It Could Be Said #60 Politics Isn't Played On Paper

The British Prime Minister is far weaker than they appear on paper

When the full extent to which Donald Trump was just going to ignore America’s famed checks and balances during his second term as President became clear last month, there was a spat of comments from people saying, “well if you think this is bad, imagine if someone tried these games here in Britain, where our unwritten constitutions denies us even America’s seemingly inadequate safeguards”.

And I think that is wrong. And so I started writing about all the ways it was wrong. Then I got busy and forget to finish the article. But then Jamelle Bouie on Blue Sky said that what’s happening in America reminded him of Brexit, and I was like; “waitaminute, it took three and a half years, two general elections, many parliamentary votes and court cases before anything actually happened with regards to Brexit”. And our version of Donald Trump, was not only removed from power three years after becoming Prime Minister but was soon after chased from Parliament with his tail between his legs.

So here are my reasons why the British Prime Minister is weaker than the American President.

Parliament Can Easily Remove The Prime Minister

It is easy to forget that the Republican Party’s congressional majorities are tiny; merely five in the House of Representatives and effectively seven in the Senate. A British Prime Minister with such slender majorities in the House of Commons would be consistently worried about being brought down in a Vote of No Confidence. They would be working hard to keep not just their own members on board but reaching out to other parties for support should the Official Opposition go for the jugular. Should a Vote of No Confidence be moved by the Leader of the Opposition, it is debated within a week, and only a simple majority of MPs need to vote for it, for the Government to fall.

Now compare that to America. There is no mechanism for either House to remove an unpopular President just because he has become unpopular. Instead they must use Impeachment, a mechanism abandoned by Britain in the 19th Century because it was seen as unwieldy and cumbersome. Typically that begins with the House Judiciary Committee drawing up Articles of Impeachment for the whole House to approve. If they are then passed by the Representatives, then the Senate hosts a trial, presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. For the President to be removed from office, two-thirds of Senators need to vote to convict him. Even expedited, the whole process will take a couple of months.

Back in 1868 a precedent was set that Impeachment couldn’t be used to settle political differences between the Congress and the Presidency, when Andrew Johnson narrowly escaped conviction for frustrating Reconstruction. It has thereafter only been seriously entertained when the President is believed by the House to be guilty of a crime. But that 67% threshold is so high, that even when Presidents are caught red-handed, such as Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, there’s now no realistic possibility of a conviction. This is often blamed on today’s polarised politics, but the reality is that Mitt Romney in 2019 was the first Senator to vote to convict a President from his own party in the history of the Republic.

But that raises the question, why is Congress responsible for enforcing laws on the President?

The Prime Minister Is Not Immune From Prosecution

The reason why impeachment has loomed so large during Donald Trump’s political career is that he keeps committing crimes, but the American system doesn’t allow an incumbent President to be subject to criminal prosecution. As per a 1970s Departments of Justice memo, it is the sole responsibility of Congress to try the President for any crime that he has committed. So hard-wired is this presumption against prosecuting incumbent Presidents that New York had to fight to even pass a sentence of Unconditional Discharge against Trump before he began his second term, because his lawyers hoped his status as President-elect might quash the jury’s verdict.

This is of course all theoretical because we’ve never had a Prime Minister like Trump, but British Prime Ministers are not immune from criminal investigation. Boris Johnson was interviewed under caution and received a fixed-penalty notice after an investigation into pandemic lockdown breaches in Downing Street. Rishi Sunak also received a fine for not wearing a seatbelt in a moving car. No special prosecutor was needed in either case, just the regular police pursuing complaints from members of the public.

Not only can Prime Ministers be investigated and prosecuted, but should they somehow defy the convention that ministers resign upon being charged with a serious crime, a conviction for an offence that carried more than twelve months prison, would open them up to either automatic removal from parliament or a petition for a recall election. Of course they may be too busy being in prison to worry about that.

That’s a stark contrast to Donald Trump who escaped prison by once again becoming President of the United States of America. There is literally no legal way to imprison an American President, hence the conspiracy to effectively place Trump under house arrest in the White House after his attempted coup on January 6th 2021. In retrospect, the only reason that was effective was because Trump went along with it, for fear of something worse. He bided his time, to come back stronger.

