Why Tory MPs tolerate a caretaker they just fired.
There are both constitutional and political calculations at play.
The British political system prides itself on its stability. But the commitment of a variety of actors in the system to upholding that principle can lead to ostensibly unusual outcomes. Boris Johnson’s caretaker Premiership is precisely that — a reality that only really makes sense in the context of the seemingly established belief in the Conservative Party that a smooth and orderly transition of power is inherently valuable even if it means allowing a Prime Minister who they have just resoundingly declared unfit for the office to remain, well, in office.
This outcome wasn’t guaranteed. Shortly after Johnson finally confirmed his resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, several Conservative MPs joined with the Opposition’s calls for his immediate withdrawal from Number Ten as well, allowing a genuine, time-fixed caretaker to take office for the summer. Indeed, Dominic Raab’s decision not to stand in the Leadership Election may have had something to do with this looming possibility (concerns about the threat to his Esher and Walton Constituency notwithstanding). But this didn’t come to fruition, and Johnson was quite quickly able to secure a more dignified timeline for his curtain call instead.
So why do Conservative MPs accept this? The answer probably lies in one of two explanations, or some combination of the two. The first is that there is constitutional precedent for the approach Johnson has taken, and the second is that grave political risks might lurk should they join with the opposition in dethroning Johnson.
Constitutional precedent for a lingering Prime Minister
The Cabinet Manual, first published in 2011, is probably the most serious attempt at bringing together the many unwritten principles of our uncodified constitution into a single reference document.
It reaffirms the well-known procedures should a Prime Minister resign on behalf of the Government, in which case, “the Sovereign will invite the person who appears most likely to be able to command the confidence of the House to serve as Prime Minister and to form a government” (Section 2.8), or should they resign personally, in which case “it is for the party or parties in government to identify who can be chosen as the successor” (Section 2.18).
But it allows for (or rather, recognises) a degree of constructive ambiguity for the period after a Prime Minister signals the “political” end of their government by announcing their intention to resign as leader of their party, but stays on in a caretaker function until the process outlined in Section 2.18, and subsequently 2.8, is accomplished. It recognises implicitly that Gordon Brown’s decision to not immediately resign after the 2010 General Election created a new mechanism for upholding an old principle that protects the constitutional monarchy. “… It remains a matter for the prime Minister, as the Sovereign’s principal adviser, to judge the appropriate time at which to resign” Section 2.10 argues, before nodding towards Brown’s example by stating that “Prime Ministers have not offered their resignations until there was a situation in which clear advice could be given to the Sovereign on who should be asked to form a government”. This avoidance of embarrassment to the Monarch exists to uphold the ideal outlined in Section 2.9 that “the Sovereign should not be drawn into party politics”. Doubtlessly, when Theresa May embarked to the exit ramp in 2019, the same frames of reference were used.
Johnson’s critics could well claim that the presence of a Deputy Prime Minister (Raab took the oft-disused title in September last year) means there was a clear line of succession that could have been pointed to once the Queen asked Johnson for his recommendation, meaning the risk of politicisation was low. This might seem practical and reasonable and could well have taken place with minimum disruption and fuss, but it would have contained no real mechanism for proving that Raab had the confidence of the House. Indeed, in the context of such governmental chaos as we found ourselves in that week, with resignation letters piling high and doubts mounting about the viability of the cabinet at large, it could have been argued by some number of angry Tory MPs that Raab was too implicated in the disgraced government to be a suitable candidate for the caretaker position.
So, whilst it probably frustrates them, Tory MPs have reason to believe both that Johnson’s caretaker administration was grounded in an approach set out in recent years, and that it was not immediately apparent that Raab should be invited to become Prime Minister should Johnson have simply resigned outright.
The Instability Factor
The other and perhaps more pressing concern for Tory MPs is that there are risks to their reputation for stability in triggering the kind of mini-constitutional-crisis that would ensue if they remove him in the House of Commons. This will no doubt be part of their equation as they head into the bizarre spectacle next week of voting on a No Confidence Motion tabled by their own government.
The repeal of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act has made the situation more difficult for Tory MPs to achieve regime change without triggering a General Election. If the Act were still in place, they could have voted down the Government in the Commons and then taken advantage of the fourteen days it set out for a new government to be formed from the current state of the parties in the chamber.
But even if they do decide to join the opposition in voting down the Government regardless, they are more likely to trigger confusion than an election. Johnson would, according to convention, be expected to go to the Queen and ask for a dissolution of Parliament, as was the norm before the FTPA — but this would make no rational sense for the Conservative Party as they are currently without a leader, and won’t have one until September. The Monarch might well also invoke the Lascelles Principles and assert her reserve authority to refuse a dissolution because a process is already underway to ascertain who can command a majority in the House (through the Tory Leadership Election) and it is not obvious that the existing Parliament has become unviable.
It’s at this point that the reputational risk is joined by another more substantial risk. There is an older, dormant principle, not even mentioned in the Cabinet Manual, which could then apply.
In the immediate moment that Johnson tenders his resignation to the Queen, if the Conservatives cannot be seen to immediately coalesce around a temporary leader, the “fault principle” could apply.
Last used in 1924, it states that if it is not immediately apparent who can command a majority, the leader of the largest party that brought down the Government in the Vote of No Confidence should be invited to form a Minority Government. This is how Labour formed their first administration — when Ramsay MacDonald formed a minority government with just 191 seats, 117 short of a majority, because his party had, along with the only slightly smaller Liberal Party, dethroned Stanley Baldwin in a VoNC.
The principle was a significant part of the political reality of the late 19th century. It was invoked three times in the year from June 1885 to July 1886, with Gladstone’s Liberals resigning to make way for Lord Salisbury’s Tories, then vice versa, and then vice versa again. Salisbury took office 90 seats short of a majority in both instances.
Despite its lack of contemporary attention, there is no obvious reason why this principle couldn’t be invoked again, especially in a situation where Johnson cannot continue, and it is not immediately clear who the Conservative leader in the House of Commons actually is. Whether or not many modern Tory MPs are aware of this arcane risk to their ability to govern, it ought to be discussed more widely ahead of the expected Confidence Vote.
