Tag Archives: boris johnson

Boris Johnson has brought the honours system into disrepute; Rishi Sunak should have blocked him

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The last 10 days have seen the publication of Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list swiftly followed by his resignation as an MP and the damning Privileges Committee report over his misleading parliament, then new video footage of some nominees attending a lockdown-busting party. Meg Russell suggests that Rishi Sunak should have blocked Johnson’s honours list, and that by not doing so he risks being complicit in dragging the system into disrepute.

It has been an extraordinary 10 days in UK politics. On Friday 9 June, Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list was finally published, following months of speculation. Later that day, Johnson announced his intention to quit the Commons, having received a draft of the Privileges Committee’s excoriating report into allegations of his repeatedly misleading parliament over ‘partygate’. His resignation statement included a lengthy, highly critical, and notably misleading riposte to the committee. Two Johnson allies, Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams, who had hoped to be ennobled on his list, also announced their resignations – leaving Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to face three difficult byelections (although Dorries has yet to formally follow through on her commitment). Six days later, following consequential updates, the Privileges Committee published its findings, which condemned Johnson not only for his original behaviour, but also for his publicly contemptuous treatment of the committee. On Friday 16 June a further (and unconnected) honours list marking the King’s official birthday was published. Yesterday, on the eve of the Commons debating the Privileges Committee report, a video emerged of Conservative staffers enjoying a 2020 Christmas party which blatantly broke lockdown rules. At least two of those in attendance were on Johnson’s honours list.

This leaves a series of questions, including several of a constitutional kind. Although at the heart of these events lie actions which would normally appear trivial – a few friends and colleagues enjoying a drink – in the context of the lockdown rules imposed by Johnson’s government even those actions are very serious, particularly to people who observed the rules and sacrificed times with loved ones, many of whom died during the pandemic. Constitutionally, Johnson’s serial misleading of parliament, the resultant Privileges Committee report into his behaviour, and his subsequent disrespectful response to it, are unprecedented for a Prime Minister. That this is tangled up not only with the functioning of his premiership, but also with the honours system, risks bringing various parts of our political system into serious disrepute.

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Do the public really care about lying to parliament? Yes, they do

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MPs must weigh up this weekend how to approach the debate – and possible vote – on the Privileges Committee report on Boris Johnson. Snap polls show the public mood to favour strong action. Alan Renwick draws on Constitution Unit research showing that this desire for honesty in politics is deep and enduring. People want a robust standards system, in which lying to parliament is punished.

Snap polling conducted in the wake of this week’s Commons Privileges Committee report on Boris Johnson indicates that most people think the former Prime Minister did mislead parliament; they are far more likely to think that he was given a fair hearing than not and to believe that his punishment was too lenient rather than either too harsh or about right.

Such rapid polling always raises the question: are these views just a knee-jerk reaction, reflecting no deeper public sentiment? The answer is a simple ‘no’.

We at the Constitution Unit have carried out detailed investigations over the past two years into public attitudes towards the state of our democratic system. We conducted large-scale surveys in the summer of 2021 and again last summer. And we held a Citizens’ Assembly on Democracy in the UK over the final months of 2021. The first survey took place before partygate, while the second was in the field during Johnson’s final days in office, after he announced his resignation. The Citizens’ Assembly – which shows what a representative sample of the UK population thought about our democratic institutions after learning about the issues and discussing them over six weekends – reached its conclusions as the first partygate allegations were breaking, but before they peaked in early 2022. These sources thus provide a medium-term view on patterns of public thinking over the last two years, rather than being driven by this week’s events.

All the evidence shows that most people in the UK care a great deal about whether their elected representatives are honest. They think those who are not honest should be punished. They do not think it should be left to voters to use the one ballot they get to cast every four or five years to serve up this punishment. They want parliament to act against wrong-doing. If parliament fails to uphold the rules, they think matters may need to be taken out of MPs’ hands.

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The parliamentary battle over Brexit and the constitution

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Today sees the publication of a new book by the Unit’s Meg Russell and Lisa James, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Here the authors summarise some of its key findings about why parliament was drawn into such controversy over the implementation of Brexit. They reflect on what these events teach us about our constitution, as well as what may need to change in order to avoid repeating such problems, and to mend the damage done.

