Wanted: not just a new PM, but constitutional reform

The Tory leadership contest has turned out to be a spectacular switch-blade fight. But, in truth, it matters little who the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister turns out to be.

Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor vilified by the wacky Right for being sensible, or Liz Truss, the vapid Foreign Secretary with a penchant for ideological gimmicks and dressing like Margaret Thatcher, are both continuity candidates playing to the same miniscule, largely white, ageing, Tory audience.

The job they aspire to so eagerly, however, is something of an anachronism, inherently open to abuse. In the hands of an Attlee, a Blair or a Thatcher it works. In the hands of a Boris Johnson is turns into a wrecking ball. If it happens once, it can happen again.

If Johnson’s anarchic tenure has shown us anything, it is that Britain needs more than someone different behind the wheel. It needs a constitutional makeover.

The country is faced with deep, structural problems: eroding living standards, inequality of opportunity, toxic culture wars, stubbornly low productivity, the malign consequences of Brexit and a tottering union.

This Government behaves as if accountability is an optional extra. Patronage is rife. Corruption is dressed up as expediency. Parliament is so docile it’s almost horizontal. The Lords is being turned into a house of ill-repute for the Prime Minister’s cronies.

Britain’s reputation as a law-abiding member of the international community is being trashed. The mindset handed down from the top is that the end justifies the means, however brazen. The sense of drift in Whitehall and in the country is palpable. We are running out of road.

Our constitution is a patchwork of hand-me-down conventions, designed to favour the influential, the cunning and those with the longest institutional memories. It hands virtually limitless, unchecked power to the occupant of 10 Downing Street.

Johnson’s understood this from Day One. He lusted for power and, when he finally got his hands on it with a thumping parliamentary majority, wielded it like a sultan. Not for him the doctrine of Prime Minister as primus inter pares, the first among equals who works with the grain.

Basking in the adulation that followed the 2019 general election victory, he unleashed the dogs of war against anyone standing in his way. The country mistook this hubris for strength.

Political opponents were chucked out of the party. Ethics advisers jettisoned. The judiciary branded enemies of the people. International treaties like the Northern Ireland Protocol used as bargaining chips in a game of chicken.

It is worth remembering that in the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, all a British Prime Minister needs to exercise is a working majority in the House of Commons. Once that is secured the Queen and, through her, the country, bestow the chosen one with the trust and the power to govern. It is a position of almost unrivalled privilege in western democracies.

We like to think that Britain has a sophisticated system of government refined over centuries of tradition, honed to within an inch of perfection: leaders with integrity backed by an ordered civil service governing in the interests of the country as a whole.

Constitutional historians speak of the British “constitution” as a thing, a set of principles which, while not actually codified in a single document, provides a framework we can depend on to deliver open, honest, accountable government.

Experts who favour this loose gentleman’s arrangement point reassuringly to several “guardians” of the UK’s constitution: the Lords, the Supreme Court, the Lord Chancellor, once described as the linchpin of our constitution, various parliamentary committees and watchdogs such as the Electoral Commission.

Between them these bodies, which have evolved over centuries, are tasked with upholding the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and our rights as citizens. That, at any rate, is the theory.

But all of these have in recent years been subjected to blatant political influence which none have proved resilient enough to withstand. The rule of law and the desires of government are increasingly less and less aligned.

A general election win is taken as carte blanche for governments to do what they want. Accountability is presented as a threat to democracy. The internet is harnessed in an all-out assault against the heresy of scepticism and the immorality of “woke” attitudes. Power is a pretext to divide and rule.

The notional separation of powers between government, parliament and the judiciary, intended to safeguard our liberties and prevent executive overreach, has been under relentless attack since 2016 by politicians who can’t face up to scrutiny.

The Prime Minister boasts in the Commons of having sent Brenda Hale, the last Supreme Court President, “packing” after her court ruled the suspension of Parliament in 2019 unlawful. Ministers are given the power unilaterally to override pretty much any provision they don’t like, including altering primary legislation.

This is not efficient government. It is not even lazy government. It’s dangerous government. And at the heart of this is a Prime Minister with virtually limitless powers of patronage.

You could argue that Johnson is a one-off, like this week’s super-heat wave. It won’t happen again because very few if any holders of the office believe they were born with a divine right to rule. We must trust in Professor Peter Hennessy’s “good chap” theory of government and office-holders who understand that it’s the spirit rather than the letter of the law that matters.

Well, we’ve seen how that has turned out. It’s time for a reboot. A fresh start doesn’t just mean a fresh face in Downing Street.

There isn’t just one route to better government. But at the heart of any reform must lie two overriding principles:

• a return to rule-bound governance that we all understand.
• greater (and equal) accountability for all. If politicians don’t wish to live by the same rules followed by the rest of us, they must be made to.

My starting point would be an independently-monitored, transparent and legally-binding set of rules governing all ministerial conduct. You can’t have the PM deciding if he or his pals have broken the rules or if they’ve strayed “a bit” but not so much as to avoid the sack.

Yet the heart of any meaningful constitutional change must lie in a fundamental reform of the House of Lords. This is the place that, more than any other, has come to exemplify privilege, patronage and, ultimately, corruption.

Among the wise old peers and those honoured for a lifetime of public service, how many have bought their way in with a few million? How comfortable do we feel about the Russian son of a KGB lieutenant-general, loyal to Vladimir Putin, being among peers who can sit in judgement on our laws?

That the House of Lords needs reform or possibly replacing is an urgent issue. Exactly how would be a matter for a constitutional convention. But like the Prime Minister’s office, it must be a place free of the temptation to corrupt, to exchange cash for influence, and be accountable to the country.

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