#house of commons

The Queen’s Speech has been delayed.

Hold up, isn’t the Queen’s Speech just a Christmas thing?

This has been a common question today, so if you’ve been wondering the same thing, you weren’t alone! The Queen gives her Christmas speech every year (makes sense, right?) but to get full value for money on the royal family, she’s also brought out after each general election.

Makes sense. So what does she actually talk about?

The post-election Queen’s Speech is a quick summary of all the major policies the party-in-power hope to implement over their term. Not everything will make it in: the past two Tory manifestos pledged to repeal the ban on fox hunting, but the policy never featured in the speech.

When was it meant to happen?

The speech was originally scheduled for June 19th (next Monday). No date has been set yet for when we’ll end up hearing it.

Okay, but why has this one been delayed then?

Right, so this is where it gets a bit more complicated, mostly because at this point we move into the realm of speculation. Never a good thing for an article on politics, y’know? 

Theresa May ran on a promise of strength and stability. She was hoping to get a huge majority for the Tories to (a) put Britain in a better negotiating position with the EU and (b) bolster her self-esteem. This didn’t go to plan: we now have a ‘hung parliament’.

All those policies the Tories could have put in the Queen’s Speech suddenly look doubtful to pass a vote in the House of Commons. Right now, senior Tories are going over and over their manifesto looking for the bits and pieces that stand a chance and coming to terms with the policies they’ll have to lose. This is one of the reason’s it’s going to take longer than usual to prepare the speech.

Didn’t the Tories make that deal with the DUP to avoid this sort of thing though?

The DUP agreement is a Confidence and Support deal rather than a full on coalition. What this means is that the 10 DUP MPs in the Commons keep their right to vote against Tory policies if they don’t agree with them.

A good example is triple-lock pensions. This is a promise by the government to increase state pensions each year in line with inflation or wage growth, or by 2.5% (whichever of the three is highest). The Tory manifesto pledged to do away with this, whereas the DUP strongly support keeping the protection. In a Commons vote, the Tories will face a real struggle to secure the majority vote needed to scrap the scheme.

It’s also likely that the delay is partly because of this deal: the DUP will be making some demands of the Tories in exchange for their support that the Tories just won’t be that willing to accept. 

So what does this mean for the government then?

As of right now, Theresa May’s Tory party still hold the power. The delaying of the Queen’s Speech has made them look weaker to the public and has potentially put a dent in the timetable for Brexit negotiations (will we even have an official Prime Minister when they’re due to start in 9 days?). 

There’s rumour that Corbyn is poised to take full advantage of this perceived instability. Labour are supposedly planning to try and block each and every policy the Tories try to include in their Queen’s Speech. If a speech cannot be agreed upon, then there’s a series of steps that could be followed to give Corbyn a chance to form his own minority government.

That’s only a very remote possibility though!

tl;dr The Conservative Party have delayed the Queen’s Speech as they struggle to edit their manifesto to a more centrist position.

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