But I wonder whether
that prism isn’t giving them a rather distorted view, which looks rather
different with a bit more analysis.
Paradoxically, it seems to me that the more electorally successful the
SNP are next May, the less real influence they might end up wielding. And I say that for a number of reasons.
Whilst the
experience of voting for one party and getting a government of another has
become commonplace in Wales and Scotland, it’s actually very much the exception
in England. The sheer size and dominance
of England within the union means that, taken as a unit, it almost invariably
gets the government for which it votes.
The only exception would be if the Tories had a slight margin in England
which was more than balanced by an ‘excess’ of Labour MPs from Wales and
Scotland. If the SNP really do win
anything like the numbers of MPs which some recent opinion polls have
suggested, then the loser would be Labour, and the probability that the largest
party in England would also be the largest party in the Commons becomes close
to certainty. England would get the
government for which it voted.
Ah, but it
might be objected, but how do they get their legislation through without a
majority of the whole house? Given that
the SNP has a long-standing policy of not voting on ‘England-only’ matters
(whilst there is the difficulty at times in determining which matters meet that
definition, it’s pretty clear in a wide range of fields), the government of the
day in Westminster doesn’t need a majority of the whole house, merely amongst
those MPs from EnglandandWales, in effect.
And reaching that point looks like a much easier target for either
Labour or the Tories to achieve. It’s EVEL
by any other name, but without having to change anything.
On UK-wide
matters, such as defence or foreign policy, the SNP-led block would of course
vote, but their votes would only count for anything if there was a significant
disagreement between the Labour and Tory parties. And on issues of war, peace, and weaponry,
how often does that really happen?
Much as I’d
like to believe that a hung parliament could be the stimulus for nuclear
disarmament, it won’t happen. Only a few
self-deluded old stagers within the Labour Party could convince themselves that
their party is really, deep-down, a party of disarmament. It isn’t – Labour has supported (or even
taken) all of the key decisions on maintaining and upgrading the UK’s nuclear
weapons for decades. And with the Tories
and Lib Dems also committed to retention – disagreeing only about how the
weapons should be delivered if they were ever to be used, with the Lib Dems
perversely supporting a less reliable and less accurate approach to mass destruction
– there is a huge majority in the Commons against nuclear disarmament. The next election isn’t going to change that.
So what’s left
to influence? Fundamentally, only the
budget. And given that the three parties
have already said that the only party they’d even talk to about that is the
Labour Party, just how much would that party really have to concede to win a
fairly trouble-free five year term?
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