20th December 2021
One of the defences used to defend against getting rid of the current Prime Minister is that it should not be done in the midst of a crisis.
This view is misconceived.
In 1916, in midst of the Great War, Asquith was replaced with Lloyd George.
In 1940, when things seemed at their worst, Chamberlain was replaced by Churchill.
In both cases, of course, this was because there was an alternative candidate who had the support of opposition members of parliament.
But it has also happened in other situations.
In 1990, during the build up to the Gulf war, Thatcher was replaced by Major – and by the governing party’s own members of parliament, not the opposition.
And indeed, it need not only be an intra-parliamentary affair.
In 1945, when there was no reason to believe the war with Japan would soon end, the British electorate replaced Churchill with Attlee.
And if you go further back, there are many half-forgotten prime ministers who were replaced at times of uncertainty or peril.
So, in historical context, the unusual thing is to retain a prime minister in a crisis rather than not to do so.
This is one of the features – some would say merits – of the flexible nature of the constitution of the United Kingdom (and of Great Britain before 1801).
A Prime Minister can be dumped quickly.
Of course: things are different now.
Any new leader of a political party has to go through a process of being elected (or, if unopposed, approved) by party members.
And there is no real prospect – as with Lloyd George or Churchill – of a politician currently becoming Prime Minister without also being the leader of their party.
So the reason why we cannot just get rid of the current Prime Minister, notwithstanding his inability to do the job, has more to do with the mechanics of party organisation (and, no doubt the leadership ambitions of others) than constitutional practice or historical precedent.
And that is a pity – as both constitutional practice and historical precedent point to a period of uncertainty or of peril as being the best time to get rid of a Prime Minister who is not up to the job.
Indeed, the singular lack of credibility of the current prime Minister in respect of public health and abiding by the rules means that it is imperative that he is replaced with someone who can be taken seriously in imposing public health restrictions.
Instead of ‘not now’ it should be ‘now, of course, now – for when else?’.
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It surely is timely to lose Mr Johnson but there is one problem. Unlike the cases you cite, there is no obvious competent pair of hands to take over. Sunk is still a largely unknown quantity, and what is known is not reassuring. Truss is the stuff of nightmares. Hunt would lose the currently rampant right of the party. So might an election, with whoever is elected to lead the tories, be necessary to establish credibility and authority?
If Tory MPs were to be sufficiently unanimous that they only nominated one candidate, that person could arguably be made PM while the process of approval by members was going on. Labour effectively did this when replacing Blair with Brown, and the Tories did it by accident when replacing Cameron. But more realistically I think the party would have to nominate a replacement who was at the end of their career to hold the reins while the election happened, which would be disruptive.
Then again, if Johnson had any vestigial sense of shame he’d have resigned by now, in which case the Tory party would be having to deal with a temporary PM and a simultaneous leadership election anyway.
Very good.
Could all be over in a couple of months.
Vote of no confidence followed by three week election of new Tory leader as PM, who immediately calls GE.
Three week campaign.
All over by the end of `February.
We are the global laughing stock, why not?
There’s what would be best for the well-being of the UK, and there’s what does the 1922 Committee think would be best for their own interests.
What do you think of the notion that they will hang on to Johnson through the winter of bad news and unwelcome decisions, then ditch him when / if things look up in the spring?
We can likely take it as read that Johnson won’t be leading his party into the next General Election, but they wouldn’t want too many changes before then, surely, as that could damage their reputation for stability and steadfastness of purpose.
From 1832, if a Prime Minister resigned after losing a general election, whether before or after the Speech from the Throne, the Monarch has sent for the leader of the largest party and asked him or her to form a government.
Except in 1880, when the Liberal leaders in both Houses declined and Queen Victoria had to send for Gladstone, the invitation has been accepted.
Until 1964, there was no clearly established convention for the appointment of a Prime Minister when a vacancy arose during a Parliament. Twice – Chamberlain in 1937, Eden in 1955 – there was an obvious candidate and the outgoing PM made a recommendation. In 1957, the Queen sent for Harold Macmillan after a majority of Eden’s cabinet had preferred him to Rab Butler and Churchill had also advised her to send for Macmillan. In 1963, the Queen asked Alec Douglas-Home to find out whether he could form a government on the advice of Harold Macmillan.
