{"id":6445,"date":"2024-07-02T14:09:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=6445"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:09:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:09:28","slug":"the-supermajority-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=6445","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;Supermajority&#8221; Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Tories (and occasionally others) are currently banging on about the dangers of a Labour &#8220;supermajority&#8221; without defining what it is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course there is no such thing as a &#8220;supermajority&#8221; in the House of Commons &#8211; a vote passes (or fails) when it gets more votes in favour. Whether that vote gets a majority of one or 100 is irrelevant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There <em>is<\/em> a danger with a huge majority though; a lesser danger than allowing the Tories to remain in government or even opposition. But a danger never the less. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A huge majority allows a government to pass laws with less risk than would otherwise be the case. Every so often we head of MP &#8220;rebellions&#8221; when MPs of the government&#8217;s party vote against that government&#8217;s wishes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When a government wishes to pass a law that is on the extremes, they are more likely to encounter a rebellion. And a rebellion was more likely to succeed if the majority is slim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus with an overwhelming majority, the government has a better chance of getting more extremist legislation through and into law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"521\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?resize=695%2C521&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6028\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?resize=1024%2C768&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?resize=768%2C576&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?resize=1536%2C1151&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?resize=2048%2C1535&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/really.zonky.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021-08-22-filthy-roaring-beasts-rushing-along-the-scar.jpeg?w=1390&amp;ssl=1 1390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Filthy Roaring Beasts Rushing Along The Scar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tories (and occasionally others) are currently banging on about the dangers of a Labour &#8220;supermajority&#8221; without defining what it is. Of course there is no such thing as a &#8220;supermajority&#8221; in the House of Commons &#8211; a vote passes (or fails) when it gets more votes in favour. Whether that vote gets a majority <a href='https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/?p=6445' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,2241,30,251],"class_list":["post-6445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-labour","tag-supermajority","tag-uk","tag-uk-election","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mstdn.social\/@grumpygrimnir\/112717291015996274","error":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1f2KI-1FX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6446,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445\/revisions\/6446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/really.zonky.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}