Tag: democracy

The results of the 2026 General Election to the House of Keys.

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So, the results are in, and a new House of Keys is preparing to face the challenges that lie ahead. With such a small number of MHKs each election, you need to be quite careful about seeing information where there is just variation. Nonetheless, a few thoughts about the results of the 2026 election.

A more male House of Keys? Slightly.

The last election resulted in a record number of women MHKs, with 10 women sitting. This was on the back of 16 women standing, itself a record number of women standing. This election saw even more women standing – 26, being 31% of the total candidates rather than the 25% of 2021.

A higher proportion of women candidates has not translated into a higher proportion of women MHKs, with 8 elected. Of these 8, 4 were incumbents. So success for both women candidates, and women incumbents, very much tracks the success rate for candidates generally.

Nonetheless, despite this not being a departure from the century long norm that women who stand are successful at broadly the same rate as men, there are fewer women MHKs. In itself, should this be a cause for concern?

The global literature suggests that there is a critical mass, beyond which women in the legislature “becomes normal, widely accepted and irreversible” (Fraenkel, 2006). Thirty percent is often suggested as the point at which critical mass is reached. This was reached for the first time in 2021, and has been retained in 2026. In the Manx context, it may be that critical mass was earlier than 2021: there is some evidence, from the Women in Manx Politics project which I led, that the election of five women in 2016 caused a significant shift in the culture of the chamber.

A new House of Keys? Ish.

Of the 24 MHKs elected, 15 are new to the Keys, and 9 are incumbents who retained their seats (although may be changing where they sit physically in the House of Keys).

The House of Keys is considerably more volatile than the House of Commons. In that context, only 9 MHKs being re-elected is not unusual. In 2021 10 were re-elected, and in 2016, 8. It represents a considerably more stable House than in 1986 (the election with the fewest incumbents staying in the House), when only 4 incumbents were elected; but considerably less than 2001 (the election with the most incumbents staying in the House), when 18 incumbents retained their seats.

As noted earlier, this election had a record number of candidates come forward. Looking at success rates, the 1919-2021 data indicates a 78% success rate for incumbents, against a 46% success rate for candidates as a whole. In this election, reflecting the unusually large field, we have a 28.92% success rate for candidates as a whole; and a 56.25% success rate for incumbents. So incumbents retain a very substantial advantage, even where the success rate for both incumbents and newcomers has dropped.

A Keys of Independents? Definitely.

Again, an election dominated by Independent candidates has led to a Keys overwhelmingly composed of Independents. Only the Manx Labour Party enjoyed any success, retaining 2 seats (having fielded four candidates); while Liberal Vannin lost its only MHK (having fielded four candidates); and the two new parties who contested the election did not gain any (with Transform fielding 2, and The Change Movement 5). Party candidates represented 18% of the candidates, and secured 8.33% of the seats. This substantial underperformance compared with independents does not suggest strong party institutionalisation anytime soon.

The youngest MHK ever? I’m going yes, with one reservation.

Daniel Davison was elected for Glenfaba and Peel in an unusually close poll (with the top three candidates polling 1232, 1147, and 1073). At 18, he has been reported variously as the youngest every person to be elected to the House of Keys, and the youngest MHK in history. These are different claims, and I am more confident of one that the other.

There are many ways of understanding “elected” – for instance, MLCs are appointed through election by the House of Keys, but their role is often criticised on the basis of their being unelected. If we take the general meaning of “elected by the general public”, I think Davison is the youngest person to be elected as an MHK.

When elections to the House of Keys were introduced by the House of Keys Election Act 1866, candidacy was limited to property-holding males of full age (s.46). Before 1971 full age (also described as majority) was 21. So even though finding the ages of candidates and MHKs is not always straightforward, I am confident that no one younger than 21 was elected between 1866 and 1971. In 1971 the age of majority was changed to 18 by Part I of the Family Law Reform (Isle of Man) Act 1971. Since 1971 there have been some comparatively young MHKs (Peter Karran was hailed as the youngest ever when he was elected just before his 25th birthday in 1985, while Juan Watterson was 26 when elected in 2006), but no other 18 year olds.

Whether he will be the youngest ever MHK is a little less clear. Before 1866 MHKs were elected mainly by other MHKs, and there were definitely political families with multigenerational expectations of joining the Keys. Records of the unelected Keys are much less accessible than those of the modern Keys, but I think we can find at least one person, from a prominent Manx family, appointed at the age of 21.

John Christian Curwen was born in 1756, and according to AW Moore’s “Extracts from the Journals of the self-elected House of Keys”, entered the Keys in 1777, sitting as a member for 51 years. Christian Curwen was born on 17 July 1756. It is *possible* he was appointed to the Keys before he was 21, but his signature does not appear in any of the 1777 legislation, and so being appointed very soon after he turned 21 seems likely. If so, there may have been a norm of only appointing MHKs who had reached the age of majority, which pre-1971 was 21.

