Yahoo News Will the General Election be postponed and when will campaigning start again?
The Manchester terror attack prompted the UK’s political leaders to suspend General Election campaigning with polling day just over two weeks away.
The suicide bombing and the following decision to increase the terror threat level from severe to critical, which means an attack is “expected imminently”, raises questions about when the campaign will start again and whether the June 8 polling day could be moved.
Could the election be postponed?
Theoretically it could but such a move currently appears unlikely.
The last time an election was moved was in 2001 when Tony Blair postponed polling day by an entire month because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which resulted in restrictions on movement in rural areas.
That vote was delayed until June 7 because of the difficulty of campaigning while the animal disease was being contained.
Whitehall officials are reportedly admitting in private that there is no straightforward mechanism for pausing the election in the event of further terror attacks.
At this point it seems all but certain that the election will go ahead - although that could change depending on any developments in the coming days.
Why hasn’t Parliament been recalled?
Sometimes when difficult circumstances arise and Parliament is not in session MPs are recalled for an emergency sitting of the House of Commons.
Parliament was last recalled on June 20 last year during the EU referendum campaign to pay tribute to Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered in her Batley and Spen constituency.
Meanwhile, A vote to approve air strikes against terror group Islamic State in Iraq led to a recall in September 2014, with MPs returning to Parliament during what is traditionally the time for party conferences.
However, such recalls were only possible because the Commons was temporarily not sitting rather than having been dissolved as is currently the case.
Every seat in the House of Commons is currently vacant and the UK no longer has any MPs which means there is technically no parliament to recall.
But we still have a Government?
We do. The Government remains in place during the period of dissolution as, despite not being MPs, the Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen while ministers are appointed by the Queen on the advice of the PM.
This enables ministers to look after their departments until a new administration is formed after polling day.
This ensures that the UK is never without a government.
Are any of the parties still campaigning?
National campaigning has been suspended until further notice but Labour has told its candidates they can resume local efforts as of today.
The Tories have not set a date to restart their campaign.
There have been calls for campaigning to get back underway to show that terrorism cannot derail democracy.
Jess Phillips, the former Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, who is hoping to be re-elected on June 8, said: "If you stop everything, they win. It's right to show respect for those who died for a period, but in Britain we never have had a culture where we allow this to stop us.
"In London after 7/7, people got back on those trains the next day and carried on working."
Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative former international development secretary, said: "I think we need to send the message that we don't allow terrorists to change our way of thinking or alter our values."
