After all the talk, exhortations and hand-wringing, today’s the day that MPs finally vote on the Government’s 42-day detention plan. That will happen at 7pm, and we can expect a result shortly afterwards.
So what to look out for? Obviously, the key question is whether there are enough rebels for the Government to be defeated. At the moment, it’s too close to call. Over the past few days, Team Brown has been desperately trying to buy the votes of the 9 Democratic Unionist MPs in the House, which could be sufficient to swing things in favour of 42-day detention. The latest news is that the Government’s offer of £200 million extra cash for Northern Ireland has been accepted by the nine, and they’ll vote accordingly. It’s hard to blame the DUP members, but it’s still dispiriting that money trumps principle in this Parliament of ours.
Assuming that the DUP members vote in favour of 42-days, it’s expected that around 33 Labour MPs would need to rebel in order to overturn the Government’s proposals. That’s certainly not beyond the realms of possibility, as Frank Dobson pointed out on the Today programme this morning:
“There are 50 or 60 people who are very dubious about it, about half of those have not changed their position over the past few weeks – it is very close.”
Here, it all depends on whether the Government’s concessions have been enough to dissuade the rebels. A new one has been put on the table recently – that any suspect held for more than 28 days, who later receives no charge, will get £3,000 for every extra day spent in custody. Will such sops work? Again, it’s difficult to call. I suspect we’ll only be able to identify changed minds after the vote itself.
What would defeat mean for Brown? Obviously, it would pile the political pressure on our beleaguered PM, but I’m not sure it would force him to depart his role. Failing a major scandal, I think there are too many obstacles to Brown’s departure, foremost among which is the lack of a willing and able successor. However, defeat would make life even more uncomfortable for him over the next two years. His grip on party power is already loose, but could be shattered completely. Were that to happen, many Labour MPs would be in open rebellion. And Channel 4 would have enough damning, ministerial statements to commission a whole series of ‘Where did it all go wrong?”-type programmes.
On the other hand, victory would certainly be a boost for Brown. Again, though, I doubt the effect would be that significant. As James pointed out at the weekend, all the evidence suggests that the public think there’s more to counter-terrorism than today’s headline 42-day proposal. Besides, people are more worried about day-to-day financial pressures. That’s what Brown’s let them down on, and that’s what should largely determine the outcome of the next election.
Of course, we’ll be covering all the latest developments here on Coffee House. Do stay tuned.
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