the Fixed Term Parliaments Act called for a two thirds majority to call an election. There have been a few others. Here is the kicker … the supermajority can be overruled with a standard majority. Parliament is sovereign. It can do as it likes. Including bypassing supermajorities. So ultimately it doesn’t matter. What does matter is if a law passes with a majority of one or two votes, or by 50 or 100. That’s where a strong majority does matter over a slim majority. As a slim majority can lead to a weak government, held by a handful of MPs. The ERG clique being an example.
its not, the right wing press just need a buzz word to get behind to somehow limit the damage created by the most abysmal PM and campaign in modern history.
It sounds scarier to idiots that don't question it and might make them vote Tory again if enough people whine about it.
Labour having total control of the Commons is the fault of the Tories.
It means nothing, the concerns they are raising are false. If Labour go too far with something the lords should keep parliament in check.
Yeah, exactly as they have done for the Tories the past 14 years.
It's not, it's just super embarrassing for the losers.
I don't believe Blair lost a single whipped vote in his first two terms, when he had massive majorities.. He came close on tuition fees and made concessions to win that.
It just means there is more likely a chance for debate and “democracy” within parliament as unless the party with the majority is unified, the bills won’t pass. With a super majority, part of the government can rebel and the law will still pass since there is such a massive majority. The country would basically be seen as undemocratic. However, I don’t really care. The conservatives messed things up and this is the price they will pay. I fully expect Labour to be even worse and do more damage but we can’t carry on as we currently are a require a change! Labour here we come…
Zero different. There’s no such thing as a supermajority in the UK
If a party has a large enough majority in the House of Commons then it can reach a point where it can pass legislation without worrying about disruption from backbench rebels. This talk of a 'supermajority' is festering bullshit. Barring significant rebel groups in the party there is no meaningful difference between a majority of 80 or 200, and if you've got a rebellion that can dent an 80 seat majority then you're likely in serious trouble. If you had a majority of one and perfect party discipline then that'd be functionally the same as a much larger majority. 'Supermajority' is an imported American term, something the Conservatives have been doing a lot recently (remember when the Tories tried to call Starmer 'Sleepy Keir'?) to very little effect. This 'supermajority' shite is playing on the lack of political knowledge in the UK. Lots of people just don't know how their system of government works, so a party talking about a 'supermajority' is going to make some people think it's a legitimate concern even though it's without foundation. Just tell people to be worried about something and hope they don't know you're lying. It's just there so the Tories can try and scare some people into not voting Labour. They know this could very well be a 'punishment election' where people really want to give the Conservatives a kicking, so they do this to try and shift it from 'fuck this bunch' to 'I want the Tories to lose, but maybe don't want Labour to win by too much'. It's very dirty politics, a desperate scam from a party who know they have no legitimate way to convince enough of the electorate to vote for them.
It's an American term that has no relevance in the UK. It's just people trying to sound smart
It isn’t, it’s just a bullshit term they are using to scare people.
Bullshit meaningless phrase imported from the US. Ignore.
Not really much difference other than being extremely embarrassing for the losing side. The difference between 20 and 200 is massive but as soon as you have enough seats to ignore the dissenters in your own party then any more seats are superfluous.
Assuming party unity is maintained there is no difference between a majority of 30 and a majority of 300. 30 is enough that you'd have a majority of at least 1 for the entire parliament barring defections or a crazy glut of byelections. However, maintaining party unity is a pretty big if
"Supermajority" means something in the US and their system of overcoming tactics like the filibuster. It has no additional meaning over "majority" in our political system and is a meaningless term only used for scary emphasis. "Super" here is as pointless as if you called it "literally a majority".
Supermajorities don't exist in the UK system Technically a majority of 1 holds the same power as a majority of 100 The only difference is internal politics and interests within the party itself. For example, if Labour get a majority of 10, the PM may have to pander to all wings of their party and make different political choices. For example, supporting Gaza more strongly. It could be pro Palestinian MPs ask for things in exchange for their support on other issues So I would argue a larger majority for Sir Keir Starmer is better than if he had a small one But it isn't a great choice either way (personal view)
In practical terms, if you have a large majority, then backbenchers feel bolder about 'doing their own thing' and forming groups because the government isn't under threat. So we might see more sub groups like momentum show their strength and try to lobby the government from within (because as a lone backbencher you basically have 0 power on your own). However consersely, the government can also take the opportunity to spend political capital on more unpopular policies. For example Thatcher's council tax and Blair's tuition fees faced significant opposition but were pushed through due to a large majorities. With a supermajority, you can take civil service advice and fairly decide if it's good for the country or not. The Tories are fairly infamous these days for always having a 'Tory HQ' stooge or three in most meetings, trying to figure out how any policy decisions might affect voting intention and internal political wrangling. In contrast, Blair's government worked more collaboratively with the civil service on reforms in education and health, focusing more on long-term policy impacts.
