I wonder how accurate the i’s reporting on this topic is - their article on whether Labour will hold a confidence vote still references the Fixed-term Parliaments Act which was repealed earlier this year…

"Is something preventing Labour seeking a vote of no confidence in the Government?" You mean apart from the prospect that such a motion night fail?

That such a motion would immediately fail is the answer

@Valorum that the motion would fail was equally obvious the last two times it happened.

@Jontia - The last time it was raised, it was raised by the government itself

@Valorum perhaps only underlining how obvious it was that it would fail. There are obviously a lot of ins and outs in terms of political positioning, and how each party explains the votes of the other on any such motion and the exact wording of the motion (that being why the last one was the government one, not the opposition proposed one). But at the moment I was mostly concerned with procedural blockers.

@Jontia - I'm seeing a lot of people who don't seem to understand how obvious it is that it would fail. They think that because Truss is having some internal issues wrangling support for her policies, that she's not got a thumping majority in the House of Commons

@Valorum And we never really know until it is tested. I totally buy that Labor doesn't put forward a no confidence vote because they don't have the confidence for it to succeed, but once in a while I would actually like to see it played out and having all those Tory MPs actually vote for their PM (instead of how it seems to be the tradition in UK only not voting against someone and taking this as agreement).

@Trilarion - Forcing every Conservative to vote confidence in their party isn't much of an event. Labour tried to make a vote on Boris personally, but the Conservatives rightly treated it like a stunt and ignored it

@Valorum I don't like it because of the event-character but because it would force Tory MPs to show support for Liz Truss politics. I fear otherwise they will support it (as they do) but later say that they didn't like her much from the beginning. Support should be made public and that's why as an opposition party I would go for the no confidence vote at this situation, basically in order to everyone put their cards on the table, not to change the situation. It's more about accountability in a future general election which will come at some point.

@Trilarion - As long as they campaign under a Conservative banner, their cards are already on the table and getting 100% of the party to support her in a vote would have the opposite effect. It would make the party look united against an opposition determined to waste parliamentary time

@DanielHatton - Except that the govt would treat a vote of confidence in the PM with the contempt it deserves. They'd make it a one line whip and have the government MPs boycott it entirely. Labour would end up having a debate with themselves in an empty parliament, followed by a meaningless vote. Alternatively, a vote of Confidence in the Govt would pass with 100% of the Cons voting in favour. Again, a non-event.

@Valorum 1. In the latter case, the electorate will (quite rightly) not make that distinction between a VONC in the Government and a VONC in the PM; in the former case, the King might not make the distinction. 2. I don't know if you've caught the news today, but the Tory whips have, in any case, decided to turn an innocuous Labour-tabled timetabling motion, which initially had nothing to do with confidence, into a vote of (no) confidence in the Government.

@DanielHatton - You're living in la-la-land if you think that a non-binding Opposition Day motion will result in the dissolution of Parliament or a General Election

@Valorum It's not my claim, it's the Tory whips'. Like you, I suspect that if they lose the vote, they'll just say they didn't mean it, but who knows?

@Valorum " It would make the party look united ..." As I said, I would actually like to see that so at the next election voters know exactly to whom to thank for the situation the country is in. I wouldn't like for MPs to be able to say that they were secretly in opposition the whole time. They should own Liz Truss and if that means that they look like they are united that's okay. I think that in other countries a PM cannot change without a vote in Parliament, but in the UK that's possible.

@DanielHatton trouble is that is exactly what happened the last two times we had confidence votes. Though there the internal process was first. In each over 100MPs said this person is the wrong one to lead the party and followed up with they are the right person to lead the country. Obvious inconstancy doesn't make for good news apparently.

Ah yes... we don't get our way sometimes and therefore there must be something wrong. Great line of logic and reasoning there...

In the mean time Liz Truss resigned. A no confidence vote by the opposition would actually have been very interesting, in my opinion. On the other hand, the British governmental system does not seem to produce long lasting leaders. If I compare the number of different PMs in the UK in the last 20 years with for example Germany, something must be different.

@Trilarion It used to be said that a week is a long time in politics — right now, it seems a day is an impossibly long time in politics, with things changing by the hour! The sort of long-term stability that markets, banks, diplomats, and people hunger for is but a distant memory…