Okay, so I appreciate that we’ve only just got the 2024 general election out of the way. It’s likely that the next general election will be in 2029, and so I’m going to make some predictions. Mainly because it’ll be interesting to look back on them in five years time, to see if I was right. So, here’s what I predict:
The Tories won’t win a majority
I suspect that the Conservative party will be out of power for at least the next two parliamentary terms, and so will lose the next election in 2029. We know that Rishi Sunak will step aside as leader, once a successor is found, and so there will be a leadership election soon. We also know that, to be eligible to stand, you have to be an elected MP – and there aren’t many left now. Penny Mordaunt, for example, was seen as a potential candidate, but she lost her seat. Jeremy Hunt has also ruled himself out, despite having narrowly retained his seat in the House of Commons. He has stood twice before for leader and lost both times.
The names that are being discussed are:
- Suella Braverman
- Priti Patel
- Kemi Badenoch
- James Cleverly
- Robert Jenrick
- Victoria Atkins
As we saw last time, the Conservative party membership, when faced with a choice between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, went for Truss and triggered the Truss-Kwarteng Budget Crisis. Rishi was then brought in as leader after the economy crashed and Truss was forced out. I mention this, because Rishi was arguably the better choice (though not much better) and yet the mostly white, mostly older party membership voted for Truss. This wouldn’t be good news for Patel, Braverman and Badenoch.
The 1922 Committee
There’s also the issue of the rules of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs. I don’t have a better source other than this thread on Bluesky, but to be a candidate in a Conservative Party leadership contest, you need the support of 100 MPs. This is regardless of how many Conservatives MPs there are – which is currently 121. Therefore, any potential candidates are going to have to get the support of more than 80% of sitting MPs, and MPs will be asked to back multiple candidates – assuming that’s even allowed. Oh, and once a leader is elected, if 15% of sitting MPs send a letter to the chair of the 1922 Committee, a vote of no confidence can be instigated. That’s only 19 MPs in the current Parliament, as opposed to over 60 before.
Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 1922 Committee and/or the Conservative Party itself changes its constitution, to adapt to having a historically low number of MPs.
After the 2029 election, there will potentially be a new crop of MPs who have better leadership qualities, and who can’t as easily be blamed for the mess that the Tories have made until now.
Labour will win again in 2029, but with a smaller majority
Labour have a lot of work to do. Even though yesterday was a Saturday, the first cabinet meeting took place, as a sign that the new government wants to hit the ground running. Of course, it could have been mostly performative, but most government roles have already been filled.
Interestingly, there’s a couple of appointments to ministerial roles outside of the House of Commons:
- James Timpson, boss of the Timpsons business, is Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation. Timpsons employs many ex-prisoners to help their rehabilitation and reduce re-offending
- Sir Patrick Vallance is the new Science Minister – you may remember him as Britain’s chief medical officer during the Covid pandemic and his regular appearances alongside Prof Sir Chris Whitty.
I’m guessing both will need to be appointed as members of the House of Lords, but it’s refreshing to see people with relevant knowledge and experience being appointed to suitable roles. It gives me hope that this will be a government that actually gets things done, and I hope that, by 2029, they’ll have done enough to warrant re-election.
Not all of Reform’s MPs will last
I suspect that Nigel Farage is the dog that caught the car. He’s succeeded at being elected as an MP on his eighth attempt, but when faced with the day-to-day reality of being an MP of a small party, I suspect he’ll get bored soon enough and quit, triggering a by-election. Depending on who wins the Tory leadership contest, they may end up joining the Conservative party, although that will prove controversial and may see others quit in protest.
The same may happen with the handful of independents who were elected; either they’ll quit, or join one of the major parties.
There may be another coalition government
If Labour doesn’t do so well next time and we end up with a hung parliament, then I can see Labour potentially going into coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The SNP and/or Green Party may join too, depending on how many MPs they have and how many are needed to get a majority. Turnout was low this time and Labour managed to get elected with a thumping majority despite winning fewer votes overall than in 2019. So, Labour will need to get more people out to vote for them next time, rather than rely on a combination of apathy and split votes among the opposition.
Before the election, Labour talked about automatic voter registration, which would ensure many more people are registered to vote. Whilst they haven’t committed themselves to completely abolishing voter ID (which stopped 14,000 people from voting in 2023’s local council elections), there are likely to be changes to what ID will be accepted. I’m against voter ID personally – it tries to fix a practically non-existent problem – but accepting a wider variety of ID would be an improvement. The Electoral Reform Society shows an example of two almost identical Oyster cards, one issued to a young person and one to someone over 60, but only the latter is accepted under the current rules.
I think that’ll do for predictions. They say that a week is a long time in politics, so five years is almost an epoch.