As a Yank I have a few questions:
1: Why did the Right Honourable Mr. Davis resign? Wouldn’t his No vote and a public statement on this issue been enough.
2: From what I understand none of the other parties will field a candidate so does it make whatever statement Mr. Davis intended mute?
3: Since he will be automatically re-elected is he still a Tory and get his post back as Shadow Home Secretary?
4: Why is this such an embarassment for the Tories and Cameron?
“1: Why did the Right Honourable Mr. Davis resign? Wouldn’t his No vote and a public statement on this issue been enough.”
He could have, but he felt very strongly about the issue and there were already many people who opposed extending the right to hold someone without charge to 42 days. If he just made a statement that stated his opposition to it, it wouldn’t have grabbed the attention of the media, the house and the public the way his shocking act has done.
“2: From what I understand none of the other parties will field a candidate so does it make whatever statement Mr. Davis intended mute?”
The Liberal-Democrats, the other main opposition party also strongly oppose the government’s 42 day bill, and have agreed to not to field a candidate in deference to the fact that he is campaigning on this single issue.
“3: Since he will be automatically re-elected is he still a Tory and get his post back as Shadow Home Secretary?”
Yes to the first part, doubtful on the second part. David Cameron has already replaced him as Shadow Home Secratary.
“4: Why is this such an embarassment for the Tories and Cameron?”
I don’t think this is an embarassment for the Tories as such, but it might be an embarassment for David Cameron, who by all accounts did not approve of what David Davis has done and has quickly replaced him as Shadow Home Secratary.
You have to understand that David Davis was the main rival for Cameron during the last leadership contest, and Cameron and his supporters may view this warily because it has the potential to change the dynamic that exists between the two in terms of the influence he holds with the Conservative Party...
The idea is that he makes 42 days the theme of the byelection. If he is reelected by a bigger majority, he has a specific mandate from the electorate for his policy. That reinforces his position. If the anti-Labour swing was large, he could argue that the public had rejected the government’s policy. But this may be wishful thinking because byelections typically have low turnout and because Labour has not decided yet whether to contest it. In any case opinion polls show 70% of the public support the 42-day policy - although given the electoral arithmetic, there is no chance whatsoever of him losing the seat, of course, and his share of the vote is likely to rise even if Labour stands a candidate, due to the general collapse in the Labour vote and also due to Lib Dem backing for his candidacy.
Davis is challenging Labour to stand a candidate against him and hoping that he can portray them as cowards if they don’t do so.
There was clearly a big tactical split between Davis and Cameron. If Davis hadn’t resigned, today’s main news story would be the Prime Minister getting grief over what alleged bribes he gave to the Democratic Unionists in return for their support. It is therefore unclear that Davis has made a good move. There is no great tradition of resignations of this kind. The nearest thing to a recent precedent was the mass resignation of Unionist MPs twenty years ago in protest against the Anglo-Irish agreement.