So, I cannot be categorically sure, without a substantial project to find the ages of everyone appointed to the Keys before 1866, but I think it very likely that Davison will also be the youngest person to serve as an MHK.

Standing for two seats did not result in an MHK elected to two seats.

Nigel Dunmore stood for both Ramsey and Garff. He polled 286 votes in Garff (against the lower MHK elected on 968), and 162 in Ramsey (against the lower MHK elected on 1395). So this may not have been an appealing tactic to his two electorates.

English law does not allow a candidate to stand in a General Election for the House of Commons in two constituencies. The Representation of the People Act 1983 sch.1 para 8.3 requires a candidate to state that that he or she “is not a candidate at an election for any other constituency the poll for which is to be held on the same day as that for the election to which the consent relates”. I cannot find any equivalent piece of Manx legislation relating to elections preventing this; nor discussion in election law or the Standing Orders of the House of Keys or Tynwald about what would happen if a candidate were successful in both seats.

It may be worth either stating how a doubly-successful candidate is to be treated (which may be quite complex), or ruling out candidates standing for two seats in the same General Election by drawing on the existing English model.

Small numbers of votes count.

This is Inevitable in a system with such small constituencies, but there were a number of close polls; albeit not record breaking. The closest result was in Douglas East, with Joney Faragher being elected on 682, and Dave Mackey not being elected on 632.

The constituencies for the Keys are intended to produce constituencies of similar sizes, so that a vote is of roughly equal power whatever constituency you are in. Differences in the turnout between constituencies, and differences in the number of candidates can, however, result in the votes needed to become an MHK varying considerably from constituency to constituency. This time, the candidate with the most votes who was not elected was Steve Crowther with 1251 in Arbory, Castletown and Malew. The MHK elected with the least votes was Joney Faragher with 682 in Douglas East.

So, what next?

Knowing who the 24 MHKs will be does not tell us much about who the next Manx Government will be led by. Appointing the Chief Minister will be one of the first acts of the new House of Keys when it meets in October. In the Manx system, with only a marginal role for parties, MHKs need to decide which of their colleagues to support to become Chief Minister.

There is no formal role for voters – unlike Parliamentary systems with strong parties, voters cannot know in advance how their vote could translate into a particular head of government; unlike the Kiribati system, voters are not asked to choose between candidates for head of government once the legislature has formed; and unlike some Presidential systems, electors do not vote for the head of government directly.

Three ideas for a PhD project.

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One of the striking things about a UK PhD in an area like law or history is how we look to a candidate to have the fundamental idea for what they want to spend four years becoming a world expert in at the start of their doing so. My doctoral idea changed significantly through the process – most notably having the timescale reduced from “mad” to merely “very challenging” – but the fundamental idea was largely the same. Colleagues supervising students working as teams in labs they supervise find this a big thing to ask of someone at the start of their research life.

So, in case you are at the stage of thinking about doctoral work in law or history, here are three topics which I think are live intellectually, interesting, ambitious, but doable in the confines of a doctoral project. I would be very pleased to supervise a suitable student in any of them but, as they say, other supervisors are available and I will not take umbrage if one of these gives you the start of an idea best pursued elsewhere!

Borders and the Crown Dependencies since Brexit and the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey share both islandness, and a semi-autonomous relationship with the UK. Brexit shifted the wider frame in which this relationship operated, putting a new emphasis on the Common Travel Area. More powerfully, a common response to the global Coronavirus pandemic by all three jurisdictions was to close their borders – with a rigour, and penalties, not seen elsewhere in the British Islands. In the Isle of Man for instance, details of border control were regularly debated throughout the pandemic, with border control against travellers from the UK being seen as self-evidently a concern for Tynwald. Post-pandemic, border control has been given new prominence as part of policing the Islands. How have island attitudes to their borders changed over time? How far have the Islands moved into regulatory space formerly seen as part of the “external” matters in which the UK operated for the islands? What similarities and differences do we see across the three jurisdictions? What accounts for these patterns? What are the policy challenges and opportunities insular border-mindedness pose?

Calls to public attitudes in small democracies.

One of the recognised features of small democracies is the concentration of political power in a small number of individuals, even when the number of elected officials per head is much larger than in larger democracies. Another is the intimacy of small democracies, with unmediated relationships between politicians and individual constituents the norm rather than the exception. This raises some interesting questions around calls for public consultation, particularly when unusually extensive (such as with the Manx and Jersey assisted dying legislation). What role does formal public consultation have in small democracies? How is it carried out? How far, if at all, are those outside of the small democracy excluded from the consultation? How do formal referenda – whether hard or soft – and citizens assembles fit into this landscape? Given their special characteristics, how can small democracies most effectively make use of public consultations?

