Tag Archives: Conservative Party

Positioning for the next election

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Today, the Unit published Monitor 85, providing analysis of constitutional events over the last four months. It covers a continuing crisis of parliamentary scrutiny and political standards, a string of avoidable by-elections, the continuing stalemate in Northern Ireland, SNP travails in Scotland, electoral reform in Wales, and a failed referendum campaign in Australia. This post, which also serves as this issue’s lead article, outlines how the government and its opponents are starting to draw the battle lines for the next general election against a background of constitutional change and challenges throughout the United Kingdom.

Rishi Sunak marked his first anniversary as Prime Minister on 25 October. The legacy of his predecessors continued to dog him over the summer. Boris Johnson’s resignation from parliament in June – covered in the last issue of Monitor – triggered a by-election in his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The Conservative Party hung on there, but lost four other by-elections in safe seats, three of which were called due to reasons related to Johnson’s departure. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 inquiry revealed what many saw as chaos at the heart of government.

Sunak sought to reset his image in September, as a Prime Minister focused on making the right long-term decisions. He acknowledged that ‘people in our country are frustrated with our politics’, saying, ‘I know that they dislike Westminster game playing, the short termism, and the lack of accountability.’ He pledged ‘a wholly new kind of politics’ with ‘space for a better, more honest debate about how we secure the country’s long-term interest.’ Announcing a shift in net zero policy, he added, ‘in a democracy, we must also be able to scrutinise and debate those changes’.

These were virtuous sentiments, chiming strongly with much of what defenders of core democratic and constitutional principles have been pressing for in recent years. But aspects of the speech appeared to undermine them. Some dropped policies had never actually existed. Sunak’s call for accountability and scrutiny was delivered on the first day of a parliamentary recess, leaving MPs unable to question him on his plans for almost a month. The Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, responded with a sharply worded rebuke.

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Healthy political discourse: what is it and why does it matter?

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Healthy political discourse is vital for democracies to function well. In this post, Alan Renwick and Tom Fieldhouse set out five key elements of such discourse, highlight barriers that may be making achieving it increasingly difficult, and propose steps that policy-makers and others could take to support it.

Background

Healthy political discourse is a core feature of a well-functioning democracy. It can help to deliver many benefits to society, whereas unhealthy discourse has the potential to inflict great damage.

There is no definitive blueprint for what healthy discourse looks like. There is nevertheless widespread concern – in the UK and in many other countries – that the quality of political discourse is poor and that contemporary challenges, including polarisation and the nature of modern media, are placing it under increasing strain.

This briefing examines what healthy political discourse is and why it matters. It identifies some of the key factors that make maintaining healthy discourse difficult and highlights examples of unhealthy discourse. It considers what can be done to enable healthy discourse to flourish.

What is healthy political discourse?

Alongside other important constitutional principles – such as institutional checks and balances, free and fair elections, the rule of law, fundamental rights, and integrity and standards – healthy public discourse is an essential component of a well-functioning democracy.

Democracy is a process for making decisions. Citizens should be able to choose representatives who will serve their interests, and to hold those representatives to account for what they do. Policy-makers should be able to make and implement policy decisions that advance the public interest. People from all walks of life should feel included and able to participate actively. All these processes are underpinned by discourse – including discussion, debate, description, and commentary. This is generated by politicians, officials, campaigners, journalists, and members of the public. Healthy discourse enables such processes to run well, whereas unhealthy discourse inhibits them.

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Election spending limits: we’re going to spend, spend, spend (or are we)?

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Increasing the amount of money that political parties can spend during election campaigns might not sound sensible, but as Justin Fisher explains, the government’s proposal to do so seems reasonable in principle, but must be implemented with care to avoid disproportionately benefiting the two most popular parties.

On 20 July, Michael Gove, the Secretary of State responsible for overseeing party finance regulation, announced that party (and candidate) campaign spending limits for Westminster elections were to be increased in line with the value of money. This received little fanfare and was only touched upon briefly in the press the following month. This proposed change is both welcome and significant. So why is the change being proposed? To understand this, it is worth explaining how party spending limits are calculated.

Party Spending limits

Party (rather than candidate) spending limits were introduced by the Political Parties, Elections & Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA). Setting the period of regulation as 365 days before a general election, the act devised a formula for parties based on the number of constituencies in which a party fielded a candidate. The overall party spending limit was set at the number of seats contested multiplied by £30,000. Thus, at the 2019 general election, if a party fielded candidates in the 631 constituencies in Great Britain (assuming they did not contest the seat of the Speaker), the national party spending limit would be £18,930,000.

However, the sum per constituency (£30,000) set by PPERA in 2000 has never been adjusted for inflation. As a result, the national party limit is approximately 50% lower in real terms than when it was introduced. When accounting for whole-year inflation, the £18,930,00 spending limit equates to approximately £9,473,344 at 2022 prices. This erosion of the level in real terms has occurred over a period of relatively low inflation. So, given the relatively high rates of inflation experienced in 2023, this real-term figure will be even lower come the end of this year.

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The impact of Brexit on UK policy on Northern Ireland

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Conor Kelly and Etain Tannam argue that Brexit reversed much of the progress of past decades in Northern Ireland by signifying a return by the UK government to a unilateral approach that prioritised traditional sovereignty in both its relations with the Irish government and with devolved governments. They conclude that Brexit has deeply destabilised the political settlement in Northern Ireland.

In the first 5 months of 2023, Northern Ireland was rarely far from our front pages as the Windsor Framework was negotiated between the UK government and European Commission in February, and the world’s media descended on Belfast for the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement’s 25th-anniversary celebrations in April. Yet, the Stormont institutions remain suspended, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has thus far refused to accept the Windsor Framework as the basis for returning to power-sharing.

To understand Brexit’s impact on the government’s policy, one must examine if joint UK-Irish EU membership between 1973 and 2016 impacted UK policy to Northern Ireland. We argue that while the Europeanisation of UK government policy towards Northern Ireland can be overstated, it had an indirect impact on the peace process by influencing the strategy of its key architect, former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume. In particular the EU’s model of  institutionalised cooperation and consensual policy-making has echoes in the 1998 Agreement. Thus, the process of de-Europeanisation since 2016 has had a severely negative effect on political stability within Northern Ireland and UK-Irish relations.

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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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