Since 1964, after a Prime Minister has announced his or her intention to step down, the outgoing PM has remained in office while the relevant party chooses a new leader and the Queen has always sent for the politician selected as leader.
If Johnson finds himself unable to carry on – either because a majority of Conservative MPs vote against him in a party ballot or his cabinet breaks up or he loses (or is going to lose) a vote of confidence in the Commons – the current system of electing a Conservative leader only works if he remains in office for however long it takes.
This would be a very unsatisfactory outcome in the present situation, where decisions do need to be taken on health measures.
The alternative is for Mr Johnson to go to the Palace and offer his resignation. He could formally advise the Queen to send for somebody he named.
We should not rule out a National Government.
When the cabinet broke up in 1931, George V refused to accept Ramsay MacDonald’s resignation, and summoned representatives of the Conservative and Liberal parties (not their leaders – Baldwin was on holiday in France and Lloyd George recovering from an operation) and this led to a National Government. The King is reported to have told the politicians “Stop buggering my people about”. Sadly the Duke of Edinburgh is no longer here to walk in an announce “Her Majesty wishes you to stop buggering her people about” but one suspects the Queen if she so decided could be very clear as to how she expected her politicians to deal with the situation.
In theoretical terms a national government is possible but I will eat my theoretical hat if it comes to pass.
A National Government would either have to be led by Starmer, with the support of 40 or so National Conservatives, or realistically at least 200 Conservatives following a Conservative PM. Having a Prime Minister be from a party other than the largest in the coalition when it began is rare. Ramsay McDonald (National Labour) remained PM in 1931 despite his party being decimated in that election, with the Conservatives (also in the coalition) having 36 times the number of MPs.
The Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 is still in force. Realistically the PM probably does not have to resign unless losing a confidence vote of the form specified in that Act. We saw under May that despite how unsatisfied the Tory backbenchers were with her, when it came to a formal confidence vote, none were willing to break the whip.
It’s likely that a lot of National Conservatives would lose their seats in the next election. Although I suppose Atlee did well out of it in 1945. But otherwise history suggests that the party that split into National and rump parties will just split the vote.
And yet the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, no matter how deeper in the mire Boris Johnson descends still declines to call on the Prime Minister to resign.
Some of his supporters say that Sir Keir Starmer QC should only urge Johnson to resign, if there is any chance of Johnson losing a Vote of No Confidence.
And, if he could, they have the fall back argument of better the devil you know and/or Starmer is playing a long game.
As an aside a long game is one way of describing an elaborate con, perpetrated over weeks, if not months.
Corbyn was playing a long game on Brexit before December 2019 and his front man for that gambit then succeeded him as Labour leader.
I note, however, that the Norway Debate held between 7th and 9th May 1940 on the Government’s conduct of the war, included at the end of the second day, a division of the House of the Commons for the members to hold a Vote of No Confidence.
The vote was won by the government, but with a drastically reduced majority.
On 10th May, Neville Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister leading to the replacement of his government by a broadly based coalition under Winston Churchill and the rest, as they say, is history.
A responsible Opposition, wishing to look like a Government in waiting does not put party before country at a time of crisis.
Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party, respectively, gave Churchill the moral support he needed to face down the appeasers in his party, who would have negotiated a peace with Hitler that might have included giving away Malta and Gibraltar, possibly even India, for another scrap of paper.
Doing the right thing is responsible behaviour, even if it may not prove to be of advantage to one’s party and, in the long run as Keynes observed, we are all dead.
I am not allergic to the use of focus groups, but Labour declined to call for Matt Hancock’s resignation earlier this year, because their soundings amongst the party’s (Red Wall inclined?) focus groups came out against calling for a Minister’s resignation at that time.
Hancock almost went under his own steam.
Intriguingly, Johnson tried for a day or two after Hancock had quit to claim that he had fired Hancock so clearly he felt blindsided by The Sun.
And who took advantage of the Right Reverend Matt Hancock MP for West Suffolk reading a lesson on “Faith and Values in Public Life”, in a church in his constituency in 2018?
A choice line from Hancock’s sermon is “I think Britain should be proud that we have one of the most robustly accountable systems of Government of all the countries in the world.”
