As Rishi Sunak faces electoral oblivion today, his final gambit before polling day is to threaten voters with the risk of a Labour ‘super-majority’. The term ‘super-majority’ is constitutionally meaningless in the UK: in our system of government a majority of one gives a party the same right to make and unmake laws as a majority in the hundreds. But voters should care about the impact of a large Labour lead.
Arguably, a Labour landslide could have a practical impact on the way parliament works. Parliament’s two core functions are making legislation and holding the government to account. The most obvious concern is the effect a landslide would have on the quality of scrutiny.
The precipitousness of the Conservative party’s fall from grace is almost unprecedented
It is already broadly accepted that the House of Commons does not do a great job of scrutinising legislation. Line by line scrutiny of new laws primarily occurs in the House of Lords.
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