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That's the thing about Parliament being Sovereign it could pass an Act saying "notwithstanding the Fixed Term Parliament Act the next election is on X" and call
by cmdkeen 10y ago
That's the thing about Parliament being Sovereign it could pass an Act saying "notwithstanding the Fixed Term Parliament Act the next election is on X" and call an election. It could also just repeal the Fixed Term Act.
- pmyteh 10y agoParliament can indeed do that, but it would require either the consent of the House of Lords or the application of the Parliament Acts (which is a multi-year process). My suspicion is that the Lords (where the government has no in-built majority) would vote down the new Act on the basis that it was an abuse of process. The backup option is a German-style 'technical' declaration of no-confidence, where the Prime Minister whips their MPs to vote no-confidence in the government for the express purpose of triggering the Fixed Term Parliament Act's clause. This would be effective, but would have a (relatively small) political cost in public perception.