{"id":3067,"date":"2019-12-24T14:40:20","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T14:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=3067"},"modified":"2019-12-24T14:41:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T14:41:24","slug":"we-live-in-a-post%e2%80%90nolan-age-and-boris-johnson-is-its-embodiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=3067","title":{"rendered":"We live in a post?Nolan age, and Boris Johnson is its embodiment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For most of this last quarter?century, the Nolan Report has provided the underlying ethical\nbasis for public life in the United Kingdom. The recommendations of the Committee\non Standards in Public Life (CSPL), which were formalised into the Ministerial\nCode <\/em>(in addition to a Civil Service Code<\/em>), are a core document\nunderpinning the UK\u2019s unwritten constitution and the basis for dealing with\nministerial transgressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nfollowing the Conservative government\u2019s loss of its parliamentary majority in\nthe 2017 election, it is fair to say that the Nolan era is over. Prior to the\nBrexit vote, ministerial transgressions would have been accompanied by a public\noutcry which would have shortened the ministerial lives of those involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post?2016 they are being routinely\nignored. In this new era, ministers can perform badly but not be sacked. They\ncan mislead Parliament but escape punishment. Cabinet and other ministers can\nbreach collective responsibility with impunity. Details of Cabinet meetings and\nindeed Cabinet minutes can be leaked without any sanction. Ministers can\nundermine civil servants without consequence to themselves. Ex?Ministers can ignore Advisory\nCommittee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) rules and a year later become prime minister.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are, of course, unprecedented political times in the UK.\n2018 saw a record number of ministerial resignations in a single year. The\ngovernment has been found in contempt of parliament. It has suffered\nunprecedented defeats and has allowed opposition motions to go through with no\ngovernment votes against in order to disguise the scale of defeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this new era, does the Nolan report still apply? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misleading Parliament<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Ministerial Code<\/em> is explicit about the duty\nof ministers to give \u201caccurate and truthful information to Parliament\u201d. It says\nthat ministers who \u201cknowingly mislead parliament\u201d will be expected to offer\ntheir resignations to the prime minister. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the summer of 2018, Esther McVey\u2019s failure to resign after\nher comments on Universal Credit then was a stark contrast to the example of\nthe former Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, whose resignation letter stated that she\nwas resigning because she had \u201cinadvertently\nmisled\u201d<\/a> the Commons Home Affairs\nCommittee over targets for removing illegal immigrants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why was one act of inadvertent misleading punishable by\nresignation while another was not? It is hard to escape the conclusion that, in\nJuly 2018, on the eve of the Chequers Cabinet on the Withdrawal Agreement,\nBrexit pressures were more acute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business appointments and MPs\u2019 interests<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Nolan recommended that, like senior civil servants, ministers\nwho leave office should seek permission from the Advisory Committee on Business\nAppointments (ACOBA) before accepting a business role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July 2018, within a week of resigning as Foreign Secretary,\nBoris Johnson signed a contract with the Daily Telegraph<\/em> to\nwrite a weekly column. He did not apply to ACOBA for permission until two weeks\nafter signing the contract. The Committee refused to grant retrospective\nadvice, stating that Johnson\u2019s actions were \u201ca breach of the rules\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2018 Boris Johnson was also told by the Commons\nStandards Committee to apologise for his \u201cover?casual\u201d failure to declare \u00a352,000 worth of expenses. However, Johnson\u2019s\npolitical career has clearly been unaffected by these transgressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collective responsibility<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Collective responsibility is not addressed in detail in the\noriginal Nolan report, but the principle of collective responsibility is set\nout in the Ministerial Code<\/em>. The principle is intended to allow ministers\nto express their views freely in private but maintain \u201ca united front\u201d once\ndecisions are reached. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principle that Cabinet discussions should happen in private\nhas been breached on a regular basis. Boris Johnson, exceptionally, briefed his\nviews on what the Brexit deal should be in an article in the Daily\nTelegraph<\/em> in advance of a Cabinet meeting in September 2017, but there\nhave been regular leaks from Cabinet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2018, the Prime Minister \u2018berated\u2019 Chief Secretary to\nthe Treasury, Liz Truss, over her public criticisms of Michael Gove. Andrea\nLeadsom\u2019s comments at the Chequers Cabinet meeting were leaked to the Times<\/em>.