Theresa May continues to cling to power. Despite promising to resign to retain hold of the leadership of her party, despite being defeated on her Finance Bill, despite a historic defeat in Parliament, May utterly refuses to compromise or alter course.
You would think, from her actions, that the Prime Minister sits on an electoral majority with a clear mandate. She doesn't. She heads an internally divided minority government, with no electoral majority - which means she has no mandate, let alone a clear one.
And the arithmetic of Parliament is divided too. Parties are divided and across a number of different lines, not just Brexit vs Remain. Yet the Prime Minister refuses to accept the fundamental fact that Parliament is right to rein her in and take a leading role - instead calling them rebels and traitors.
The big question is how can Theresa May act like she has so much more power than she does? That would be the disastrous affect that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act (FTPA) has had on the constitution.
When it was first introduced, there were positives. A useful restriction on executive power, such as limiting government abuse of it's executive powers over calling elections brought by setting fixed dates for elections - and how restricting how they could be called.
During the Coalition, this was intended to keep the alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats stable - with neither party, especially the Lib Dems, able to hold the other hostage to an election over policy squabbles.
But there have been unintended consequences. The act has extraordinarily empowered minority governments, changing the conditions of a government's fall to make it overwhelmingly difficult for Parliament to vote out a minority government.
This has become a crucial factor in the present consitutional crisis. Theresa May cannot govern, especially on the key piece of her legislative agenda, and yet cannot be toppled. Using the FTPA, she has near single-handedly brought the functioning of the Parliamentary system to a halt.
The ridiculous nature of what the FTPA and May's use of it have done is shown in how her government survived last week: despite the largest margin of defeat for any government on Parliamentary record, a critical and embarrasing disaster, she survived the vote of no confidence the following day.
How? Thanks to the Act, she was able to separate her key legislation from confidence in the government - literally, separate being able to competently govern from whether or not they should govern. As a result, her own MPs rejected her Brexit deal in a humiliation, demonstrating their inability to govern, but then voted to keep themselves in power.
This needs to be addressed by future governments. It cannot be that a government can stand, despite dmonstrably being unable to govern. While that is a common occurance in the American system, it is not in the Westminster system of Parliamentary democracy - where the fundamental principle has always been that a government that cannot govern, does not.
Without a majority, Theresa May doesn't have a mandate. She doesn't have the authority to force through her deal - especially when it has been rejected multiple times. However, unfortunately, the Parliamentary system has been hindered and restricted in it's ability to prevent her pursuing this course.
References
Catharine Haddon's 'Votes of confidence, the Queen’s Speech and the Fixed-term Parliaments Act'; from the Institute for Government; 6 May 2015.
'Fixed-term Parliaments Act: What is it and why does it matter? Legislation introduced by the coalition government could be the way Theresa May gets to stay at No 10'; on The Week; 26 June 2017.
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