Risking Our Democracy

Former diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall argues that the time has come for serious discussions about reforming Britain’s political structures

A new Commission on Political Power was launched in the UK last month to review the state of our democracy and make recommendations on how it might be strengthened. Convened by Baroness Frances d’Souza and Frances Crook, the organisation includes a range of politicians from across the political divide, academics, journalists, analysts and commentators, including myself.

There is always a risk when such a body is convened that critics will argue that we are just a bunch of ‘sore losers’ who don’t like the current Government or its policies. Having allegedly failed to see our preferred politicians or policies gain favour with the electorate, we are now just claiming it is because ‘the system is faulty’ or because ‘voters are deluded’, and are looking for ways to change it more to our liking. 

This objection fails on its face, because the Commission includes politicians from both the left and the right, including from the governing Conservative Party. 

But, while I can’t claim to speak for its other members, I certainly acknowledge that I am not a fan of Boris Johnson’s administration. I had such grave concerns about the way Brexit was implemented that I resigned from my role at the Foreign Office. 

I never actually publicly challenged either the legitimacy or the outcome of the 2016 EU Referendum, or the UK’s right to leave the EU. What I did challenge was the dishonest and, in my view, undemocratic way in which Brexit was delivered – including the Government’s wilful misrepresentation of the implications, the unfounded claim that it had a mandate for the very hardest form of Brexit, its attempts to close down legitimate scrutiny of its approach, and its abusive slandering of Brexit opponents as ‘enemies of the people’.

I regard all of these as examples of how the guardrails of our democracy are being eroded – and why there is a need for reform now, to prevent future governments from being similarly able to abuse their powers. 

Nevertheless, I accept that, given my history, my own impartiality might be called into account. It’s important to check our own biases.

I believe a good way to do this is by comparing the state of our democracy with that of other countries. In particular, I can draw from my own direct experience as a diplomat to review what our own governments have said or done about alleged flaws in other countries’ systems, and then consider if the same criticism might be applied to the UK.

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Head of State

In the UK, the Head of State is the Queen, whose role has largely become ceremonial, yet in whose name the government still possesses many prerogative powers.

In many other countries, the Head of State acts as a kind of bulwark against executive overreach or constitutional abuse.  There have been times when the UK has actively encouraged, or praised, a foreign Head of State for intervening in such a way. When I was the British Ambassador to Georgia, acting in the name of the UK government, I sometimes lobbied its Head of State to do so. 

But in our system, the Queen cannot do that – as dramatically proved when she had no option but to approve Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament in September 2019, a move later ruled unlawful by the UK’s Supreme Court.

Given that the Queen has no inherent elected legitimacy of her own, there would have been a justifiable outcry if she had sought to prevent the prorogation. Yet, given that the prorogation was in fact deemed to be unlawful, this event also exposed the lack of constitutional utility of the monarch’s current role. 

Critics will say that, since the Supreme Court did intervene to overturn the prorogation, this shows that Britain does still have a strong check against executive overreach, via the judiciary. Yet, as we do not have a written constitution, the courts can only make rulings based on current laws – which the government can seek to rewrite at any time.

Under our current system, Parliament is sovereign. Indeed, taking full advantage of these powers, the Government is currently proposing legislation to restrict the use of judicial review, in what senior Conservative MP David Davis critiqued last year as “an obvious attempt to avoid accountability”. 

This is despite the fact that British governments regularly raise concerns about the strength and independence of the judiciary in other countries.

Judicial independence was, for example, a regular topic of discussion during human rights dialogues I participated in as head of the Foreign Office’s Human Rights Department from 2004 to 2006 with Iran, Russia and China. We also used to criticise threats and intemperate language towards judges overseas, though some members of the Conservatives appear to have no such qualms attacking British judges who make rulings they dislike. 

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Houses of Parliament

In some countries, the second chamber of the legislature is another way to counter-balance the executive. But, in those countries, its legitimacy derives from the fact that it is also an elected body – unlike our House of Lords, which is comprised purely of hereditary or nominated peers, plus a few ex officio members of the clergy.

In view of its limited legitimacy, the House of Lords can scrutinise, amend and delay legislation, but it cannot ultimately override the votes of the House of Commons. 

Moreover, the process of nominating peers has been exposed under this Government to be widely open to abuse – with peerages up for sale to the largest donors to the Conservative Party, or other cronies, such as friendly media or business barons. This is a system of political patronage which in other countries we might label ‘corruption’. 

Previous British governments have indeed condemned similar such political cronyism or stacking of chambers in other countries. In the country of my first posting, Thailand, we regularly criticised efforts by the authorities to rewrite the constitution after military coups in order to ensure a disproportionate role for unelected military officials in their upper house. More recently, British ministers criticised the regime in Myanmar for rigging its constitution in favour of the military.  

But even our elected chamber, the House of Commons, has limited ability to check our executive, since by definition, under our parliamentary system, the government has an in-built majority in the House.

It is true that the Commons can try to bring down a government through a vote of no confidence – but this is only likely to succeed when members of the prime minister’s own party have turned against their leader. It is therefore not truly in the gift of the opposition, let alone the electorate, but in the hands of the members of the ruling party, who may have their own reasons for wanting to avoid an election. 

A vote of no confidence does not actually automatically trigger a new election, but sometimes only a change of leader – which, again, is something entirely in the hands of the ruling political party. While the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act created its own problems, the absence of fixed terms also gives the incumbent government an advantage in being able to call an election early, if the timing seems opportune. 

This problem of an over-powerful executive is exacerbated by our ‘first past the post’ electoral system, which has resulted in successive governments since World War Two achieving disproportionately large majorities in the House of Commons, despite never winning a majority of the popular vote.

Neither of our two main political parties has wanted to change this system, as it works to their benefit, even as it crowds out many people whose votes for third parties rarely make a difference.  

But this has not stopped British governments from recommending that some other countries should consider adopting proportional systems as a way to ensure ‘fairer’ electoral outcomes. This was an issue while I was in Georgia. A case of do as I say, not as I do?

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Devolution

Devolving more powers to state or local authorities, as is the case in many federal systems, could provide greater democratic balance – and is a model we have sometimes commended to other countries with significant regional differences or diverse populations. 

When I was in Bogota, for instance, we used to lobby the government to be more inclusive and sensitive to the needs of its indigenous communities and Afro-Colombians, who were under-represented in Government. 

By contrast, the UK system is highly centralised, with only limited powers granted to most local authorities. They are also very reliant on the Treasury for funding, which is often allocated with restrictive mandates attached. 

In the