The dust is beginning to settle on an extraordinary election result in the UK. Right up until the close of the polling booths, the opinion polls showed the left-leaning Labour Party and right-leaning Conservative Party neck and neck. They forecasted that neither would win enough seats for an overall majority. Such a result would have been extraordinary. It is over a century since two consecutive elections have failed to produce an outright winner.
The actual result was, in fact, even more extraordinary. The Scottish National Party (SNP), led by the diminutive, highly effective and articulate Nicola Sturgeon, is triumphant. The Scottish Nationalists have won all but three seats in Scotland and have destroyed the Labour Party’s 50-year domination there. The centrist Liberal Democrats have been reduced to a shrivelled rump. They haemorrhaged seats to the SNP in Scotland, to Labour in the north of England and to the Conservatives in the south. With the exception of their leader, who has resigned, all their big names failed to secure re-election. Meanwhile, although the Labour Party slightly increased its vote, the massacre in Scotland meant it ended up with fewer seats. Its leader, Ed Milliband, has also resigned.
Out of this electoral carnage the Conservatives have emerged victorious. They may only have marginally increased their vote, but it is the first time a governing party has done so for 60 years. It was also enough for them to win a small overall majority in Parliament. On the back of it the Conservatives have formed a government; the outcome they had fervently wished for.
Now they have to govern. If they fail to rise, the consequences could be calamitous. The first challenge comes in the shape of Scotland. Throughout the campaign the Conservatives demonised the SNP, claiming that its presence in any Labour-led coalition would be “illegitimate”. Quite apart from being insulting — the Scots have as much right to elect whoever they wish as any other British citizens — it was also unwise. David Cameron and his Conservative government face having to negotiate a new constitutional settlement for Scotland with the SNP, a party whose right to sit in Parliament they have consistently denigrated. Unsurprisingly, good will is in short supply.
The Scottish Nationalists lean left and their long-term aim is Scottish independence. However, for now, since their defeat in last year’s independence referendum, they are prepared to settle for significantly greater powers for the Scottish Parliament. But that does not stop the Scottish Nationalists from looking for any excuse to re-run an independence referendum once they calculate they would win it. Any refusal by Mr Cameron to relinquish powers is likely to be touted as evidence of the Conservatives’ bad faith. It will be pointed to as proof that outright independence is the only viable way forward; a claim likely to resound well with the Scottish electorate.
The second challenge comes in the shape of Europe. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the UK helped to draw up the European Convention on Human Rights. It entrenches basic freedoms into the European polity; freedoms such as the freedom from torture, freedom of speech, freedom from arbitrary detention and so on. Citizens are entitled to seek redress from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the signatory states — all European countries bar Belorussia — have undertaken to abide by its judgments. In 1997, the then Labour government enacted the Human Rights Act (HRA) that directly incorporated the convention into UK law. This enables British citizens to seek redress from British courts rather than having to seek justice in Strasbourg. British judges are supposed to “take into account” Strasbourg judgments but they are not formally bound by them.
It is this requirement, to take into account Strasbourg judgments, which enrages the Europhobic wing of the Conservatives. So strong is their detestationof all things European that to assuage them Mr Cameron promised to repeal the HRA. For some, this does not go far enough and they wish to withdraw entirely from the convention. Leave aside that appalling vista for a country which likes to pretend it has an unbroken tradition of freedom and tolerance, repeal of the HRA alone could be potentially explosive.
As part of the settlement which finally brought a fragile peace to Northern Ireland, the UK undertook in the Good Friday Agreement with the Republic of Ireland to apply the HRA in that province. To renege on that commitment risks re-igniting violence in Northern Ireland and permanently souring relations with the UK’s closest neighbour. It also risks provoking a breach with Scotland. Scotland has a separate legal system from England and the SNP has said they will not countenance a repeal of the HRA. This could be the excuse the Scottish Nationalists are looking for.
The third challenge also comes in the shape of Europe, but this time in the guise of the European Union (EU). In another attempt to appease the Europhobes in his own party and see off the threat posed by the populist anti-European, anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip), Mr Cameron pledged to hold a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU. He proposes to re-negotiate fundamentally the UK’s terms of membership and put the new arrangement before the British people by no later than 2017. In particular, he has stated he wishes to “put a brake on” the free movement of people within the EU. Since this is one of its foundational pillars, the probability of achieving any meaningful change is infinitesimally small.
The chances are that any changes will be cosmetic only. Come the referendum the Conservatives could well split. But that should be the least of Mr Cameron’s worries. With the Ukip and a sizeable proportion of the Conservatives campaigning for exit, there is a real risk that the UK could vote for it. If so, the Scottish Nationalists would seize the moment and call a second independence referendum.
A sizeable majority of the Scots wish to remain in the EU. If the prospect were a United Kingdom facing economic uncertainty and political marginalisation outside the EU, an independent Scotland within the EU would have undoubted appeal.
So the Conservatives are about to enter a minefield, one in which they have carelessly strewn the mines themselves. If catastrophe is to be avoided, Mr Cameron and the Conservatives will have to tread carefully and think strategically. The recent past provides little evidence that they are capable of doing so.
The writer is a lawyer and a keen observer of European affairs, and works in the UK and France
