Event
Center for Transatlantic
Relations
at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Johns Hopkins University
EU Center of Excellence Washington, DC
and
British American Security Information Council (BASIC)
The British Election:
What Happened and What Does it Mean?
7 May 2010
Panel discussion
at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies,
Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC
Britain's "Mick Jagger election," at which nobody
got any satisfaction, was the topic of this joint BASIC event
with the Center
for Transatlantic Relations.
The event was held only hours after it became
clear that there would be a hung parliament after the 6 May
poll, with the Conservative Party having the largest number
of seats although without an overall majority. According to
the final results, the Conservatives have won 306 seats -
or 307 including a previously Tory held seat where the election
was postponed after the death of a candidate - Labour has
258 and the Liberal Democrats 57.
It fell to Klaus Larres, adjunct professor of
European studies at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, to explain
the fallout from the dramatic events overnight. As well as
reprising the Mick Jagger aphorism, he added that "the electorate
spoke but nobody knows what they said."
 He
said that the first hung parliament since 1974 had arisen
after Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, the shooting star, was "done
in by the last TV debate" because he was "more pro-European
than the majority of the population." He examined the possible
coalitions or political arrangements between the different
parties represented in Westminster and predicted that Britain
"will be in for a long period of unstable and weak government."
The consequences for the United Kingdom will
be negative, Prof. Larres said. "Only a strong government
would have stabilized markets."
Paul Ingram, Executive Director of BASIC, agreed
there were no winners from the election. Addressing the security
issues that featured in the campaign, he said there was a
sense that the future government of Britain would continue
with the Trident nuclear deterrent. He said that foreign policy
is unlikely to change as it is the subject of a consensus
among the political parties standing for a liberal interventionist
model and promoting democracy and freedom around the world.
Mr. Ingram was surprised how little the war
in Afghanistan had played in the campaign. "For a country
that's at war, it's remarkable."
 Joanna
Spear, Director of security policy studies program at George
Washington University, said that the main issue during the
campaign was the economy. On the issues "you could probably
slip a credit card between the parties." On Afghanistan, no
party is talking about withdrawal, she said. Dr. Spear warned
that the real challenge would be to cut the defense budget
at a time when "there is not a lot of fat there."
Prof. Larres said that from a financial perspective,
Britain was in a "very dire situation" and that both Trident
and the war in Afghanistan were unaffordable.
 Amb.
Kurt Volker, senior fellow and CTR managing director, pointed
out that President Obama had "pushed Afghanistan off" the
agenda until July 2011.
The panel, moderated by BASIC Chair Trevor McCrisken,
Associate Professor in American Politics and International
Studies at Warwick University, discussed why Britain needs
nuclear weapons. Prof. Larres said that the nuclear deterrent
was seen as valuable for Britain's image - allowing the country
to punch above its weight and be projected as a great power.
Speakers agreed that the Lib Dem call for the
introduction of proportional representation was unlikely to
be enacted. Dr. Spear said that when the voting pattern was
analyzed, people "are moving away from throwing their votes
away", which had led to an increase in the vote of far-right
parties such as the British National Party. "With PR, they
would have got seats."
The panel discussed the ramifications of the
first past the post system producing a result that looked
like one under the PR system. Questions also focused on whether
Britain would move further way from Europe as a result of
the Conservative vote. Dr. Spear said that after the scandal
of MPs expenses last summer, "the next expenses scandal will
be that of MEPs, which will fuel anti-Europe feeling in Britain."
The panelists concluded by saying that a hung
parliament would be unsustainable, and that new elections
were likely to take place within a year.
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