You know what it’s like. It starts getting hotter. Stickier, too. There’s something in the air you can’t quite put your finger on. But you sense it all the same. A storm is coming.
David Cameron’s insistence – in the face of significant opposition from some of his parliamentary colleagues and possibly even more opposition significant from the king across the water, Boris Johnson – that something must be done in Syria is giving me that same feeling. This is exactly the kind of ‘exogenous shock’ that can blow up suddenly, blow coalitions apart and cost Prime Ministers their jobs.
Academic observers generally try to avoid predictions, but that doesn’t stop us exploring the whys, the whens and the hows of politics. And when it comes to what causes coalitions to fall apart, we believe we may have learned a thing or two from years of overseas experience.
First, we know that familiarity breeds contempt – rather than getting easier, it gets harder for parties in coalition to stay together as every year, even every month and week passes. Second, what triggers coalition break-ups are so-called ‘critical events’ — domestic or international crises which nobody quite sees coming but which make profound but previously latent differences between government parties suddenly seem unmanageable. Third, the cost-benefit calculations those parties face are affected by the positions taken by the opposition, as well as by their own standing with the electorate.
Providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition is justifiable both morally and in order to protect national interests. But it can and will be opposed on the very same grounds, too. Conservative realists (and even some neo-cons) will argue that the British government will be involving itself in a no-win situation or even inflaming it, while any assistance sent, they will claim, may ultimately end up benefitting extremists who hate everything we stand for and will destabilize the regimes in the region with whom we can currently do business.
Those Tories could be joined by Lib Dems for whom an anti-war stance is not just a moral principle but a matter of identity – indeed a position which, along with their ongoing objection to ‘snooping’ by the security services, is practically all that remains of the ‘progressive’ pitch they made to voters when they were in opposition. Assuming even indirect military intervention remains unpopular, supporting it contaminates what’s left of their brand and risks pushing them permanently into single figures in the opinion polls – particularly if Labour, as it looks like doing, takes a sceptical stance on the issue.
So far, although this has been the most rebellious parliament on record, the government has been able to rely on the fact that the Tory right and the Lib Dem left have never found common cause – let alone found common cause with Labour, too. If that happens – and if there is a serious and supposedly popular alternative waiting in the wings – then Cameron (and by implication Clegg) could find himself in trouble.
None of this is certain: there are plenty of ‘ifs’ and ‘coulds’ in all this, after all. And sometimes a storm that seems to be brewing never breaks. But if this one does, it could be more spectacular than many have yet imagined.
Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary, University of London
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