The Cabinet Is A Parliamentary Closed Shop With A Punishing Schedule

It is common to contrast the British Prime Minister’s ability to select their own Cabinet with the American President’s need to have his picks approved by the Senate as one of the tell-tale signs that the former is stronger. This however ignores the latent power that Trump exploited in his first term to appoint fellow-traveller subordinates to be Acting Cabinet Secretaries, and then leave them in place for a prolonged period. What makes this easier to do, is that there is no routine mechanism to hold the American Cabinet to account.

It’s very different with the British Cabinet. Whereas an American President can always blame a dysfunctional Congress for failure to pass a key bill or even a government shutdown, in Britain, the Prime Minister is solely tasked with keeping the Government on the road. The Prime Minister needs ministers to answer departmental questions in parliament, both scheduled and urgent, and to introduce and defend Government Bills. They also need them to act as representatives of the Government to civil society through hundreds if not thousands of private meetings.

Ironically, that the British Government is more hardwired into Parliament and Civil Society, is both a strength and a weakness of the Prime Minister. Yes that means when things are going well he can more easily bend both to his will, but it also means when things go wrong, he is more quickly exposed. When Boris Johnson faced a rebellion amongst his ministerial team, it was resignations from his junior ranks that underlined that no government headed by him could conduct essential business. He had simply ran out of MPs who would replace those who had resigned.

And another actor expediated his by then, inevitable resignation.

God Save The Queen! God Save The King!

As I wrote at the time, The Palace played an underappreciated role in the removal of Boris Johnson by making it clear that any request to dissolve parliament would be rejected, and possibly refusing to allow Johnson to appoint new ministers until he agreed to resign.

This underlines the fact that unlike the President of the United States, the Prime Minister merely acts on behalf of the Head of State. Unlike the President of the United States, when he exercises his constitutional executive powers, he does so with the active involvement of the Monarch. That creates a backstop, someone who can veto clearly unreasonable actions of a rogue Prime Minister, and if necessary, fire him. It’s even more useful if you’re confronted by a ill Prime Minister, with the Cabinet and Palace able to swiftly move to appoint a replacement. Meanwhile the Americans are lumbered with the 25th Amendment which outlines a mechanism for appointing an Acting President against the wishes of the incumbent that seems designed to provoke a civil war.

Of course The King does more than merely appoint Prime Minister. They have tremendous moral authority, meaning that all officers of the state have an alternative locus of loyalty and affection that can actually speak against a rogue Prime Minister in the most extreme circumstances. Indeed the long tradition within Britain to use the monarchy to protect the political opponents from accusations of treason by stressing the pro-system role such opposition plays in parliament and civil society, up to and including the appointment of an official Leader of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.

It’s Their Party and They’ll Cry If They Want To

If the deep state has loyalty to The King, then the Prime Minister’s political colleagues also have a sense of loyalty to their shared political party. Unlike in America these are coherent organisations that exercise full control over who can stand as candidates for them in elections and who gets to be their choice to become Prime Minister.

This ironically weakens rather than strengthens a demagogue. As we discovered in 2022, even if removed from the presidency, the American system provided no quick way to remove Trump from pre-eminence. Before his victory in the primaries, he had three years to act as the de facto party leader, using his popularity and fundraising networks to impose his chosen candidates in several elections over the heads of hostile local party establishments. Likewise he repeatedly used his influence over extreme members of the House to impose his will on successive Speakers. At the moment Trump is bullying almost all elected Republicans to obey him by threatening to unleash his popularity and Elon Musk’s money against them in a primary.

The British system both allows for the prompt removal of the Prime Minister by their own party through an internal Vote of No Confidence, something they can do without risking an early election. But it also provides a clear mechanism for the Official Opposition to move on from a departed leader. Not only is the parliamentary leader the party’s undisputed leader but they are given the resources and status necessary to establish themselves as preeminent, even though they may have far less experience and name recognition than party grandees. It is striking how many Americans during the current moment are asking for the Democrats to form a Shadow Government to hold Trump to account.

