Clegg wants to remain in government. A minority Labour government should deny him that privilege

The Sunday Times magazine a few weeks back carried an illuminating interview by Anne McElvoy with Nick Clegg (£), Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister in the Tory-led coalition which no-one intentionally elected in 2010.  The interview, intentionally or not, makes a powerful case for Labour, if it wins more seats than anyone else in a hung parliament, to govern without a coalition with the Lib Dems or anyone else, probably under a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement in which the Lib Dems or other parties holding the balance of power in a hung parliament would support the minority government in its budget legislation and votes of confidence, but would be free to defeat it in the House of Commons on other issues without the government having to resign.

Ms McElvoy quotes Nick Clegg as having said, among other things:

“My party would not be interested in propping up a minority government without coalition. It isn’t a role I would see as right for myself or the Liberal Democrats… I want to remain in government. We’ve only just got started and a 10-year period for us in government means we could make a major contribution. The last thing I want to do is give up this job…  [LibDems should be] “a political force in the life of this county — not just a think-tank.”

Anne McElvoy comments on this:

In other words, the deputy PM will only settle for full coalition – which means he intends to remain in the job, if no party wins an overall majority in next May’s general election. For the first time, Clegg is explicitly ruling out any kind of loose pact arrangement, like the short-lived Lib-Lab one in the 1970s or variants on “confidence and supply” arrangements.  No, says Clegg:  if they want his party, they need to put up with coalition influence – and, by implication, him in a big role. It’s the kind of chutzpah that plays straight to his detractors’ view of Clegg as a self-aggrandising type. He says he objects to Labour and the Tories assuming that they have “a monopoly on power”. The charge that he is “power-hungry”, he adds, “tends to come from people with no qualms about seeking it for their own side”. …   [S]easoned Labour figures mutter that having seen Clegg hold his coalition partner hostage in some areas, a minority Labour government would be a better option than an alliance with Clegg if they fall just short of outright victory next May. Clegg snorts derisively that this is “swashbuckling stuff, but when it comes down to it a minority government would be unstable”

Anne McElvoy reminds us of Mr Clegg’s democratic credentials in claiming a permanent place in government for his party and a permanent role of deputy prime minister for himself: in the 2010 general election the Lib Dems won 57 seats out of 650 with 23% of the vote. “Clegg’s poll ratings in mid-April [2014] were between 9 and 11%, un-boosted by the publicity of two televised LBC debate clashes with Ukip’s Farage.”

Mr Clegg is not the only UK politician who would like to remain a minister for a long time, without the inconvenience of his party first needing to win a majority or plurality at a general election. But his threat to force whichever of the main parties wins the most seats in a hung parliament into a coalition with the Lib Dems under his leadership is a transparent bluff. The Lib Dems, with an unpopular leader and tarnished by its association with the most reactionary and incompetent administration for a generation, might not win enough seats at the election to remain a viable coalition partner. Even if the Lib Dems did hold the balance of power at the election, Mr Clegg’s only sanction in demanding membership of a new coalition would be to threaten to defeat the minority government and demand fresh elections. But the Queen would have no constitutional obligation to agree to fresh elections just because Mr Clegg wanted them. Even if a dissolution were granted, the electorate might punish the opposition parties for defeating the government before its  programme had had a chance, by giving Labour an overall majority. Would Nick Clegg really be prepared to hold that gun to his own head and pull the trigger?

Whatever Mr Clegg’s preference, the best option for Labour in this scenario would be to carry out what it could of its manifesto programme as a minority government, accepting defeat on some measures but pressing on with the rest. The Lib Dems would constantly paralyse a coalition with Labour by rejecting the reversal of the reactionary policies jointly sponsored by them in the present coalition, forcing Labour repeatedly to dilute its policies to save Lib Dem faces:  whereas a coalition-free Labour minority government could dare the opposition to frustrate its progressive programme, thereby risking a second election at which the odds would be on an overall Labour majority. Deprived of coalition, Mr Clegg would miss his ministerial car and driver. If so, tough.

Footnote: If Scotland votes for independence this September, a prime minister who would have presided over the disintegration of the United Kingdom caused by his complacency, incompetence and failure of judgement would surely have to resign, taking the coalition government with him. The start of difficult negotiations on the terms of Scottish secession would clearly demand a fresh mandate for a new administration. This would almost inevitably mean an early general election, perhaps in October or November 2014.  Would the newly elected prime minister at the end of 2014 be Cameron, Osborne, Boris Johnson — or Miliband? That question is beyond the scope of this post.  But it deserves to be debated, urgently: elsewhere.

A longer version of this post is here.