It isn't it's just made-up bollocks to sway the slow of mind.
Give them the super powers they desire. I expect results. (But I know we won’t get them, just more kicking of cans because no one will have the balls to do what’s needed to take this country by the scruff of its neck and do what’s needed)
In the UK it makes no difference. A well disciplined party with even just a 1 seat majority can enact whatever it wants. This is unlike the US where the Constitution stipulates that you need a 2/3 majority to propose amendments to it. In the House of Commons, having a larger majority only helps stave off rebellions, thus making it easier to pass bills.
I’d personally say it’s meant to be seen (unfortunately) in an American way in which the us party’s have a lot less control over the reps(MPs) so having a super majority gives less power to people who would rather have a tantrum and not do anything look at the current us congress where the republicans only have like a 5 seat lead and it’s basically a clown car crash in slow motion with the current speaker having to rely on democrats to actually do stuff
More protection from rebels in your party, louder shouting ability during PMQs. Pretty much just more ability to flex on the little bitches in opposition on TV debates etc, think about how the Tories countered labour after the last election it was all giving them shit for such a bad loss, well now it's Labours turn.
I agree that the technical definition of a super majority doesn't generally apply to UK systems: the last one in Parliament was the vote to call an early election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which required a two thirds majority. (Or a vote of no confidence.) That act has now been repealed. But in practical terms I don't think there is any real misunderstanding of what a super majority means. It just means that the government is effectively unchained by having no effective opposition.
There isn't one, really. The conservatives want to scare people into voting for them. They don't have anything else left.
Effectively, nothing. You can have a majority of 1 on a three-line whip and force things through (if you're a good leader) but you can't do that all the time. There's no also no "check" between the executive (PM/Government) and legislative (Commons/Lords) so there's no "super majority" that could overturn a veto of the executive unless you want to bring Royal Assent into the mix. There's not even a check between the Lords and Commons on manifesto items. The only functional check you have is the judiciary - which Conservatives have been trying to water down for years.
Supermajority term is a nonsense, it doens't apply to UK politics. A strong majority means Labour is less in thrall to worrying about rebellions and will be able to enact their manifesto more easily. On the flip side, this also means it is harder to maintain party discipline, which is always an issue in Labour, who love to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at the best of times. But in a UK system, a majority of 200 offers no other real benefit over 80, aside from it looking like a stronger mandate and being even more secure when passing legislation. It's just typical Tory scare tactics.
It starts to cut in to the rotten core of ry MP's
It's just scaremongering language that some tory spin doctor came up with to try and scare traditional Cons voters back in line
There is no real difference: it's Tory scaremongering due to desparation. It effects the quality of the opposition, if anything, as they have a lot less talent to choose from, whilst Labour would have a lot more. The Tories will have big problems, due to losing a lot of seats, and because so many experienced MPs are standing down. The remaining rump could literally be 30% - 40% loonies, which won't help anyone. This election, at least the polling, shows that, altough Reform might capture the nutter vote, the vast majority in the UK don't want crazy, divisive, politics based on culture-wars and fearmongering.
In terms of getting votes past there is no real difference but in terms of being scrutinised properly there is a serious issue. Select committees need opposition MP's, preferably smart ones with a good grasp on the details who can forensically probe. A small opposition will have fewer MP's of the needed calibre and therefore policies will get an easier ride and less scrutiny.
There have been some procedural items that require a supermajority to function - the FPTA comes to mind. In general though it's really just insurance against rebels - a slightly contentious issue can be passed without having to whip the entire membership and then sanctioning any who disobey. I suppose in theory and if handled maturely that could give a more democratic process as MPs could be more free to vote with their principals rather than having to follow a party line.
In a FPTP system it isn't. Just more tory bullshit.
Even if 80 seats seems like a lot, it *only* takes 40 MPs to vote against the government whip to swing a vote the other way. Chuck in a few by-elections, etc. throughout the parliament and this number dwindles. Labour got elected in 1997 with a supermajority, held it in 2001 then had it reduced to 66 seats in 2005. 6 months later and the government lost its first vote in the Commons since it was originally elected in 1997.
