The Power of Twelve - Cameron's Majority May Be a Major Issue

He's called the Tory general election win "the sweetest victory", but how successfully will he be able to govern with a majority of only 12? 

An event at the Institute of Government — 'Governing with a small majority' — was held in London on May 18 and Cameron would have been wise to attend it. For the experience of the last Tory Prime Minister to win a majority of less than 25 at a general election doesn't bode well.

John Major, like Cameron in 2015, pulled off an unexpected victory in April 1992. Then, as now, champagne corks were popping at Tory HQ. Soon however, the party was in deep trouble. In September 1992 came 'Black Wednesday', when the pound was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Tories' economic credibility was shattered. The party then fell apart over Europe and in particular, the issue of implementation of the Maastricht Treaty. Ten Tory rebels eventually had the party whip withdrawn. In 1995, Major faced a leadership challenge from the hardcore Eurosceptic MP John Redwood. He survived it but led his divided party to a crashing defeat in 1997 — and the Tories never returned to office for another 13 years. 

Could a similar scenario of Tory implosion play out again? 

Cameron does seem to have a few factors in his favour, compared to Major. He is unlikely to face a 'Black Wednesday' type event in the first months of the new Parliament. He's also got to contend with a much more fractured opposition.

At the moment, Labour, the Lib Dems and UKIP all are in a pretty weak state and have leadership issues to contend with. Although they lost in 1992, Labour soon got back on track — replacing Neil Kinnock with the astute and experienced John Smith.

Smith, a Scottish lawyer with a keen attention to detail, was a tough adversary for John Major, but Cameron won't have to face a new Labour leader until September and he or she is unlikely to be as experienced as Smith was in exploiting Tory divisions.

The Lib Dems were also in better heart after the 1992 election than they are now. They were only two seats down from the SDP/Liberal Alliance's 1987 total, and the energetic Paddy Ashdown stayed on as leader. Today, they have only eight seats, a big drop from their 2010 total, and like Labour need to find a new leader.  

UKIP have their problems too — on Saturday, the party's only MP Douglas Carswell, wrote an article in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times calling for party leader Nigel Farage to "take a break now".  

Cameron has also got a largely friendly media on his side, which will also help his chances of keeping things together. John Major by contrast, lost the support of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun, Britain's biggest-selling paper. Progressives who want Cameron to come unstuck, shouldn't despair though. Although Cameron, at least for the first few months of the new Parliament, won't have too much to worry about from Labour, the Lib Dems or UKIP, he does have the SNP to contend with.

The Scottish Nationalists are strongly opposed to the government's austerity agenda and will be opposing the government on a wide range of issues. The SNP will give Cameron a tough time in the House, but so too could Tory MPs — if Cameron persists with controversial policies which don't have the overwhelming support of his backbenchers. David Davis, who stood against Cameron for the Tory leadership in 2005, has already warned that there will be more of an argument over the government's plans for Britain to withdraw from the Human Rights Act, than there will be over Europe.

The Tories planned new bill to tackle 'extremism' — and which will restrict freedom of speech — in the name of protecting UK 'democracy', is also likely to be opposed by libertarian Tories who could join up with the Lib Dems and other opposition parties to oppose it. If Cameron, the devoted neocon, tries to get a Parliamentary vote for war against the Syrian government, there's likely to be a backbench rebellion here as well — the last time he tried it, in the summer of 2013, thirty Tory MPs voted with Labour to block the plans.

Cameron will be hoping that his announcement, made before the 2015 election that he would not seek to serve a third term in office, will encourage Tory MPs to behave themselves and give him their full support. But the move could easily backfire and end up undermining his Premiership, as potential successors start to curry favour with recalcitrant backbenchers.

Like Major, Cameron's biggest crisis is likely to come over his party's divisions on Europe. The ranks of anti-EU Tory MPs have been boosted by the 2015 election intake, and these Eurosceptics want Cameron to get major concessions from Brussels when he renegotiates the terms of the UK's membership, prior to the holding of an in-out referendum on the EU in either 2016 or 2017.

It's not going to be easy, however, for Cameron to get the sort of concessions Tory Eurosceptics want — leaving himself open to attack at home. If the Euro-sceptics don't get their way, there'll be hell to play, and there could be further Tory defections to a resurgent UKIP. John Major had a terrible time of it with a majority of 21 — and Cameron, remember, has only got a majority of 12.

With so many clouds on the horizon, it could well be that in eighteen months time, Cameron is looking back to his days as head of a coalition government with some nostalgia and reflecting that his "sweetest victory" was not so sweet after all. 

Follow Neil Clark on Twitter @NeilClark66