Motion of No Confidence - History

History

See also: List of prime ministers defeated by votes of no confidence

The first motion of no confidence occurred in March 1782 when, following news of the British defeat at Yorktown in the American Revolutionary War the previous October, the Parliament of Great Britain voted that they "can no longer repose confidence in the present ministers". Prime Minister Lord North responded by asking King George III to accept his resignation. This did not immediately create a constitutional convention. During the early 19th century, however, attempts by prime ministers such as Robert Peel to govern in the absence of a parliamentary majority proved unsuccessful, and by the mid-19th century, the ability of a motion of no confidence to break a government was firmly established in the UK.

In the United Kingdom, there have been a total of 11 prime ministers defeated through a no-confidence motion. There has been only one (against James Callaghan) since 1925.

In modern times, passage of a motion of no confidence is a relatively rare event in two-party democracies. In almost all cases, party discipline is sufficient to allow a majority party to defeat a motion of no confidence, and if faced with possible defections in the government party, the government is likely to change its policies rather than lose a vote of no confidence. The cases in which a motion of no confidence has passed are generally those in which the government party has a slim majority which is eliminated by either by-elections or defections, such as the 1979 vote of no confidence in the Callaghan government of the UK which was carried by one vote, forcing a UK General Election and the election of Margaret Thatcher's government.

Motions of No Confidence are far more common in multi-party systems in which a minority party must form a coalition government. This can result in the situation in which there are many short-lived governments because the party structure allows small parties to break a government without means to create a government. This has widely been regarded as the cause of instability for the French Fourth Republic and the German Weimar Republic. More recent examples of this phenomenon have been in Italy between the 1950s and 1990s, Israel, and Japan.

To deal with this situation, the French placed large amount of executive power in the office of President of France, which is immune from Motions of No Confidence.

In 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, of the re-elected minority government of Canada, requested that Governor General Michaëlle Jean prorogue Parliament. The request was granted, and it allowed the Prime Minister to delay a potential vote on the non-confidence motion presented by the opposition. (See 2008–2009 Canadian parliamentary dispute.)