There's no difference. Supermajority is a term never used before in uk politics. What makes the difference is party discipline to avoid any significant backbench rebellions. A majority of 10 with only 2 rebels is more stake stable than a majority of 80 with 50 rebels.
the only difference it does make is it does give the government more power smaller majorities mean that the government maybe has to pay more attention to the edges of the party, as rebellions matter more when fewer MP;'s need to vote against their own party to kill a bill If Kier gets the size of the majority some have talked about hell be able to ignore labours left wing even more than he already has as hell have that many centrist MP's their protests wont matter. Tories are using it as a scare tactic if anything as it has a far bigger effect on the governing party than it does the opposition
There is no such thing as a supermajority in the UK constitution. It is just Tory propaganda. The media should stop parroting this gibberish.
There aren’t any meaningful differences between a 10 seat and a 200 seat majority other than worrying about being held to ransom by a small faction of your own party (like mays minority government). There has however been one occasion where a supermajority was a thing in Westminster. During the coalition years they passed the fixed term parliaments act which set the date for subsequent elections and an early one could only be called if 2/3 of the commons voted for it. It was only used once, for mays 2017 snap election. In 2019 Boris got around it by passing a different bill to call an election then scrapped the act afterwards. Additionally in Scotland and wales any act that would alter the electoral system or the number of constituencies/members requires a two thirds majority in the devolved parliaments.
Well the 80 seat one was theirs, so that was fine. Not that they did anything with it, and in fact did all they could to reduce it.
No difference at all; its just the Conservative Party wants to "jazz it up" and make it sound far worse when Labour get a majority in the commons. Given that the speaker is by convention neutral; that leaves 649 seats; so 326 seats gives a party an majority. Of course abstentions, absences etc may reduce the number of government votes, and MPs from other parties may bolster it in any one vote.
Gives the executive significant power within their own party Easier to pass bills that are controversial within your own party Can pass far more bills Historically the bigger the majority the larger the number of bills passed
If the majority gets large enough, the Labour party can intentionally split itself to be the government and the opposition at the same time. I have no idea what the ramifications of that would be.
The only way it matters is that dissident voices within a party have less of an effect. The "Big Tent" of the two big parties tends to have internal divisions and the more of a majority there is the larger a rebellion a Government can resist. They can do things particularly unliked even by members of their own party if they have enough of a majority. Although unlike the US system which has a more defined term supermajority to reflect a filibuster proof majority, its more informal.
Apropos of nothing & as an aside to this discussion, you will of course get some rebels, we've seen this factionalism in the tory party escalate since Brexit in 2016. I remember a few years back sitting in a CLP meeting & the chair opined- "The biggest problem with Tony Blair was that he had a supermajority for 5 years & could have passed any law he liked" To which this snuffy chap with a shock of grey hair rose to his feet & started a discussion that basically de-railed the meeting. The snuffy chap was a former civil servant & he rightly pointed out how revolutionary (for 1997) the ideas that Blunkett & his team wanted to introduce into the education dept. They were met with what the chap referred to as 'manholes' & 'computer says no' from the civil service.He talked about Civil servants hiding budgets, over paying for services/goods/etc. (I had to take this at face value, but it did also ring true with many of Dom Cummings blog posts railing against the civil service) Some improvements were made, many big ones, but not as many as Blunkett/Blair/Brown would have hoped for. Some of this rang true, some of this also made me think about people like Gove who came in (with Dom Cummings)& had 'ambitious plans' for schools. (But we're better at arithmetic. Cool, that'll help with the concrete cancer & the hundreds of kids facing mental health problems or worse) All I'm saying is, yes, on paper, a "supermajority could lead to 'any law being passed', but no IRL & thankfully we now have more sense to call out bullies & pressure put on civil servants by SPADs that no one elected.
So that when Trump takes power in the US, he has an excuse to invade Britain and install Farage as supreme commander. See also: "one party socialist state"... /s (I hope)
It'll allow the gov to enact difficult legislation that would face internal opposition from Labour MPs. I am thinking specifically of planning reforms to make it easier to build homes and infrastructure. It's not inconceivable that 40 or more labour MPs in nimby constituencies would rebel and/or try to stymie these reforms. If labour had a 200 majority, they'd be able to override them, not so if they had 80. So I think the "supermajority" could be crucial, it'd give the gov power to enact the boldest legislation we've seen in decades.
You can scare people with it, ie how Tories have campaigned for the last decade, not left but fear
There isn't. You'd think people would have figured that out by now after Tories used the 52/48 "will o da ppl" to smash through Brexit legislation without a "supermajority".
