“The public doesn’t bring down Prime Ministers; Parliament does.”
The sovereignty of Parliament has never been shown to be so obviously so important compared to now. No matter how loud the views are amongst the grassroots of a party or a cause – it must command a majority within Parliament, or at least within the Parliamentary Party. I could talk about my opinions on Parliament and the Lords and the electoral system – in fact, I did in my first draft of this post – but that isn’t relevant here and now. What matters is that every party learns and understands that it runs the risk of repeating the mistakes of the past if it does not begin to quickly listen to the realities of a world-class political system.
Liz Truss is, by every single measure conceivable, the worst Prime Minister we’ve had. Probably ever, certainly in modern history. By time in office, by number of u-turns, by policies delivered, by confidence of her own MPs, by confidence of the Commons, by the value of the pound. She has been so poor. And, this may be controversial, but I do not believe it to be something extraordinary about Liz Truss that has caused this issue. She was no weaker than May, and her policies were no more outlandish than Thatcher. The combination may have been fatal for her, but there is more to it than that.
The results of the (first) 2022 Conservative leadership election give it away. She came third in the first four rounds of MP ballots, and second in the final round. She entered office without a majority of her own Parliamentary party. Her mandate is Parliamentary, and Parliament’s mandate is the public. One of my deepest and most pragmatic beliefs about our democracy is that it is, and should remain, Parliamentary. There should be no constitutional requirement for a general election if a leader changes. Sure, opposition parties are right to call for one and I would like one, but there should not be a constitutional requirement. And so, whilst the governing party had an effective mandate from the public (regardless of your views on FPTP), the leader had no mandate from the governing party’s sovereign body: MPs. The party of regicide was always going to oust her as leader if she did not gain their confidence quickly. She didn’t. They did.
This could be a little different if she started out in opposition and gained MPs. Boris Johnson was so successful on Brexit because he was so ruthless with the MPs that he gained; any MP who ran in the 2019 election had to support his Brexit deal. Therefore, there’s a theoretical argument that opposition parties have a little more leeway with this and can listen to their members more, as they can – if they get into government – force their majorities into having confidence in them. This is only if you get into government, though, which brings me fairly smoothly onto my next point: if you’re an opposition party, it’s harder to get into government if you don’t have the confidence of your party. This shouldn’t be followed quite so stringently as it should be if you are in government; I know if I was still in the Labour Party, I’d want a say on the leader (and did in fact have a say on the leader last time). The 2016 Labour leadership election showed the flaws of this though, with 172 MPs against Corbyn, and 40 supporting him, he won the leadership election. He was never going to be able to unite or govern effectively, no matter how good his campaigning was.
This also applies to policy. The Brexit referendum probably made political sense to Cameron at the time. There was a rising party, UKIP, taking votes from him, threatening his MP’s majorities in swing seats. So, to shut them up and stop them from taking votes, calling a referendum and winning it wasn’t a bad thing to do. The problem was what ensued afterwards, which has only become clear in hindsight. The Tory Party at the time was mostly remain-supporting, including Truss herself, a member of Cameron’s cabinet. Theresa May took over – who supported remain – and tried to deliver Brexit with a Labour Party opposed to her and a Conservative Party opposed to Brexit. The result of the 2017 election made things no clearer, with Labour running a Brexiteer candidate in Corbyn with a policy to remain in the EU, and the Conservatives running remainer May with a policy to leave the EU. How can a parliament have confidence in a policy when it isn’t entirely sure who supports it and who is against it? Boris Johnson seemed to, for all his flaws and corruption, understand the necessity of a clear unambiguous Parliamentary majority to deliver a policy.
In comparison, take the two most successful and influential politicians in modern Britain, Thatcher and Blair. They both had one crucial thing in common, which was the command and confidence of their parliamentary Party. The public doesn’t bring down Prime Ministers; Parliament does. When you realise this, and understand that the public didn’t bring down Thatcher, or Blair, or Cameron, or May, or Johnson, or Truss, this concept becomes significantly more important.
Imagine if Thatcher had been elected without the votes of her Parliamentary party. On the same policies, with the same backing from her party members and the same view from public, but with the Conservative MPs giving their support to a hypothetical alternative candidate. Her character would not have changed, and nor would have her ideology, but she would have found herself in a position that could have very quickly become untenable. She was an effective if disagreeable opposition leader and Prime Minister not because she had the backing of significant grassroots organisations, but because she respected the sovereignty of the House of Commons and its importance in deciding the fate of an Opposition Leader and a Prime Minister. Blair’s mandate did not come from the party members – Corbyn had a bigger backing of party members than Blair did, albeit not by much. But, put two opposition leaders up side by side, one with the backing from their Parliamentary party and another with grassroots support. Nine times out of ten, I believe, the one with backing from Parliament will be more successful than the one with grassroots support. The public can vote for somebody who does not have the support of various grassroots movements – they can’t vote for one who doesn’t have the backing of their own legislators. If they do, it will only be a matter of time before downfall from within.
Lewis Compton 