Tag Archives: Democracy in the UK after Brexit

Constitutional watchdogs: restoring the role

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Unit research shows that the public cares deeply about ethics and integrity in public life. Many constitutional and ethical watchdogs exist: there is a consensus that they need strengthening, but not on how, or to what extent. Robert Hazell and Peter Riddell have produced a new report on how to reinvigorate these watchdogs: they summarise their conclusions here.

This week we have published a new report, Trust in Public Life: Restoring the Role of Constitutional Watchdogs. It comes at an important juncture, when public trust in politicians has fallen to an all-time low. There is a wealth of evidence from survey data about the decline in trust; not least from the Constitution Unit’s own surveys, as part of our Democracy in the UK after Brexit project. Those surveys show that the public value honesty in politicians above qualities like being clever, working hard or getting things done; but only 6% of the public believe that politicians who fail to act with integrity are dealt with effectively. There is an urgent need to repair and rebuild the system for upholding standards in public life if trust in politicians is to be restored.

Constitutional watchdogs are the guardians of the system for upholding standards. The Unit has long had an interest in them, from one of our earliest reports in 1997 to one of our most recent, on parliament’s watchdogs published in 2022. This new report is complementary to the one on parliament, in studying the watchdogs which regulate the conduct of the executive. They are the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA); the Civil Service Commission; the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA); the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL); the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC); the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests; and the Registrar for Consultant Lobbyists.

A series of official and non-governmental reports have all agreed that these watchdogs need strengthening; but there is less agreement on how, or by how much. That is the gap that our report is intended to fill. It sets out a range of strengthening measures, in detail, for implementation early in the next parliament. Early action is possible because most of our recommendations do not require legislation.

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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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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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