The Irish influence on Manx Independence and Autonomy in the 20th century.

As an unintegrated possession of the UK crown, most obviously since the Revestment of 1765, the Isle of Man has been the potential locus of a tension between national identity and loyalty to the state. Revestment itself was seen by some as part of a broader rebalancing of the British Empire, one which could be resisted by the (distant) rebels of North America, but not by the Manx. From the late 18th century on links were drawn with experience in Ireland, both by the state, and by those opposed to it. As might be expected, 1916 merits sustained attention: UK troops were deployed at the 1916 Tynwald, and Manx nationalists of Mec Vannin obscurely, but fascinatingly, were guests marching to commemorate the Easter Rising fifty years later. How far were Manx attitudes to their constitutional position shaped by the radically changing position of Ireland throughout the 20th century? How far were UK approaches to Manx autonomy shaped by the UK experience of Ireland?   

Should I stand for the House of Keys? Free public event, Wednesday 22nd April 2026.

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With the General Election to the House of Keys in September 2026 approaching, people across the Isle of Man will be considering whether to stand for election to one of the 24 seats. Manx politics is very different from that of the UK and US. Elections, and the Keys, are dominated by Independent candidates who are not associated with a political party.

This distinctive feature can work in favour of candidates standing for the Keys for the first time. Unlike in larger neighbours, there is no process of party approval. If a legally qualified candidate wishes to stand, and can secure enough signatures from fellow citizens, they will be on the ballot. Our work on Women in Manx Politics showed that while some candidates began their planning an entire General Election in advance, others decided within months of the General Election that they were going to stand. 

Deciding to stand for the Keys is a big decision. Our interviews with MHKs, and those who had decided not to stand, found that they drew upon a very disparate range of sources of support in making this decision. Family, naturally; friends, commonly; but in sharp contrast to the UK, members of political parties were not significant. In the absence of the support of political parties, how do potential candidates find out what they need to know to inform this crucial decision?

One way is to come along to our event on “Should I stand for the House of Keys?” at 6pm on 22 April 2026. This will be available live, either by joining us in person at the Studio Theatre at Ballakameen High School; or online via Zoom. We will be covering key issues like:

  • What do MHKs do?
  • Myths about getting to be an MHK.
  • Deciding to run for the Keys.
  • Some tips on how to run for the Keys.

For those not able to attend on the day, the presentation will be posted online on the YouTube channel of the Centre for Law, Criminology and Social Justice Research at Oxford Brookes University.

You are welcome to join us in person on the day. If you would like to attend online, please contact pwedge@brookes.ac.uk in advance to receive the Zoom link to the event. 

Why you  should vote in the 2026 General Election to the House of Keys – particularly if you are a young voter.

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This is going to be a lively year for Crown Dependency politics. In Jersey, the General Election of 7 June 2026 will elect the 49 members of the States Assembly, including 9 island-wide Senators abolished for the 2022 general election. In the Isle of Man, the General Election of 24 September 2026 will elect the 24 Members of the House of Keys. In this blog, I am going to put some of the global discussion about voting into the Manx context to argue that you should vote in September.

Why everyone should vote.

Globally, there are significant concerns about voter turn out for national elections. Particular parties, or political perspectives, campaign to bring out “their vote”, but we also find non-partisan campaigns which want to encourage people however they intend to vote.

Some of their arguments are about benefits to the political structure from good voter turn out – for instance increased legitimacy for those elected. Focussing on the interests of the individual voter, there are three important arguments that certainly influence me.

  • Shape the future. Voting gives you a say on issues important to you that impact on your life “from roads to recycling, to education and climate change, to housing and employment”
  • Protect your interests. If you don’t vote, other people get to choose who represents you.
  • Hold elected politicians accountable. Elected politicians serve a term, and can be rejected by the electorate if they are not happy with how they used it. They know this.

Within the Manx context, I want to bring out just how important an individual vote can be.

Most of us absorb a lot of political commentary, and drama, from the UK and the US. Manx constituencies are much smaller than those of the UK or the US. In the Keys, the optimum size for a two-member constitutency is 7k total population. In the House of Commons, the optimum size is 73k electors for a single member constituency. In the US, in the federal House of Representatives, the average size for a single member constituency is 800k total population. So, looking at this in terms of a voters power to get a person into the legislature, the Manx voter is 20 times as powerful as the UK voter; and 200 times as powerful as the US voter.

This means a very small number of votes can make the difference. In the General Election of 2016, Graham Cregeen beat Phil Gawne for Arbory by 19 votes, while Chris Robertshaw beat Jon Joughin for Douglas East by 7 votes.

