The resignation of Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator Lord Frost is yet another vote of no confidence in the prime minister Boris Johnson, this time from within his own political faction in the Conservative party. But while Mr Johnson is the cause of his own misfortunes, he is also the symptom of something much bigger.
Most British people, including me, were brought up to believe that our democracy was the “envy of the world” and produced the “Mother of Parliaments”. Perhaps that was once true. But the failures of Brexit and a British prime minister have revealed some uncomfortable facts, which complacency cannot cure. British democracy and its institutions are repeatedly shown to be unfit for the challenges of the 21st century information age.
Fact one: only three democracies in the world do not have a written constitution. Two are tiny nations, Israel (population 9 million) and New Zealand (5 mn). The third, the UK, is a complex and diverse state of 68 mn people with several different national identities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Fact two: England is 84 per cent of the UK’s population. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, are very small partners but each has something England does not have – their own parliaments. There is no solely “English” parliament, just Westminster. That means we have four different democratic systems within the UK. Since the Conservative party is the biggest party in England it often forms the UK government even though it does not have a majority or mandate in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. Confusing? Yes, for me too.
Fact three: the biggest political party in Scotland is the Scottish National Party. In Wales, Labour. In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party. The majority of Scottish voters have not voted for a British Conservative government since 1955.
And fact four: the ancient British parliamentary system was constructed for two parties. It does not work with many more. It was once Whigs and Tories, then Liberals and Conservatives, now supposedly Labour versus Conservatives. Under the “First Past The Post” system the candidate with most votes wins. But since we now have so many political parties who split the vote, an MP might win a seat with just 35 per cent support, not a majority. Mr Johnson’s government therefore has a huge majority in the House of Commons but 56 per cent of British voters did not vote for him. He has never spoken for a majority of British people, ever.
These distortions mean the most difficult thing for a politician to do is often to be selected by one of the two big parties, Conservative or Labour, in a safe or winnable seat. The democratic distortion is that candidates are selected by a tiny minority of political activists who can be quite extreme or, frankly, very odd.
The Conservative party, for example, claims 200,000 members, but Conservative members have told me that the real activist core is around half that number. The Conservative Bow Group, a UK-based think tank, puts the average age of party members at 72. Accurate figures are unavailable, but what is certain is that a small group of old British people, mostly white, select Conservative MPs and ultimately the leader of their party.
Appealing to that tiny unrepresentative group is at the core of Boris Johnson’s personal political success. Mr Johnson “tickles their tummies” as one Conservative activist told me. But the skill necessary to run a government for 68 million diverse British people, most of whom did not vote Conservative, is a very different skill from charming 100,000 mostly white, mostly old, Conservative party faithfuls.
Former US Governor Mario Cuomo once observed that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Boris Johnson does the poetry but not the hard work of prose, yet faced with the twin challenges of Brexit and the pandemic, such hard work from a prime minister has never been more necessary.
Two centuries ago, in 1796, America’s first president George Washington understood how two-party politics can fail as “the alternate domination of one faction over another”. Washington saw the risk that “the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”
Boris Johnson’s Britain is a political mess. His Conservative party is riven by factions. Conservatives dominate England but are far less successful in other parts of the UK. Scotland and Northern Ireland are restless. A stunning by-election loss in England in North Shropshire – a seat held by the Conservatives since 1832 – means Mr Johnson himself is seen by many former Conservative voters as unfit to lead. But it is the British system of governance which needs to be rethought. It is no longer the “envy of the world,” if it ever was. Lord Frost may be done, but Brexit most certainly is not done. Perhaps it never will be. We may need a new and better prime minister, but we also desperately need a new and better politics.
