This cannot be allowed to happen again’: The Case for Urgent Constitutional Reform following the Premiership of Boris Johnson

Author - Stuart Kierans

Introduction

In the summer of 2019, after much deliberation, I voted for Boris Johnson to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I had backed three other candidates before him – I had been #ReadyforRabb, #AvidforJavid, and then at one point, was even saying #GotobeGove (I don’t remember if that was his actual slogan, but it should have been!) – because of my issues with his personality, but at the end of the day, it had come down to Boris and Jeremy Hunt. Between the two, the choice had been clear. Parliament was paralysed with no sign of any movement in sight, one Prime Minister already falling foul to its composition at the time. We needed a leader who would be willing to do whatever they could to get Brexit done, and who would also be able to win the inevitable election that would follow.

In hindsight, I can confirm I do not regret my vote. I believe the Conservatives would have been the largest party under Jeremy Hunt after an election, but Parliament would have remained paralysed with no party having a majority. Brexit would have remained an issue while, unbeknownst to us, COVID-19 was beginning to emerge. To have been dealing with both those issues at the same time would have been a less than ideal scenario. On top of that, a weak Conservative victory in 2019 would have meant Jeremy Corbyn more than likely remaining Leader of the Labour Party. It was a pleasure to see the back of his leadership, to see the Brexit deal being passed, and to know that we would be moving onto a new chapter with 2020, even if it was with Boris as Prime Minister.

However, that new chapter has turned out to be part of a book that I now want to throw out the window. The conduct of Boris’ government over the last two years has shown him to be unfit to lead, unable to take responsibility, and unwilling to relinquish any power. From trying to get a ‘government preferred candidate’ elected as Chair of the supposed-to-be-independent Intelligence and Security Committee, and knowingly trying to pass a Bill that would break international law, to breaking his own lockdown rules potentially 16 times over and being investigated by the police. However, what has been illustrated the most, that we must pay full attention to, is that under the right circumstances, there are actually frighteningly little checks and balances on the Office of Prime Minister.

A lack of Checks and Balances

Combining the size of the Conservative majority in the House of Commons with the personality of Boris Johnson, one can easily make an argument that the government can do whatever it likes and that the United Kingdom is currently living under an ‘electoral dictatorship’. The Official Opposition are powerless to stop any Bills going forward or to make any amendments so long as the Conservative backbenches are in support of the government’s view. The House of Lords, the advisory, scrutinising upper chamber of Parliament, can only hold back Bills for a year max and can only make amendments to the Tory dominated lower chamber so many times. The Judicial Review and Courts Bill, currently at Committee Stage, would allow for the government to overrule judicial review rulings that Ministers do not agree with, gravely weakening a substantial check on the decisions of public bodies and organisations.

Finally, Boris’ personal conduct displays, for all to see, a lack of care for precedent, rules and general decency. In February 2020, he attempted to block select journalists of critical newspapers from attending his briefings at Downing Street to avoid difficult questioning, and he has commonly broken ‘gentlemanly agreements’, including when he backed Priti Patel after she was found to have broken the Ministerial Code. Under Cameron or May, we would have seen her made to resign – again. The only real check that currently exists over the Conservative leader is the threat of his own MPs, who could launch a Vote of No Confidence in him when their tolerance for his brash behaviour wears too thin. The fact that the only way Boris is currently being held accountable is by his own Parliamentary party, fuelled mainly by concerns for re-election, speaks volumes about the sad state of affairs we now find ourselves in. More substantial checks and balances on the Office of Prime Minister are clearly required, and it is the duty of the successor to 10 Downing Street to put something in place.

1.     The Head of State

Personally, I have great interest in the history of the relationship between the Head of State, Parliament and the Prime Minister. I also believe that, as a final ultimate barrier, the Monarch should be allowed to dismiss their PM if the holder of the office is acting against the interests of the United Kingdom and her people. Following a general election, the Queen invites the leader of the largest party to form a government in her name. While it is her who holds complete authority and power in theory, it is the party leader, as her appointed Prime Minister, who exercises the powers of the Royal Prerogative. However, it is only convention that dictates this is how things are done. There is no law that says the Monarch cannot dismiss her PM if she has lost confidence in them, and I believe this constant requirement to meet a level of standard would help to keep an otherwise uncaring Prime Minister, even one with a big majority in Parliament, in line and on their best behaviour. When the Queen decided to attend a Cabinet meeting to mark her Diamond Jubilee, the politicians that we normally compare to children in their behaviour acted with the utmost professionalism and courtesy. If only there was a way to get them to act like that all the time…

I am sure there are people who would be against this idea for a check and balance, and quite rightly so. We would not want to go from one political figure abusing their power to another. In response, I would argue that it is worth bearing in mind who it would be exercising this power to dismiss a Prime Minister. The Royal Family know their place. They have had to live with the reality for many decades that their position is fragile, and that any abuse of power would result in a major drop of support, because at end of the day, the Monarch is not elected. They would be seen to be stepping on the toes of a democratically elected leader. For this reason, I believe any Monarch would treat oversight of their Prime Minister with the greatest responsibility and would only dismiss them if they truly believed it was the last resort. However, to ensure no abuse of power, I envision a panel of nine individuals. Three Supreme Courts Judges, three senior Civil Servants, three Crossbench Peers. All public servants, all looking out for the public interest, and as neutral as possible. They would be selected at random every 10 years by an automatic procedure that would be difficult to change. The panel would either approve or reject the Monarch’s dismissal of their PM, with the action requiring at least a two thirds majority to agree. I believe a safety mechanism of this variety could lead to an environment where intervention from the Head of State is more accepted, and where the Prime Minister is unable to act without consequence.

