Ten Years

It has been widely expected that President Trump might seek to override the constitution of the United States and stand for a third term.

This would be difficult. The 22nd Amendment to the constitution:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.

ChatGPT asked me "Would you like to know what would need to happen to repeal the 22nd Amendment?

I thought you'd never ask.

Steps to Repeal the 22nd Amendment:

1. Proposal:
   One of two methods must be used:

   • A two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, or

   • A constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures (34 out of 50 states)—this has never been used successfully.

2. Ratification:
   If proposed, it must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 out of 50), either by:

   • The state legislatures, or

   • Special state ratifying conventions (as decided by Congress).

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Why It's Unlikely:

• There is strong bipartisan support for term limits, especially since they protect against political entrenchment.

• A repeal would likely be seen as self-serving by any president or party pushing for it.

• No serious repeal effort has come close to passing since the amendment’s ratification in 1951.

You could add to that the obvious truth that if say Trump managed to get it repealed and stood again, what is there to stop a Democrat doing the same in the future? Joe Biden might return.

It should be noted that President Trump stated in an interview on 4th May that "I'll be an eight-year president, I'll be a two-term president." So that's that, isn't it?

Let's put that aside and focus on the UK and its requirement for general elections every 5 years.

A lot of what Keir Starmer and his ministers have said is based on policies for a ten year programme. But that is simply predicated on the hope that they won't mess things up too much and they will get re-elected in 2029 or whenever.

So what's to stop the government repealing or amending the Parliament Act? The Act of 1911 set the maximum term of a Parliament at five years. Could the Government, with its 165 seat majority, just re-set the term to 10 years? Perhaps with provisos in the case of losing a confidence vote or the like. Or maybe even abolish the term limit entirely, meaning a Labour government for ever?

Theoretically this could get through the House of Commons. Maybe if you stacked the House of Lords with cronies - or abolished it - you'd get it through them.

But

Then there's the King.

By that same Parliament Act of 1911, the Monarch is required to give assent to a Bill in order for it to become law after being approved by the House of Commons and House of Lords. But if you're going to amend or repeal the Act, you'd get rid of that bit too, wouldn't you? The Royal Assent was last refused by Queen Anne in 1708.

It wouldn't be the first time the Act has been amended or superceded. The Parliament Act 1949 added limits to the powers of the House of Lords but maintained the five year limit. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2011 set in stone a fixed election date five years after the previous election. It was repealed in 2022 but the five year limit stands to this day.

Until.....

Trump, Farage, who'd have thought it.