‘I’m not Going to Call a Snap Election’—Theresa May and the 2017 General Election

Roe-Crines, Andrew S ORCID: 0000-0002-6878-5030 and Salter, John-Paul (2023) ‘I’m not Going to Call a Snap Election’—Theresa May and the 2017 General Election. In: Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership, Part F . Springer International Publishing,Basingstoke, pp. 33-48. ISBN 9783031324710, 3031324714

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the decision to call the 2017 general election. The benefit of hindsight enables us to see this as a political mistake and failure of statecraft, yet at the time the decision was taken, the rationale for the strategy was far more compelling. The context of the successful local election results only months before, alongside the assumption that Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party made the opposition a divisive party unlikely to be taken seriously by voters made for a more confident Conservative Prime Minister. Moreover, the increasingly belligerent House of Commons made the passing of a Brexit deal problematic, and thus, May’s decision to call an election appeared more likely than not to yield beneficial outcomes. As history shows, however, it was a catastrophic error of judgement. This chapter asks why.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Theresa May, 2017 General Election, Brexit, Rhetoric, Conservative Party
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	20 Mar 2023 09:26
Last Modified:	08 Aug 2023 03:19
DOI:	10.1007/978-3-031-32472-7_3
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3169162