United Kingdom. The general election of 7 June 2001 JUSTIN FISHER

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1 European Journal of Political Research 41: , United Kingdom JUSTIN FISHER Department of Politics, Brunel University, UK The general election of 7 June 2001 The result of the general election of 7 June was very similar to that in 1997 only 23 out of 641 seats changed hands, and one of those was a notional gain for The Speaker. The result was that Labour achieved a second historic landslide. Making a net loss of only 6 seats, its majority only fell marginally from 178 to 166. The Conservatives made a net gain of only one seat. This would have been the worst Conservative performance since 1906, but the even worse performance of 1997 saved this result from notoriety. The Liberal Democrats, by way of contrast, had another good election, making a net gain of six seats. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats made the most gains of any party. For the national parties, the picture was largely unchanged. The Scottish National Party lost one seat (to the Conservatives) while there was no net change for Plaid Cymru (though they both lost a seat to, and gained a seat from, Labour). In Great Britain, Labour s share changed most of all the parties, but even that change was relatively small and, since the Labour vote was distributed efficiently under the first-past-the-post electoral system, the impact on seats of the modest decline was negligible. From a very low base in 1997, the Conservatives might have expected to make a more impressive recovery. As it was, their share increased by only just over 1 per cent. Again, the Liberal Democrats were the principal beneficiaries. Their vote share rose for the first time since In Northern Ireland, however, there was significant change. A total of six of the 18 seats changed hands and both moderate Unionist and Nationalist parties lost ground to the more hard-line parties on each side of the sectarian divide. The Ulster Unionists saw their vote share decline by nearly 6 per cent with the resulting loss of 4 seats. Both the DUP and Sinn Fein gained seats from them. The DUP s vote share rose by nearly 9 per cent, gaining them three seats, while Sinn Fein s vote share also rose (by nearly 6 per cent) gaining them two seats. While the more moderate SDLP saw no loss of seats, their vote share fell by over 3 per cent. Overall, coupled with the results of the local elections Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

2 Table 1. Elections to the House of Commons (lower house) Date of election: 7 June 2001 Total number of seats: 659 Electorate: 44,403,238 Total votes cast: 26,367,383 (59.4%) Percentage Percentage Number of Percentage change Number Percentage change Party votes of votes since 1997 of seats of seats since 1997 Conservatives 8,357, Labour 10,724, Liberal Democrats 4,814, Scottish National Party (SNP) 464, Plaid Cymru (PC) 195, Ulster Unionist Party (UU) 216, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) 181, Sinn Fein (SF) 175, Social Democratic & Labour Party (SDLP) 169, Others* 1,065, justin fisher * Others seats comprise the Speaker of the House in Scotland (formally a Labour Member of Parliament: Michael Martin) and an Independent candidate in England. Sources: Electoral Commission 2001; British Electoral Facts

3 united kingdom 1103 Table 2. Cabinet composition of Blair I For the composition of Blair I on 1 January 2001, see Political Data Yearbook 2000: 427. Table 3. Cabinet composition A. Party composition of Blair II: Date of investiture: 8 June 2001 Number & percentage of Number & percentage of No. Party parliamentary seats cabinet posts 6 Labour 412 (62.5) 23 (100) B. Cabinet members of Blair II: Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury & Minister for the Civil Service: Tony Blair (1953 male) Deputy Prime Minister & First Secretary of State: John Prescott (1938 male) Lord Chancellor: Lord Irvine of Lairg (1940 male) Chancellor of the Exchequer: Gordon Brown (1951 male) Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Andrew Smith (1951 male) Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury & Chief Whip: Hilary Armstrong (1945 female) Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport: Tessa Jowell (1947 female) Secretary of State for Defence: Geoff Hoon (1953 male) Secretary of State for Education & Skills: Estelle Morris (1952 female) Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs: Margaret Beckett (1943 female) Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs: Jack Straw (1946 male) Secretary of State for Health: Alan Milburn (1958 male) Secretary of State for International Development: Clare Short (1946 female) Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: John Reid (1947 male) Secretary of State for Scotland: Helen Liddell (1950 female) Secretary of State for the Home Department: David Blunkett (1947 male) Secretary of State for Trade & Industry: Patricia Hewitt (1948 female) Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government & the Regions: Stephen Byers (1953 male) Secretary of State for Wales: Paul Murphy (1948 male) Secretary of State for Work & Pensions: Alistair Darling (male 1953) President of the Council & Leader of the House of Commons: Robin Cook (1946 male) Leader of the House of Lords: Lord Williams of Mostyn (1941 male) Minister without Portfolio & Party Chair: Charles Clarke (1950 male)