The UK’s arguments over what became known as Brexit began long before the June 2016 referendum, and continued with increasing bitterness afterwards. Parliament was often central, both as a venue for such arguments, and in terms of disputes about its proper role. It and its members frequently faced criticism and blame. Our new book, published today, charts The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit, from the early pressures for a referendum, through disputes about the triggering of Article 50 and control of the House of Commons agenda, the repeated defeats of Theresa May’s deal, and Boris Johnson’s unlawful parliamentary prorogation, to the UK’s eventual departure from the EU following his deal. The book charts what happened, but also asks what went wrong and whether things could have been handled differently. It reflects on what these events teach us about the functioning of our constitution, and what if anything might need to change.

The book includes a wealth of detail about key political moments, and the roles of different individuals and groups. Here we focus on some of the bigger questions about the lasting legacy of the battles over Brexit for the culture and institutions of UK politics, and particularly for the place of parliament itself. A fuller version of this analysis appears in the final chapter of the book.

Referendums and public participation

The referendum of 23 June 2016 was only the third ever such UK-wide vote (the first being on European Community membership in 1975, and the second in 2011 on changing the House of Commons voting system). The handling of the referendum was the single biggest error of the Brexit process, from which many other difficulties flowed.

Unlike the 2011 referendum, which was underpinned by legislation setting out the detail of the proposed new voting system, no clear prospectus was offered to the voters for Brexit. Prime Minister David Cameron hoped to use the vote – described disapprovingly by the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee as a ‘bluff call’ referendum – to make the question of Brexit go away. Parliament never debated the substance of the question, the government did not detail the options, and civil servants were forbidden from preparing for a Leave vote. Leave campaigners argued at the level of principle, rather than on a specific plan. As one Brexit-supporting interviewee told us, ‘it was only [after the referendum] that different types of Brexit started coming to the fore. Soft Brexit and hard Brexit had never been canvassed before the referendum; the expressions were coined afterwards’. Issues that would soon come to dominate the agenda, such as membership of the Customs Union or Single Market, and crucially the Northern Ireland border, were barely mentioned during the campaign. This left the government – and parliament – in a very difficult position. The different options for Brexit had to be established only after the vote had taken place, and on this the voters had conveyed no clear instruction.

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Why Labour should adopt a two-stage approach to House of Lords reform

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Today the Constitution Unit publishes a report jointly with the Institute for Government and Bennett Institute on the options for House of Lords reform. Here, in the second of two posts summarising its conclusions, report author Meg Russell argues that if Labour wins the next election, it should pursue a two-stage approach. This would begin with immediate urgent changes to the appointments process and hereditary peers, while the party consulted on larger-scale proposals such as those set out in the Brown report.

Today the Constitution Unit publishes a new report, House of Lords reform: navigating the obstacles, jointly with the Institute for Government and the Bennett Institute at the University of Cambridge. This is the second of two posts summarising some of the report’s conclusions, with a particular focus on Labour’s options for Lords reform.

The previous post explored proposals from Labour’s commission chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for an elected ‘Assembly of the Nations and Regions’. It suggested, on the basis of past UK and international experience, that large-scale reform of this kind will be difficult to achieve, and could not be actioned by Labour immediately. The Brown report leaves many open questions on which careful consultation and deliberation would be required. Meanwhile, there are clear problems with the House of Lords which are widely recognised, and would be relatively straightforward to deal with. This post focuses on such beneficial small-scale changes, including:

  • placing a limit on the size of the House of Lords
  • agreeing a formula for the sharing of seats
  • introducing greater quality control on appointments
  • removing the remaining hereditary peers.

More detailed consideration was given to the first three of these options in another recent post on this blog. Hence this one deals with them quite briefly, then draws the strands together, considering a possible strategy for the Labour Party on Lords reform if it comes to power.

Placing a limit on the size of the House of Lords

One of the most visible difficulties with the House of Lords is its growing size. Reform by Tony Blair’s government in 1999 removed most hereditary peers, slashing the chamber from more than 1,200 members to 666. But since then, its size has crept gradually upwards again. There was a net growth of around 70 members under Blair, and well over 100 under David Cameron – though Gordon Brown and Theresa May each presided over net reductions of around 30 members. Boris Johnson’s appointments were also excessive, and concern remains about his possible resignation honours list. Currently, the size of the House of Lords hovers around 800.

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