1.     The Rules of Parliament

Within conservative group chats, I can confirm that there was unusual support for SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford during the Prime Minister’s Statement on the Sue Gray report. For those who don’t know, Blackford suggested that Boris Johnson had lied to Parliament, saying multiple times that the Prime Minister had ‘misled the House’ because he had told MPs no rule breaking parties had taken place in Downing Street, when the Sue Gray report told otherwise. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, ordered Blackford to withdraw his remarks. When Blackford stood fast, Hoyle prepared to eject him from the chamber under Standing Order 43 – ‘The Speaker, or the chairman, shall order any Member or Members whose conduct is grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately from the House during the remainder of that day's sitting’.

“Erskine May’s Parliamentary Procedure”, deemed to be ‘the Bible’ on the conduct and procedures of the Commons and the Lords, says that certain language is not fit for Parliament and so is ‘unparliamentary’. The number of words deemed to fit this description has expanded over recent years, covering a whole host of insults and labels: coward, deceptive, dodgy (as shown by Dennis Skinner back in the days of normal politics pre-Brexit), git, guttersnipe, hypocrite, ignoramus, rat, sod, swine and traitor fit the bill. Outright calling another MP a liar is deemed to be unparliamentary, as is generally suggesting a lack of honesty, and can have you kicked out of the chamber. Ironically, the Ministerial Code says that anyone who is found to have misled the House will be expected to offer their resignation… yet, if you accuse someone of doing so, it is you who can be punished…

As a conservative, I generally believe in cautious amounts of change, and that maintaining the status quo provides stability. The case of using certain words against fellow MPs in Parliament is one that I believe needs rectifying as soon as possible for being, quite frankly, a complete and utter farce which allows individuals such as Boris Johnson to get away with speaking mistruth after mistruth without consequence. Erskine May is deemed by the UK Parliament website as being a guide; a description of conventions that apply, rather than a golden rulebook that must be followed to the tee. Given then the expectancy of the Speaker to enforce these procedures are, again, convention, a Vote of the House could serve as a means to deem calling an MP a ‘liar’ as no longer being unparliamentary language. This could then link with a current mechanism that a Vote of the House can be called to agree with a Member’s claim that another member has lied, thus making it a fact rather than an accusation. Finally, a new Standing Order could be created that would make it that in the event of this truth being confirmed, an accused Minister, including the primus inter paras, must offer their resignation or be barred from entering the House until they do so.

1.     The System of Voting

While the two previous ideas of strengthened checks and balances are interesting to consider, and in some respects, make perfect sense, I concede though these are unlikely. Convention is one of the fundamental building blocks of Westminster and UK politics itself. It is quite unlikely that a successor to 10 Downing Street, whether it be another Conservative leader or perhaps even Sir Keir Starmer after the next general election, would want to undergo such controversial action as to give the Head of State more power, or to re-write the procedures of Parliament, unless they decided to take on the challenge of a Written Constitution at the same time. Instead, an easier method would be to look to change something that has been the source of public debate for a while. Something for which groups have campaigned, petitions have been submitted, and even a referendum held. I believe the best available method for preventing our current situation from repeating itself is to get rid of what caused it in the first place: First Past the Post.

The root of the current political climate lies in the size of the Conservative Party’s majority in the House of Commons. FPTP granted the Conservatives 80 seats over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour in 2019 and the largest share of the vote the Conservatives had got since Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979. With a majority of that size, Johnson’s government can do effectively whatever it likes. However, this has not proven a problem in the past. As I have alluded to, previous Prime Ministers have respected the ‘unwritten rules’, the ‘gentlemanly agreements’ that would normally keep a government with such a big majority relatively in line. Coupled though with the brash, uncaring and self-centred personality of an individual such as Boris Johnson, the situation quickly darkens, and we then have ourselves an Executive that can and does do whatever it wants without fear of much consequence.

We cannot bar individuals from putting themselves forward for the leadership of a party based solely on personality traits, this would be impractical and too difficult. Instead, the changeover from FPTP to a PR based voting system would be an easier hurdle to overcome and would do the job. Under another electoral system, it would be more difficult for any party to gain an outright majority, thereby creating more coalitions, more cooperation between parties, and with that, more accountability. If Boris Johnson had been the leader of the Conservative Party that entered Parliament in 2010, it is fair to argue that he would been much more restrained in his behaviour. The Lib Dems could have ended their agreement at any time when he got too casual with not telling the truth, and he would’ve certainly been more fearful of his own backbenchers than he is now, where it will take 181 MPs to oust him. If the British public decide they want to vote for someone like Boris to be Prime Minister, then fine. But under a PR system (my personal choice would be Single Transferable Vote), the PM would have to be much more considerate of their relationships with other parties, and thus, the way they conduct themselves in actions and in vocabulary.

Conclusion

The last couple years have been a dark set of days for those who want the Prime Minister to be held accountable. If there is one good thing that Boris Johnson’s disregard for procedure and appropriate conduct have done, it has revealed just how bad our institutions are at controlling the Executive if they do not want to play by the rules. Therefore, the rules must be upgraded, the mechanisms tightened, and the restraints entrenched. It will fall down to the successor of the keys to Downing Street to decide how they want to do this. There are many options, some more controversial than others, some that haven’t been considered yet. Nonetheless, there are ways, and something needs to be done. For once Boris Johnson eventually leaves, taking his flagrant disregarding personality with him, this cannot be allowed to happen again.