If the election petitioners had their way, Farage would pile up the votes
Once again, I look to the BBC’s drama Wolf Hall: the Mirror and the Light for inspiration and a reminder of some of the less remembered moments in our history. Sunday’s episode (and how nice to have to wait for each one rather than binge) concerned the insurrection during Henry VIII’s reign, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.
This was an uprising in the north of England against the king’s break with Rome. There was also popular anger over the rising tax burden, the cost of food and the enclosure of common land. In times of autocratic rule, one way of seeking a change in policy was to petition the king and hope he was in the mood to compromise. Magna Carta was essentially a petition in which the barons made certain demands of the Crown.
The alternative, should the monarch refuse to listen, was an armed rebellion. Our history is littered with such events, among them the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381; the Cade rebellion in 1450; and Kett’s 1549 uprising in Norfolk. They rarely ended well.
The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 was a serious threat to Henry’s rule since the rebel army numbered more than 50,000, far greater than the impecunious king could muster. After capturing York and Pontefract, they drafted a petition with a list of their demands only to be duped into an agreement that unravelled, culminating in the grisly execution of the ring leaders. The body of Robert Aske, the one-eyed lawyer who emerged as the “chief captain”, was gibbeted in a cage and hanged in chains outside Clifford’s Tower in York, where his remains were left to rot as a warning to others.
Taking on the role of a latter-day Aske, though hopefully without the gruesome consequences, is pub owner Michael Westwood, who posted an online petition last Thursday calling for another general election. He expected to garner the support of a few thousand disgruntled voters, but by now it has over 2.6 million signatures.
Time was, not very long ago, that these petitions were on paper and had to be wheeled up Downing Street on trollies or delivered by van to the House of Commons. These took longer to collect and required greater effort, but some dwarf Mr Westwood’s. In 1945 a petition presented on the behalf of the British Federation of Old Age Pensioners claimed six million signatures and asked for legislation to improve the condition of OAPs. This was equivalent in number to 18 per cent of the electorate.
The biggest of all was the 1842 petition presented by the Chartist movement and containing 3.3 million signatures – around a third of the adult population – demanding universal (albeit male) suffrage. With an electorate of 48 million, Mr Westwood’s petition still has some way to go to match those, but he may yet.
Of course, even if he does it will make no more difference than the Brexit petition – signed by six million people and calling for Britain to stay in the EU – did back in 2019. I wonder how many of those demanding another election signed that one. Not a lot.
Mr Westwood’s petition states that “the current Labour Government has gone back on the promises they laid out in the lead-up to the last election.” If telling fibs and half-truths were to be the trigger for a new election we would be going to the polling stations on a weekly basis, whoever was in office.
For good or ill, we have a first-past-the-post parliamentary system that bestows disproportionate power on the winner. Labour won a majority of more than 170 with just 33 per cent of the vote on a 60 per cent turnout, the lowest level of popular support in modern times.
Sir Keir Starmer claims a “mandate for change” which he does not possess despite his total command of the Commons. This democratic deficit is especially noticeable when the Government makes a complete pig’s ear of everything, as this one is doing.
The Prime Minister says he is less than five months into the job, so give him a chance; yet the trajectory of travel and the policies already introduced will make everything worse. It would be to the country’s great advantage if he could be removed now but sadly that is not possible.
Of course, we would be having an election now had Rishi Sunak not made the suicidal decision to call the election for July, 20 points behind in the polls. Everyone, including his own Cabinet, expected the vote to be this month, probably last Thursday.
Had he waited he could have fought the campaign on a record of lower inflation, reduced interest rates and reasonable growth prospects. The Tories would still have lost because the country was weary of the shenanigans inside the party, but probably not by as much.
Instead of losing 251 seats they might have clung on to a further 100 had Nigel Farage not returned to lead Reform. He would have been away this month helping Donald Trump in his presidential bid.
The early election was a strategic blunder of historic proportions. Why did he do it? In his recent book, political journalist Tim Shipman, says a “punch drunk” Sunak ignored the advice of his campaign advisers because he was at the end of his tether. “He was not enjoying office. In the end, his approach was, ‘Nothing else is working. Just bring it on.’”
It was presented to the Cabinet as a fait accompli. If those were his true motives then I am amazed his party is not more angry with him.
We do not know the counter-factual. The defeat might have been worse still, though I doubt it because Reform would not have done as well without Farage. But if there were to be another election now, having seen how bad Labour has been and with the country still angry with the Tories, the chief beneficiary would unquestionably be Reform, though the party remains hamstrung by the electoral system.
Under proportional representation, Reform would have won 94 seats rather than five in July. If Mr Westwood were to get his election then Labour would probably still win, so the problem would remain. Under PR, however, Starmer would not have a majority and would have to cobble together a coalition with the Lib Dems and Greens. The combined Right would be a force to reckon with.
So the petition that would have the greatest impact would be a demand for proportional representation. In fact, there is one currently on the parliamentary website. It has 13,000 signatures.