Thread by @edwinhayward

[Please read until end of the thread, marked "THE END", before commenting - thanks!]

In grand tradition of "things people *wish* were true", there's been a lot of talk about how Jeremy Corbyn *must* become PM after a VONC. "It's the constitution", etc. Except that it's not... /1

There's nothing in parliamentary procedure that calls for the Leader Of the Opposition to be made Prime Minister by default. It's not in the Fixed-term Parliament Act, nor in the official briefings connected to it. /2
researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefi…

The people making this claim seem to be mixing several things together...

A) JC is the only person who can call a VONC that will definitely get debated in Parliament. Other MPs could call one, but theirs may not get debate time. But JC's will get attention because he's LOTO. /3

B) JC has the right to *try* and form a Government after a VONC. Nobody is denying that. But other MPs have the same right to try as well. Also, there are special circumstances surrounding this particular VONC (explained later in this thread). /4

C) JC - and anyone else putting themselves forward as PM candidate after a VONC - must get a majority of all MPs to vote "confidence" in them i.e. win a VOC. JC only has 247 Labour votes out of the 326 he will need to win the VOC. And that's *if* he gets 100% Labour backing. /5

In other words, JC needs at least 79 non-Labour MPs (and in practice maybe a few more) to agree to make him PM. If he can't get the numbers, he won't win the VOC and he doesn't get to be PM. /6

D) Because he's LOTO, JC might be first in the queue of MPs to try VOCs. But there can be many during the 14-day window for horse-trading created by the VONC. So if JC fails, others can try a VOC e.g. to coalesce around a neutral figure and form a Government of National Unity. /7

Now we come to the "special circumstances" part. This particular VONC has added complications. Why? Because JC has said he will only call it if he's sure of winning it. But he's 79 votes short. So he will need strong reassurances from 80+ non-Labour MPs before he calls it. /8

However JC insists he *must* be made PM after the VONC as a precondition of calling it. It would be a minority Labour government not a GNU. And people close to him, like John McDonnell, have said that Labour will pursue its manifesto once it's in power. /9
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

But that's too many preconditions! It is already clear that many MPs JC will need to persuade simply won't back him under those circumstances. They might however back a fully-fledged GNU led by a neutral figure, and including all the main parties. /10

So the VONC won't be held at all, because JC will never get the prerequisite reassurance that he'll win it. But JC is crucial to the wider process to stop no deal! Without the VONC, the horse trading to form a Government of National Unity cannot take place. /11

There may be a majority across the HOC for a proper GNU i.e. one made up of all the parties, for a specific purpose, and led by e.g. Ken Clarke or Harriet Harmon. If we could get as far as the post-VONC haggling stage, it's likely it could be cobbled together to stop no deal. /12

But we can only get there with Corbyn's help. His role in all this is absolutely crucial. He is too divisive to gather enough support for himself, but he can unlock the whole VONC/GNU on behalf of everyone else, and swing Labour support behind the GNU. /13

JC would still be Labour leader. He would still be able to lead Labour in the forthcoming GE. And he would have been seen to do something proactive and meaningful to try and thwart a no deal Brexit. /14

Jo Swinson and others recognised the truth of the above early. They also know there's *no time to waste*. So they tried to jump straight past the whole "JC wants to be PM" step because they knew his VOC had zero chance of succeeding. But understandably JC felt sidelined. /15

(In retrospect, she should have been more diplomatic!)

People who don't grasp the situation say "But the LD are bringing 14 MPs to the table, Labour 240+. Why are the LDs calling the shots?" But 14+240 isn't a majority. JC needs support of *many* more MPs, including Tories. /16

But as has already been made publicly clear, moderate Tories and others won't support JC. They don't trust him enough. Whether that's good, bad, outrageous or terrible is *irrelevant*. What matters is that it's true. /17

The other thing people don't seem to get is that Jo Swinson wasn't saying "Corbyn can't be Labour leader." Nor was she saying "I want to be in charge of a GNU". She was explicitly advocating for a neutral figure to get past the logjam. /18

And actually when you think about it a little more, if JC helps the situation it makes Labour stronger and the LD weaker. So what JS was advocating was poor politics (good for the country, though!) /19

So we come back to JC as both the most important person in the whole VONC/GNU plan, and as its biggest roadblock. At the moment he's the villain, but he could become the hero instantly if he changes his mind. /20

All he has to do is join MPs from across the HOC to get briefly behind a common cause GNU lead by someone above the political fray, someone who will never seek to lead the "party" they've created into a subsequent election. /21

(The GNU is essentially a one-shot short term government. It does what it has to do to delay/stop no deal Brexit, then it calls a GE and disappears again. And things go back to the normalish they are now.) /22

If JC helps in the way outlined above, he'll have the GE he's been craving for years within a matter of weeks, and he'll go into it with a head of steam. He will have done something visible and prominent to help, which should reassure voters tired of Labour's Brexit approach. /23

After all, the one major downside of a snap GE is that there's almost no time to rebuild confidence in the Labour party (the European election results show how necessary it is to do so). This would be a giant step.
/THE END