\nA confidential Cabinet note warning that Britain would not be ready for a no?deal Brexit in October was\nleaked to the Financial Times<\/em> in June 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ministerial accountability<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Ministerial Code<\/em> institutionalises the\nconcept of ministerial accountability when it says that \u201cThe Minister in charge\nof a department is solely accountable to Parliament for the exercise of the\npowers on which the administration of that department depends\u201d, and reminds\nministers that they must comply with what parliament has set down on\nministerial responsibility and accountability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, three ministers \u2013 Michael Fallon, Damian Green and Priti\nPatel, resigned over Ministerial Code<\/em> breaches of one form or\nanother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other apparent breaches of the Ministerial Code<\/em>,\nincluding the duty to avoid confusing ministerial and political work, and to\navoid using government facilities for party political purposes, or transparency\nover meetings with lobbying groups, appear to have been ignored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Baker allegedly held undisclosed meetings with the\nEuropean Research Group (ERG), and\nBoris Johnson hosted the launch of a think tank,<\/a> the Institute for Free Trade (later re?named the Initiative for Free\nTrade), at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neutrality of the sovereign<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Chapter one of the Cabinet Manual<\/em> is an upfront\nstatement that the UK is technically a constitutional monarchy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cabinet Manual<\/em> makes clear the role of the\nsovereign in the prorogation of parliament: \u201cParliament may be prorogued before\nbeing dissolved or may just adjourn. It has not been modern practice for\nParliament to be dissolved while sitting. Prorogation brings a Parliamentary\nsession to an end. It is the Sovereign who prorogues Parliament on the advice\nof his or her ministers\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite warnings from the Cabinet Secretary, parliament was\nprorogued amid disorderly scenes in September. Following court action in\nScotland and England, the\nSupreme Court ruled unanimously on 24 September that the prorogation was\nunlawful.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impartiality of the Civil Service<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Ministerial Code<\/em> places a responsibility on\nall ministers \u201cto uphold the impartiality of the Civil Service\u201d. They should be\nprofessional in their dealings with the Civil Service and give due weight and\nrespect to the advice that they are given. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2018, the then Brexit Minister, Steve Baker, was forced\nto apologise to the House of Commons after criticising Treasury officials over\ntheir forecasts of the impact of Brexit. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury,\nLiz Truss, explicitly attacked the bureaucratic machine as \u201cgremlins of\ngovernment\u201d in June 2018. In October 2018, the then acting Cabinet Secretary,\nSir Mark Sedwill, wrote to the Times<\/em> defending the\nimpartiality of the Civil Service following a series of anonymous attacks on\ncivil servants over both the Brexit negotiations and Brexit implementation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anonymous and on?the?record criticisms of civil servants continue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the so?called \u2018post?truth\u2019 world, academic\nresearch<\/a> tells us that crises of\nlegitimacy create space for demagogues to cast themselves as authentic speakers\nof truth to power, and give aggrieved publics cover to forgive breaches of\nnorms that formerly would have been condemned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nolan Report depended on a shared political consensus about the norms which underpin standards in public life. That consensus depended on peer endorsement within Westminster. It depended on peer pressure to uphold agreed standards. And it required a media that endorsed those standards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 20 September 2019, the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life warned it was vital that \u201cthe tone of public debate should avoid abuse and intimidation, which have become increasingly widespread\u201d.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five days later, the Prime Minister accused the opposition of \u201cpolitical\nselfishness and political cowardice\u201d, saying that they wanted to betray the\npeople in support of the Benn?Burt \u2018surrender act\u2019. He repeated the surrender act rhetoric on\nseveral occasions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We live in a post?Nolan age, and Boris Johnson is its embodiment.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of this last quarter?century, the Nolan Report has provided the underlying ethical basis for public life in the United Kingdom. The recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL), which were formalised into the Ministerial Code (in addition to a Civil Service Code), are a core document underpinning the UK\u2019s unwritten constitution and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":3069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1395,1405,1396],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2250],"class_list":["post-3067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-comment","category-government","category-uk"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/We-live-in-a-post?Nolan-age-and-Boris-Johnson-is-its-embodiment-48677832362_35b51a2ced_k.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3067"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=3067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}