Will there be an election?

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, Andy Burnham offered an unambiguous answer to the question of whether or not he’s going to call an early general election. “I’m going to rule it out”, said he, because he doesn’t “think people want it”.

This, of course, means nothing at all. It’s another of those Westminster honesty problems. No prime minister can ever admit that they are waiting to see how the polls look; even Margaret Thatcher, a particularly forthright figure, used to allow speculation to reach fever pitch and then call an election because all the speculation was supposedly bad for the country. 

The Cincinnatus act is mandatory, and we shouldn’t blame Burnham for it. If he didn’t rule out an election, it’s all we would talk about; but if he does, and changes his mind later, there aren’t really any consequences. He’d only call one if the polls were favourable, and it is difficult to imagine the voters turning against him in those circumstances purely on the basis that he previously promised not to go to the country.

Whether or not he will go to the country is another matter, and one which divides Westminster watchers. I’m on team “No”, but plenty of people I respect are on team “Yes”.

In theory, the case for an early election is perfectly sound. Whilst the Prime Minister doesn’t need a new mandate constitutionally, it would be helpful politically, not just to secure buy-in for his agenda from voters but even more importantly to discipline his MPs. One of Sir Keir Starmer’s biggest mistakes was not putting anything unpalatable in his manifesto, with the result that his truculent backbenchers didn’t feel under any obligation to support them.

Moreover, Burnham appears a genuine enthusiast for electoral reform and has promised, entirely reasonably, not to introduce it without an electoral mandate. Again, this is partly about the public but also about maintaining conventions which underpin orderly politics; the problem with introducing seismic constitutional change without an electoral mandate is that your opponents might start doing it, which suddenly makes the stakes at any election higher than is healthy.

Finally, there’s the clear-sighted argument that his initial popularity is almost certainly not going to last. Burnham has inherited the same toxic financial situation that destroyed the Starmer Government and has no obvious way of paying for his various initial spending commitments; a rush of feel-good announcements and then an early election is probably the best way to maximise his time in office (and, in securing a mandate for electoral reform, secure his “legacy”).

All in all, a perfectly plausible case. So why do I doubt it?

The biggest reason is the electoral maths. Starmer secured his historic majority with an incredibly efficient distribution of the Labour vote; even with very good polling that performance is almost certainly unrepeatable. That means that even with an objectively good result, scores of Labour MPs will lose their seats. Politics is a narrative business, and going backwards in the Commons — perhaps dramatically — risks dispelling the messianic aura which is, at present, the only real case for Burnham.

There is also the matter of who Labour would lose seats to. At the last election, Reform UK came second in 98 seats, and 89 of those were won by a Labour MP. Barring a serious collapse in its polling which does not seem likely at present, an election would result in a much larger cohort of Reform MPs; it remains perfectly plausible, for now, that they might end up at least the second-largest party, meaning Burnham facing Nigel Farage over the despatch box every week.

What that would mean in practice is a parliament with a much more right-wing tenor than this one, and the Burnham Government would end up having, like the Starmer Government before it, to try and find ways of heading off the rightward current in public opinion. This would create a party-management headache for the Prime Minister, because Labour MPs have proven in the main deeply uncomfortable with such efforts (and the more time he needs to spend working the tea-room in Westminster, the less time he has to spare for “Number 10 North”).

Nor has the “Burnham bounce”, although real, yet delivered the sort of lead over the other parties that we would have historically expected for a government to think an early election a good idea. (This might yet change, of course.)

Finally, there is the human factor. 

There will be an understandable reluctance to risk it all on an election which might go horribly wrong

Much of the case for an early election rests on the belief that Burnham’s popularity will not last; that things will at some point start going seriously sideways (perhaps at his first Budget), and that he should try to bank the dividends of his popularity before they drain away in the course of events. But it isn’t clear, to me at least, that he and his team actually believe this. And if you genuinely think that you’re going to stay popular and start fixing things, why not take another two years, get more done, and then win the next election?

Conversely, there is also very human risk-aversion. Burnham gave up a very comfortable position as Mayor of Greater Manchester to become prime minister; some of his advisors left incredibly lucrative positions in the private sector to join his operation. If you’ve done that, there will be an understandable reluctance to risk it all on an election which might go horribly wrong when you could just… do nothing, and stay in Downing Street. (Both of them.)