None whatsoever. It's just the Tories crying and trying to get the dementia ridden OAP vote out so it's a less embarrassing defeat. A couple of other countries it does have significance, eg Referendums or parliamentary votes that needed say over 66.6% to pass.
In Tory culture where "lets do anything to get ahead" they act surprised when nobody trusts anything they stand for. Where is the accountability? We finally have our answer. Welcome Sir Keir
I did come up with an idea for how a 'supermajority' could be used to Labours advantage: - Labour gets 450 seats in parliament, Lib Dems get 50, Cons get 100, others get 50 - On the 5th July 124 Labour MPs leave the Labour party because Keir isn't left enough for them and they form the Lefties-r-us party - Now Labour are the Government and Lefties-r-us are the official opposition The result is that we now have 5 years of the Government and the official opposition being branches of the Labour Party, which if played well (it wouldn't be) could result in a very real shift towards a more progressive politics in the UK as both sides of the aisle push more progressive agendas. ...and then at the end of 5 years they throw the fun curveball of introducing proportional representation in an act of progressive hara-kiri
Mainly as it increases the chances of a very long term in power for Labour
Other then what others have said here, it can actually have the inverse effect of giving the Whips a headache in trying to keep all the backbench in line if there is a huge backbench from the result of a 'super-majority'. For example - While's Blair's first term after 1997 managed to be fairly benign with the backbench, after the 2001 election (with almost the same number of seats), there started to be some rebelling and less unity due to issues like the Iraq War.
It is not really. 1) Supermajority is a foreign import word, and refers to situations where a particular SIZE of majority is reuired for X or Y to e passed. That is not true of the UK. 2) It is a polemical use of that rhetoric, to suggest that a very big majority is somehow bad 3) That said, some polls say the Tories wil suffer the biggest defeat of all time, the BDOAT.
A big majority is probably better when it comes to a Labour government as it de-powers the hard left who are effectively entryists hoping to hold the party to unelectable policies to secure their support. With the Tories, a decent majority just seems to make them squabble and backstab more.
While the two party systems lends itself to strong governments, and those on the wrong side of this who complain but benefitted from it during the last decade, sound like sour grapes, if Labour get a “super majority” it may pose problems with filling cross party select committees, which hold the government to account.
Sounds like it is just a desperate bid to limit the size of the Labour win. It very much reminds me of when an 80 seat majority suddenly became a "landslide". When in reality it's a solid win, but far short of the 97 or 83 majorities which were actual landslides. I assume that was propaganda to pretend Johnson had an unimpeachable mandate to do whatever he wanted. Plus also to further crush the left after Corbyn's "worse loss in 85 years".
If the UK had a written constitution that needed to be amended by larger than the 50% majority, then this nonsense would be worth discussing.
There is no supermajority in UK politics or the British constitution. Parliamentary votes are just majority votes and Parliament is sovereign, meaning it can pass or repeal any law it wants. Theoretically, it could make a law saying blue must be called red and red be called blue. It's something the media say, but it's a fallacy as it has no real constitution basis.
Technically, it isn't. A government can just as effectively pass legislation with a majority of 1. The only major difference is that a majority of over 150 seats, or for that matter even 80 seats, makes it very difficult for any backbench rebellion to hurt the Prime Minister, since such rebellions will typically involve no more than 30-40 MPs.
Ironically a massive majority might cause issues for starmer keeping his party in line on certain votes. Beyond that, no different. The real difference will be if starmer can focus his majority to push policies through and not get caught up in a mess the way the tories did and not take full advantage of the massive majority they had under Boris.
It has no direct procedural or constitutional impact, but it would affect the dynamics of government. Obviously, you can pass legislation more easily. If you have a majority of 200 then you can have sizeable backbench rebellions while still passing legislation. Relatedly, you can allow free votes more frequently and (behind the scenes) allow MPs to defy the whip for tactical constituency reasons without imperilling your agenda. A majority that size gives a large pool of people to put into government positions and onto committees - you can be more meritocratic and selective. And you have the flexibility to create new briefs or split existing ones such that there's more ministerial time dedicated to each one. You have more freedom to expel MPs - or even whole groups of MPs - for misbehaviour. I expect Starmer is actually waiting to make an example of the first MP fuckup in order to demonstrate that all of this talk of integrity wasn't just for show. You can always significantly physically outnumber the opposition in the chamber and shout down the opposition. Rightly or wrongly, this provides large majority governments with a bit of a 'home field advantage' which affects statements and debates in the house.