The sermon is still up on his website.
https://www.matt-hancock.com/news/faith-and-values-public-life
Are there no similar skeletons in Boris Johnson’s cupboard for a skilful Opposition to expose to the light of day in a set piece Commons debate?
I couldn’t agree more. You can already see the interests of the country being subordinated to the interests of potential leadership candidates in today’s headlines, let alone the torrent of leaks. A quick, decisive leadership contest could stop this spilling over into real damage, assuming the Tory civil wars are susceptible of being ended, which I’m beginning to doubt.
Doesn’t the Fixed Term Parliaments Act preclude any general election until May 2024 given that the only two exceptions to the 5 year rule are very unlikely to apply.
There’s a bill going through Parliament to repeal this. It will be interesting to see if it is passed before Johnson’s government finally implodes.
I feel quite conflicted about this. On the one hand, anything that will halt the damage that’s currently being inflicted on our country is much to be hoped for, but on the other, if we find ourselves with a zealot in charge, I’m not sure my mental health will take it. And a change of leader will probably mean that Parliament will go full term.
Keeping Johnson in place for a bit longer may suit both Tories and his greatest critics. A ‘revived’ government with someone like Sunak at its head is likely to lead to a bounce in the polls just in time for the next election, and five more years of damage to the little people.
Tory leader will shortly become a very unpleasant game of pass the parcel. As normality resumes with the pandemic (as it one day must), the disaster that is Brexit will be cast into sharp focus. Remainers won’t forgive the Tories for it, so some will jump ship from them to the LibDems or elsewhere. The voters gulled by Bojo, Gove and Farage will resent having been had and take it out on the party at the GE. Whoever is in the hot seat (and it was never going to be Johnson from the very outset), will face the impossible task of campaigning on the Brexit that Bojo delivered. By that stage, Mr Cake and Eat it; Mr Jumbo Trade Deal; Mr NHS Bonanza will be sipping cocktails on some oligarch’s private island and putting the finish touches to his very expensive invited speaker gigs – he may have the honesty to admit that he was never really a Brexiteer (Farage accused him of this just today), distancing himself from the catastrophe – it will always be somebody else’s fault.
I would love to see a genuine Government of National Unity, with Cabinet positions filled by the best people from all parties, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP etc. and with a PM elected by the MPs. I can’t see it happening though.
We are not in some WW2 existential situation, more like self induced harm so a different path to follow. Some seem to think getting rid of Boris will somehow improve matters. I don’t think it will, we will still be lumbered with Brexit and Covid is not going away and the realities of global trade will still be with us. Choosing another numpty to run a numpty system is not going to help.
We could go for the piano wire/lamppost solution but we Brits don’t do that sort of thing. We might copy/paste the German or French constitution and legal systems in the hope of finding something that works. As it is the Tories might as well keep Boris chained to the wheel. His credibility can be further burned for a while and save the next candidate’s credibility a little while longer. Plus ca change.
“Instead of ‘not now’ it should be ‘now, of course, now – for when else?’.”
Indeed, “If not now, when?” – Hillel and Primo Levi
Just a thought here, if you were the Conservative Party and you wanted to lose the next election (because the problems the Conservative Party in government have created over the last 11 years are simply to great for the Conservative party to resolve) then what better way to pass the monkey on to someone else’s shoulders than to keep the incumbent monkey as leader of your party?
You lose the next GE, let the other party attempt to clean up your mess while carping from the side-lines for 5 years.
After 5 years of pain, you then promise jam tomorrow to the battered electorate, you win the election and spend the next 10 years screwing everything up. Again.
I don’t think the problem is more that the Conservatives’ method for choosing a replacement is antithetical to good government of the country, and that this is particularly concerning during an emergency where decisions may need to be made extremely quickly. I certainly don’t want the COVID decision-making process – which is uniquely difficult at the best of times – to be clouded by the need for key cabinet members to appeal to a group of headbangers both on the back benches and in the membership.
All our major political parties are saddled with leadership election systems that have the activist choosing the leader. Tony Benn started this in 1981 in his push to lead Labour and ‘democratise’ the party. The Lib Dems and Conservatives copied this. In a parliamentary system, it should be MPs who vote for the leader, particularly when in government, as that leader must have the confidence of the House of Commons.