What's stopping a Corbyn Minority Government (other than it's silly)?

One has to wonder why the opposition parties who want to form an alternative government don’t just do it.  So let us look at some of the reasons....

Firstly let’s look at the arithmetic.  Excluding the 7 Sinn Féin MPs who never sit and the Speaker who by convention doesn’t vote … after the last election the parties looked like this

Conservative Party 317

Democratic Unionist Party 10

Labour Party 262             

Scottish National Party 35

Liberal Democrats 12     

Plaid Cymru 4

Green Party 1   

Independent 1

To form a technical majority government requires 325 MPs (half of the 650 total seats).  You might think 326 but remember the speaker doesn’t vote.  Sinn Fein just don’t turn up so I’ve counted them into the majority needed…. You never know they might just show one day.  So the Conservatives and the DUP teamed up to give them a working majority of (317 + 10 = 327) 2.

Following various splits, sackings and defections – this parliament is something of a record for defections and splits the numbers now look like this…

Conservative Party 288

Democratic Unionist Party 10

Labour Party 246

Scottish National Party 35

Liberal Democrats 18

The Independent Group for Change 5

Plaid Cymru 4

Green Party 1

Independent 35

The Conservatives and the DUP now have a total of (288 + 10) = 298 seats leaving them 

27 short of a majority government.

Meanwhile Labour has a total of 262.  Jo Swinson of the Liberal Democrats has said she doesn’t think she can support Jeremy Corybyn as leader of a minority caretaker government because the other parties wouldn’t unite around Mr Corbyn.  

But does Labour need the Liberal Democrats to form a government?   

Technically if the 246 Labour and 35 SNP MPs joined together that would give them a total of (246 + 35) = 281 MPs.  44 short of a majority government but only 

7 votes short of the Conservatives current minority of 298.  

Therefore Mr Corbyn only needs 7 other MPs to join him to make a bid for control of the government and start telephoning the Queen.  If Plaid and the Green lady joined in that’d mean they only needed 2 more from either the independents or the Independent Group for Change.  At this point it doesn’t matter what Jo Swinson thinks…?  Here’s a graph of that…

However, it has to be said Swinson’s logic for not wanting to form a minority government to delay Brexit and call a General Election doesn’t add up.  She says people “won’t unite around Corbyn as a leader” but if the purpose of such a coalition is only to avoid a no deal Brexit and call an election what policy platform is there to unite around in the first place?  Perhaps the truth is that once in Number 10 Corbyn would form his own administration and stay there or that’s Swinson’s plan?  Who knows?  Or perhaps it’s a political game to weaken the Labour Party.  

Any non-Corbyn Prime Minister would surely face charges that they were Corbyn’s puppet.  What would happen in situations such as Prime Minister’s Questions?  Presumably the non-Corbyn PM would answer questions for the government while Corbyn sat on the front bench behind charged with being their Svengali?   The more you think about it the more illogical it becomes.

However, should Corbyn form such a minority government with the SNP and the stragglers there’d still be the question of could it get any legislation through?  The Lib Dems could invoke a "frustrate Corbyn" policy by blocking all his legislation …or team up with the independents.   

Or Boris could try and do a deal with his sacked MPs to try to bring them back into the fold and bolster his numbers?  Then Boris could apply to be PM again by ringing the Queen.  At which point Corbyn and the Lib Dems could do another deal and we could have a new government every other week.  I know Boris has said he wants a General Election but then Boris changes course more often than a broken sat nav… so who knows…?