4 1104 justin fisher Table 4. Changes in the composition of the House of Lords (upper house): Number of seats Party 5 June April 2001 Conservative Labour Liberal Democrat Cross-benchers Other Total Note: These figures exclude those members not receiving a Writ of Summons and who are therefore not entitled to sit in the House of Lords, as well as those on official Leave of Absence. Source: House of Lords Information Office. held in Northern Ireland on the same day, there was a clear swing towards the more hard-line parties of both Unionism and Nationalism. Perhaps the most notable outcome of the general election was the comparatively low level of turnout. It was the lowest turnout since 1918 and represented a significant fall from the figure of 71.4 per cent recorded in 1997, itself a post-war low. Only in Northern Ireland did turnout actually increase very slightly compared with The range amongst constituencies was also wide, the highest turnout in Britain being 72.3 per cent and the lowest, 34.1 per cent. Not surprisingly, turnout was related to marginality. Only one by-election was held in It followed the death of Labour Member of Parliament James Cam in October. Despite an impressive swing to the third-placed Liberal Democrats, Labour easily retained the seat. The parties Labour s year was, naturally enough, dominated by the general election. Its campaign launch was beset by difficulty, however. The campaign pledges were a commitment to a stable economy and pledges to spend billions on education, health, police and transport, without a commitment to raise taxation. The launch of the party s campaign was overshadowed, however, by three separate incidents. Home Secretary, Jack Straw, was jeered as he addressed police officers at their annual conference. Tony Blair was publicly harangued at a visit to a hospital, whilst most notably, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was involved in a physical altercation with a protester who had appeared to throw

5 united kingdom 1105 an egg at him. The latter incident appeared initially to have been very serious, but Tony Blair shrugged it off the following day, while Labour was apparently inundated with requests for membership following Prescott s actions. Following the election, the Prime Minister embarked upon a re-shuffle of his Cabinet as well as a re-organisation of some departments. Most notably, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was replaced by a new Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In the Queen s Speech at the opening of the new Parliament, far-reaching changes to public services formed the centrepiece of Labour s proposals, including an increase in private sector involvement in health and education. Later in the year, the Prime Minister gave strong signals that he favoured joining the Euro and confirmed that the Government was considering a referendum on membership during this Parliament. Internally, the party faced some difficulties. In June, the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Clive Soley, was voted off the party s National Executive Committee. The following month, more than 120 Labour Members of Parliament voted against the Government in protest at the removal of Gwyneth Dunwoody and Donald Anderson from their position as chairpersons of key select committees. Both were later reinstated. In September, the party s annual report revealed that membership had fallen by 50,000 over the previous year and was estimated to stand at a lower level than that of the Conservatives. Finally, in December, Labour Member of Parliament Paul Marsden defected to the Liberal Democrats over his opposition to the war in Afghanistan. Ironically, the Liberal Democrats also supported the military action. The Conservatives campaign focused largely on taxation and Europe. The key principles were responsibility, nationhood and personal freedom. The party pledged to cut tax by 8 billion, the most notable proposal being a cut in fuel tax (following the fuel protests in 2000). However, confusion surrounded this pledge after Shadow Cabinet member, Oliver Letwin, had reportedly claimed that the target for tax cuts was actually 20 billion. On Europe, the party declared that this election was the last chance to Keep the Pound. The official policy was to rule out membership of the Euro for at least the duration of the Parliament. However, leader of the Opposition, William Hague, acknowledged that some Conservatives took a more extreme view. He indicated during the campaign that he would not discipline any Conservative candidates who signed a petition calling for Britain s withdrawal from the European Union altogether despite this running counter to official Conservative Party policy. Such Euroscepticism was further highlighted in a rally by former Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher, who said that Britain should never join the Euro. While the Eurosceptic stance was in tune with

6 1106 justin fisher many Conservative supporters, opinion polls repeatedly pointed to the issue being given a very low priority by voters. Beyond the poor showing of the Conservatives in the general election, the main event for the Conservatives was the election of a new leader. William Hague resigned following his party s poor showing in the election, which triggered the first leadership election held under the new rules adopted in Under these rules, candidates from among the parliamentary party stand against each other with the parliamentary party acting as the electorate. Once there are only two candidates remaining, the contest is decided by an election where the party membership becomes the electorate. The contest among the parliamentary party consisted of five candidates: Michael Ancram, Kenneth Clarke, David Davies, Iain Duncan-Smith and Michael Portillo. Portillo was the clear favourite and indeed topped the poll in the first round. Since Ancram and Davis had tied for last place, however, the round had to be re-run. Ancram came last and, having failed to close the gap on his rivals, David Davis also withdrew. In the final round, Kenneth Clarke surprisingly won, while Iain Duncan-Smith narrowly beat Michael Portillo for second place. Portillo was eliminated and an announcement of his retirement from front-line politics followed. The two remaining candidates represented two different camps within the party. Clarke was more pro-european and perhaps more in the one nation tradition of the party, while Duncan-Smith was more of a Thatcherite, and had voted against his own Government a number of times during the Parliament on the subject of the Maastricht Treaty. Following nearly two months of campaigning, the party members delivered their verdict in September, with Duncan-Smith gaining 61 per cent of the vote. Indeed, the announcement of the result was delayed by 24 hours as a mark of respect for those killed on 11 September, having originally been scheduled for 12 September. Soon after his victory, Duncan-Smith announced his Shadow Cabinet. It was dominated by Eurosceptics. However, the new leader soon suggested that he might not pursue such a right-wing agenda as had been envisaged. At the party s October conference, he pledged to reform schools and hospitals to bring them up to the standard of those in France and Germany, and later that month, the party suspended its links with the Monday Club, the traditional home of the more authoritarian wing of the party. The Liberal Democrats campaign was based on similar issues to those the party had fought on successfully in Just as then, the party proposed a one-penny increase in tax as well as an increase for higher earners to fund expansion in education, health, the police service and initiatives for the elderly. The party s campaign went well, with new leader Charles Kennedy s approval ratings improving throughout the campaign. Polls suggested that the party was

