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

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.