While the size of Manx constitutencies can make a vote very important in determining who sits in the House of Keys, the absence of a developed party political system can make the contribution of an individual MHK of pivotal importance. Voting records are public domain data, and quantifiable. What they don’t capture is the importance of influence and interaction in a 24 member chamber. MHKs do listen to each other, and exercise individual judgement. So an MHK may only have one vote to cast, but perhaps their influence means two other MHKs cast a vote differently from how they would have done otherwise. So the vote examples I am going to give are, I think, the quantifiable and provable tip of an iceberg!

The Keys is the centre of Manx political life, and has a very wide remit, far beyond any of the devolved assemblies in the UK. I am going to focus on two functions – creating and staffing government, in particular the Council of Ministers; and creating primary legislation in the form of Acts of Tynwald. In both these functions, we can identify events where the 19 voters in Arbory, or the 7 voters in Douglas East, had an obvious impact. Starting with executive government:

  • In the election for Chief Minister in 2016, the Keys voted first, and Howard Quayle secured 12 votes. This plurality included Graham Cregeen, but not Chris Robertshaw – Robertshaw voted for the next closest (Cannan, on 9). If someone other than Cregeen had been elected, and they had voted for Cannan too, we would have had an 11 Quayle, 10 Cannan vote from the Keys. The Legislative Council – in the last time they would be able to vote for the Chief Minister – block voted for the candidate who had carried half the Keys. Would they have been willing to do so if Quayle did not have a majority, and was only one vote ahead of the next candidate?
  • Staying with Graham Cregeen, who remember was in the Keys because of a 19 vote lead over Phil Gawne, he served as Minister for Justice and Home Affairs from 2020-2021 – a post he could not have held had he not been in Tynwald and, realistically, not been an MHK.

Similarly, we can give concrete examples of the importance of our two closely elected MHKs in relation to primary legislation passed by Tynwald.

  • On 9 February 2021, Chris Robertshaw was in the 13/11 majority to pass an amendment to clause 7 of the Competition Bill 2020. The clause sought to make it clear that competition law applied to public sector bodies, as well as the private sector. An amendment was proposed to make it clearer that the law applied to everyone, rather than just those parts of the public sector covered by the Freedom of Information legislation. The amendment was adopted by the Keys, and became the Competition Act 2021 s.7.
  • On 2 February 2021, Graham Cregeen was in the 12/11 majority to accept amendments to the Climate Change Bill 2020. As a result, clause 32 was amended. Clause 32 covered powers of entry under the Act, or under regulations made by the Department under the Act. The clause did not require reasonable suspicion of an offence, and the proposed amendment would have required “reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence has been committed”. The amendment was adopted by the Keys, and became Climate Change Act 2021 s.32(2).

Why young people should vote.

Within the Manx context in particular, it is worth noting that the Isle of Man is very much in the minority in enfranchising 16 and 17 year olds (continuing an honorable tradition for such a young democracy in innovation, being the first to enfranchise women in 1881). All of the arguments .above apply to younger voters, but there is another to consider.

Across the world, older people are much more likely to vote than younger people. Not only are they more likely to turn out, older people as a group may hold different political views than younger people as a group. A robust poll in the UK in January 2026 found that the Green Party was the most popular with 18-24s, Labour with 25-49s, and Reform with 50+. Without getting into policies, and quickly getting partisan; if young people vote at a significantly lower rate than older people, we would expect to see views represented by the Green Party underrepresented, and views represented by Reform overrepresented. So voting by younger voters can help to represent the younger demographics views.

So make sure you can vote, and vote!

The 21st century House of Keys really matters. Since the late 20th century the Legislative Council, although an important part of Tynwald, has been without doubt the subordinate chamber of Tynwald. Around the same time running the Manx government shifted from the Lieutenant-Governor to Manx politicians able to command majority support in Tynwald – and latterly, just the House of Keys. From even earlier, Tynwald had become far more important in Manx life than the UK Parliament. So who is elected into the House of Keys in the General Election really matters for the Isle of Man.

In large democracies with dominant political parties, the feeling that one voters vote is not going to matter is understandable. Large constituencies mean you need to be part of a much broader trend to make a difference in who is elected to represent you; politics dominated by parties mean that your individual decision may not make much of a difference over the next five years. In the Isle of Man, things are very different. If 4 people who voted for Chris Robertshaw had instead voted for Jon Joughin, Douglas East would have had a different MHK. That different MHK would have been one of only 24 people, the vast majority of whom sat as independents, who sat and voted in the Keys; and whose views and discussions shaped national policy.

To be able to vote, you need to make sure you can. There is an excellent elections site, updated for the General Election 2026, maintained by the Crown and Elections Unit in Cabinet Office. Well worth checking out!