7 united kingdom 1107 seen as trustworthy and honest, none of which prevented the party indulging in significant negative campaigning, despite their condemnation of such practices by other parties (Fisher 2002). Following the election, the Liberal Democrats continued the cooling of their relations with Labour and, in September, the Joint Labour-Liberal Democrat Joint Consultative Committee on constitutional reform was finally disbanded. Set up in 1997, it had not met since mid-2000, following the election of Charles Kennedy as leader and a lack of progress on electoral reform. Issues in national politics The Labour Government s constitutional reform programme continued during 2001 in significant areas the regulation of elections and the House of Lords. In February, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act came into force having passed into law at the end of This had been a direct result of the Neill Committee Report in Not only did this Act regulate party spending and disclosure of income to a significantly greater degree than had previously been the case (see the United Kingdom entry in Political Data Yearbook 2000 for details), it established an Electoral Commission in Britain for the first time. Its passage into law did not wholly prevent unease over party funding, however. In January, before the Act was in force, but after it had become law, both Labour and the Conservatives faced difficult questions about their finances. It emerged that Labour was in receipt of two separate donations of 2 million each and the Conservatives one of 5 million. Since the Act was not yet in force, neither party was legally obliged to reveal such details. However, they attracted criticism for the size of the gifts and, before the new Act had even come into force, the Chair of the Electoral Commission suggested that the case for capping donations might need to be re-examined. By the time of the election, the Electoral Commission was publishing regular details of donors and, indeed, reported that Paul Getty had made a 5 million donation to the Conservatives in early June. In November, the White Paper on the reform of the House of Lords was published. It was proposed that 60 per cent of the second chamber would consist of political nominees, chosen according to each party s general election vote share; 20 per cent would be crossbenchers appointed by independent committee and 20 per cent would be elected by closed regional lists. Critics from all parties condemned the proposals for not allocating a sufficiently large proportion of directly elected members. Scandals continued to dog politics, although in a comparative sense most were relatively minor in scale. In January, Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter

8 1108 justin fisher Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet for the second time. This followed claims that he had acted improperly over the passport application of Sriichand Hinduja and that he had misled the Government over the affair. Reports alleged that Mr Hinduja was given preferential treatment in his passport application following a donation of 1 million to the Millennium Dome. In March, another Labour minister, Keith Vaz, faced repeated calls for his resignation after criticism that he failed to answer questions fully or promptly in an investigation into parliamentary standards. Later that month, Conservative leader, William Hague was reprimanded by the Committee of Standards and Privileges over the payment of fees for speaking engagements. The charitable trust into which Mr. Hague had claimed the payments were made did not, in fact, exist. In July, Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, Mike German stepped down as Deputy First Minister following investigations into his expense account, while former Conservative Deputy Chairman Jeffrey Archer was jailed for perjury. In November, Scottish First Minister, Henry McLeish resigned after failing to register income from sub-letting his constituency office. Jack McConnell replaced him both as Labour leader and Scottish First Minster. One of the principal issues in the first half of the year was the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. Last detected in Britain 20 years previously, it was first noticed during a routine inspection in February. Within three weeks, the outbreak had reached epidemic proportions. Acting on the advice of the Chief Veterinary Officer, the Government ordered mass slaughter in an attempt to contain the disease. Animals within 3 kilometres of infected farms were destroyed. By the end of March, the Conservative Party leader publicly urged the Prime Minister to delay the expected general election. It had been widely expected that the Prime Minister would call a general election to coincide with the local elections scheduled for 3 May. In the event, Tony Blair announced, at the beginning of April, that the local elections (and, by implication, the general election) would be postponed until 7 June. Despite this unorthodox move (the postponement of the poll was the first since the Second World War), the announcement was widely welcomed, and by mid-april the outbreak was deemed to be under-control, although new cases could be expected for several more months. It was only in November that the last infected area was downgraded to a high risk area by agricultural officials two months after the last new case was reported. In all, the disease had led to the destruction of around 6 million animals. Race unexpectedly became a prominent issue in British politics over the course of the year. It had not really been a principal national issue since the late 1970s, but in March, William Hague was criticised for remarks claiming that Labour would turn Britain into a foreign land. Later that month, outgoing Conservative Member of Parliament John Townsend was condemned