This About Mocking Americans, Not Being Complacent

Now obviously if come 2031 we are all living in Holly Valance’s single-party state, then much of this article will seem not just wrong but dangerously so. But the point of this article is not to be complacent but to highlight that politics cannot be left to lawyers. Yes we are a nation of laws, but laws are enforced by people. The American constitution relies far too much on a Congress that is capable of high-minded, bipartisan action. Most notably it basically leaves impeachment as the one route to remove a President whereas there are several routes to remove a Prime Minister. If American Democracy survives, then it is going to have to seriously engage with the significant weaknesses of its current constitutional order. Meanwhile we must be vigilant at any changes that strengthen the Prime Minister against other actors in the system, be that the mainstream parties being too quick to remove the whip from rebellious MPs, Nigel Farage leading a potemkin party devoid of internal democracy, or the suggestion that there are no occasions when The King can use his latent powers.

Cooling Content Consumption Corner

The problem with falling off the wagon with doing regular substack columns is that I’ve also completely lost the plot with my reading at the same time. I completed the first section of Yes to Europe by Robert Saunders which was an interesting overview of the 1975 referendum campaign. The most eyecatching aspect is just how well-run the In campaign was, and how it was able to mobilise civil society in a way that Stronger In struggled to 41 years later. Sadly I decided to stop reading that to begin reading Get In by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, which whilst efficiently written, is such a crushingly depressing book to read. It certainly makes you better understand why this Government is so badly struggling as it outlines Sir Keir Starmer’s odd impulsiveness (the book undersells just how crazy him genuinely considering resigning before counting in the 2021 local elections had finished was) and Morgan McSweeney’s narrow mindedness. Hopefully I’ll get back on the wagon, and finish both of them soon. Then I have Character Change by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac to read next, which I’m sure will not be enraging in any way at all.

In terms of movies I watched The Apprentice which had Jeremy Strong in a film stealing turn as Roy Cohn. One of my favourite movies of all time is JFK, and Strong’s performance captures what I love about that film’s cabal of evil gay republicans. The one problem is that the film is clearly uncomfortable with pitching Cohn as a sympathetic figure, and so he disappears halfway through the film until he comes back at the end on the brink of death. Sebastian Stan is good value as Donald Trump, but the film lacks purpose when its not exploring Trump’s relationship with his mentor. But I had a good time with it.

I also watched Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga which sadly I thought was boring and soulless. What was brilliant about Fury Road was that it built a universe that made sense that whilst inspired by the original trilogy, made sense for the film they were making there. This instead was slavishly reverential to Fury Road, crowbarring in characters, backstory and imagery from the previous film that did not feel organic to the story of a doomed romance that they were telling here. The best example of this was Anya Taylor-Joy’s transformation into the same look as Charlize Theron, which is just as stupid as Han Solo walking around in the same jacket in The Force Awakens as he was wearing in the original Star Wars trilogy. And sadly the film is just a ugly smush of very paintedly CGI compared to Fury Road’s pristine visuals.

Meanwhile on television I finally watched Chernobyl, WHICH WAS FANTASTIC. There is something about so many long discussions between men in ugly suits in drab rooms that reminds me of British television like it used to be made. It’s such a powerful mediation about the nature of power and responsibility, which has so much to say about modern society. To me the key scene is when Anatoly Dyatlov berates his subordinates to ignore protocol and do something they both feel is unsafe. When they continue to protest he bullies them into submission by threatening their future careers. This to me gets at a paradox at the heart of the idea of empowering professionals to act as a safeguard against bad management; you give experts more resources and status so they feel able to challenge their superiors but those resources and status is something that those superiors can take away. The more you elevate technocrats, the more they have reason to fear a fall. Ambition doesn’t check Ambition as ambitious people naturally suck up to the powerful. This sets up the ultimate verdict of the series which is that only strong political leadership rooted in the common interest can deliver good results from the central bueaucracy. And that you can only get this strong political leadership through maximum transparency.

Likewise I watched James May’s Great Explorers which was an old-school kids educational programme for adults. On a noticeably small budget that kept him firmly on this side of the Atlantic the three shows did an admirable job exploring the history and science of Christopher Columbus, Sir Walter Raleigh and Captain Cook. We had visits to replicas rather than the actual destinations, practical demonstrations using scrap gold or a child’s globe rather than computer graphics, and paintings and drawings rather than dramatic recreations visualising key moments. Three key staples throughout all three episodes is James May cooking the food the explorers would have eaten or drunk, attempting to mimic their navigation techniques on a small boat, and talking to academic experts.