Labour to postpone general elections to 2031

Much has been said about the potential challenge to democratic norms should Reform win the next general election in the UK. Still, it looks like Labour is now willing trigger a constitutional crisis on its own and postpone the next general election from 2029 to 2031.

The length of Parliament is governed by the Parliament Act 1911, which has been reinstated as the law of the land in this respect after the repeal of the Fixed-Term Parliament Act in 2022. That law states that a Parliament must be dissolved no later than the fifth anniversary of its first meeting. However, No. 10 is now floating the idea to repeal that act as well, thus bringing the maximum term of a Parliament back to seven years as enshrined in the Septennial Act 1715.

The ostensible reason is to give the Labour Party a mulligan after it didn’t get anything done in the first two years back in power anyway. Plus, it is probably Labour’s best chance to keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street. Obviously, this is pure desperation, but then again, at least Labour is staying within the law. Since the UK does not have a written constitution, Parliament can change the constitution with a simple vote in Parliament. And unlike Boris Johnson, who illegally prorogued Parliament in 2019, the proposed course of action is legally sound.

Plus, Keir Starmer and the cabinet ministers can point to the public’s desire to stop the short-termism of politicians who only play to the 24-hour news cycle at the expense of the long-term benefit for the country. By prolonging the time in office of MPs, they can focus more on what is good for the country in the long run.

Academic studies support this view. A recent study from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan showed that there is a statistically significant reduction in government spending as a share of GDP in countries that have longer terms for their heads of state. For every additional year in power, government spending declines by 6.7% of GDP on average. Downing Street will claim that this long-term incentive structure, which has become common in finance and banking after the financial crisis, will significantly reduce the need to provide government handouts to potential voters in the next couple of years.

Correlation of executive term length with government spending

Source: Cipullo (2025)