9 united kingdom 1109 for comments he made about immigration. William Hague described his comments, to the effect that Commonwealth immigration was undermining Britain s homogenous Anglo-Saxon society, as being totally unacceptable. In early April, the first race legislation for 20 years came into force following the MacPherson Report in It compelled public bodies to eliminate racial discrimination. This was closely followed by a report of the Council of Europe s race commission accusing Britain of being racist and intolerant in its treatment of refugees. Overall, attitudes in the British media, political debate and government policy were condemned as being xenophobic. Towards the end of the election campaign, there were three nights of rioting in Oldham following clashes between white and Asian youths. This was followed on election day by the far-right British National Party securing high vote shares in Oldham s two seats in one, the party gained 16.4 per cent of the vote, beating the Liberal Democrat candidate into fourth place. In June and July, there were further serious disturbances in Leeds, Burnley and Bradford after crowds gathered to protest against far-right rallies. A report, published in December, blamed much of the disturbances on a lack of integration between people of different ethnic backgrounds. Transport continued to be an important issue. In March, ten people were killed after an express train collided with a car, while at the end of that month, a joint report into two previous rail disasters recommended that the European Train Control System (ETCS) should be introduced by Both rail disasters had been in part a result of trains going through red lights and ETCS would prevent this. In June, the rail operators, Railtrack, were severely criticised in a report into one of these rail crashes and in September, the company was placed in the control of Government-appointed administrators on grounds of insolvency. This was widely interpreted as the Government re-assuming control over the railway infrastructure. In July, the ongoing battle between the Mayor of London and the Government over the future funding of the London Underground came to a head. First, Bob Kiley, an appointee of the Mayor, was sacked as chair of London Regional Transport and soon after, the Mayor lost his legal battle with the Government over their plans to use a public-private partnership to fund the Underground. The events of 11 September were, as in many countries, very significant for Britain. The Prime Minister supported the United States President s declaration of a war on terrorism, and by October, British and American forces began air strikes on the military bases of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In December, it was announced that 1,500 British ground troops would lead a multi-national stabilisation force in Afghanistan for three months. Legislation also followed the attacks. In December, despite a number of defeats in the House of Lords and Labour rebellions, police and security forces were given

10 1110 justin fisher increased powers, including the right to detain foreign terrorist suspects without trial. The attacks also had a domestic impact. Nine days after the attacks, British Airways announced that it would be cutting 7,000 jobs following the collapse in passenger confidence. In addition, the special advisor to the Transport Secretary was widely criticised for sending an to colleagues within hours of the attacks, seeing this as an opportunity to release bad news without it being widely reported. The election results in Northern Ireland provided a clue for the troubled year that the province would again experience. At the beginning of July, the First Minister, David Trimble, resigned after the deadline for the commencement of Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms decommissioning had passed. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the Assembly had six weeks to reinstate or replace Mr Trimble. Failure to do so would lead to the collapse of the devolved institutions. The parties failed to do this and in mid-august, Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid suspended the Assembly for 24 hours to allow the parties an additional six weeks to reach agreement. Six weeks later, the same thing happened and Mr Trimble was finally re-elected as First Minister in early November following news that the IRA has begun arms decommissioning. In September, there were ugly scenes after Loyalist protesters tried to prevent Catholic children entering a primary school. Widely condemned, these protests continued until late November. Finally, at the SDLP conference in November, long-time leader John Hume stood down for health reasons. He was replaced by Mark Durkan. Sources and further information Bennie, L. et al. (2002). The British elections & parties review, vol. 12. London: Frank Cass. Electoral Commission (2001). Election 2001: The official results. London: Politicos. Fisher, J. (2002). The Liberal Democrats. in A.P. Geddes & J. Tonge (eds.), Labour s second landslide: The British general election Manchester: Manchester University Press. Morgan, B. & Connelly, J. (2001). The local elections of 7 June 2001: House of Commons research paper 01/71. London: House of Commons Library. Rallings, C. & Thrusher, M. (2000). British Electoral Facts Aldershot: Ashgate. Tonge, J. (2002). Northern Ireland: A different kind of election. in A.P. Geddes & J. Tonge (eds.), Labour s second landslide: The British general election Manchester: Manchester University Press.