Yvette Cooper: May will call an election this year and Labour must be ready

Labour will not have four years to sort itself out

 

Theresa May has repeatedly stated that she will not call an election before the end of 2016, but Labour’s Yvette Cooper doesn’t buy it.

Writing for LabourList, Cooper says that having shadowed May for many years, she knows how the new prime minister works.

“Those who think she is too risk averse are misjudging her – she does take risks, she just takes care to calculate them first. Nor is she too committed to an election in 2020 – I’ve watched her do many strategic u-turns over the years.”

The former shadow home secretary believes that May will work hard for the remainder of the summer, developing an EU negotiating strategy while maintaining that she has no intention of calling an election, so as not to raise expectations.

Once she has a clear strategy, assuming the early stages have gone well and the economy hasn’t tipped into recession, May will seek a clear electoral mandate to lead the discussions with the EU, probably before the end of the year.

Based on this assessment, Cooper warns that:

“Labour is kidding ourselves if we think we have four years to sort ourselves out – we need to be ready fast.”

She is among the majority of Labour MPs who believe that Jeremy Corbyn is not capable of leading the party to general election success, and in today’s article calls on his opponents to choose a single unity candidate.

Cooper, a former leadership contender who lost out to Corbyn last summer, said that ‘both [Angela Eagle and Owen Smith] are very talented and could do the job.’

“But I don’t want us to spend the next few months with the two of them arguing with each other, especially when on so many issues they agree. This should be sorted by the end of Monday.”

Eagle announced her challenge last Monday, and triggered a leadership election by gathering sufficient nominations.

Smith has mad clear that he will stand, but cancelled today’s official launch event out of respect for the victims of last night’s Nice attack.

Read the full article: Yvette Cooper: Both Eagle and Smith would be good leaders – but only one should go for it

9 Responses to “Yvette Cooper: May will call an election this year and Labour must be ready”

  1. Lynne Lambert

    Corbyn is the PM we want.Its the nasty attempts to get rid of him that need to stop, the MPs who started the coup should leave or be deselected, only then will Labour be ready for an Election.

  2. CR

    How exactly will May call this election ? We now have the Fixed Term Parliaments Act !!!

    In order for their to be an election either the Fixed Term act would have to be repealled and although the Tories have a small majority in the Commons, it would hit the rocks in the Lords; or, the Tories would have to agree a constitutional fudge with Labour to manage a vote of no confidence and no attempt made at forming an alternative government in the following 14 days.

    Nope. It just isn’t going to happen.

  3. Redfish

    How would May call an election???

    from the act …

    If the House of Commons, with the support of two-thirds of its total membership (including vacant seats), resolves “That there shall be an early parliamentary general election”.

    Can’t see how the opposition could ever vote that down?

  4. alrich

    The Opposition would be foolish to vote for dissolution – but it needn’t vote against the dissolution motion. It could just abstain (or throw sickies en masse) and the two-thirds majority wouldn’t be reached.

  5. Rob

    “The Opposition would be foolish to vote for dissolution – but it needn’t vote against the dissolution motion. It could just abstain (or throw sickies en masse) and the two-thirds majority wouldn’t be reached.”

    True. The problem is that Labour, along with LibDems and Greens (who have little to lose) have all called for a fresh election. If they then failed to vote for it, denying the public the ability to vote in an election they had claimed to support, they would be crucified.

    Plus, what if enough Labour MPs defied the whip and voted for an early election?

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