What’s been going on?
In late September 2019, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the government acted unlawfully in proroguing, i.e. suspending, parliament for 5 weeks. The supposed reason for this prorogation – to prepare for a Queen’s speech – was deemed by the courts to be insufficient to justify such a long period of suspension. Although commenting on specific political motive is out of the court’s scope, it seems likely that the prolonged suspension was part of a strategic move by the government; a suspension could reduce time available for parliamentary scrutiny of Brexit legislation, or force the opposition into short term action to legislate against a no-deal exit (as it did). In both cases, the government will hope its position in the eventual ‘People vs Parliament’ election will be stronger. The jury is still out as to whether this will prove effective.
Both the initial prorogation and reaction to the court’s ruling have prompted fury from across the political spectrum. Almost every opposition party leader, including Nigel Farage, have called for Johnson to resign. ‘Stop the coup’ protests made comparisons to backsliding regimes. Figures from government and opposition have decried Johnson’s continued use of heightened rhetoric, such as calling the so called Benn Act a ‘surrender bill’, or replying to a question about Jo Cox and the effect of language on MPs’ safety with ‘humbug’. At the same time, Brexit-supporting figures and newspapers continue to insist that the ‘Remainer Establishment’ is trying to block Brexitand that Parliament no longer represents the will of the people, with some even suggesting that the British people should riot. Johnson himself has suggested that under the Irish backstop the UK would become a ‘slave state’ of the European Union, as a recent Brexit Party party political broadcastwas pleased to remind voters.
Whilst the language of surrender and slavery (and arguably coup) clearly have the potential to be offensive, considering the UK’s past and the colonial origins of much of its wealth, the substance of the terms themselves are not the subject of this article. Instead I will comparatively focus on the effects and risks of the government’s behaviour in the longer term.
What is backsliding and how do we measure it?
‘Backsliding’ refers to states becoming less democratic over time. Until recently the term has mainly been used to describe countries which democratised relatively recently, for example in Latin America, Africa or Eastern and Central Europe. Often such countries democratised, in part, due to world historical events, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent global dominance of Western democratic ideals.
The UK prides itself on being a liberal democracy, in which governments are elected by the people but in which institutions are designed to protect against a ‘tyranny of the majority’, thus safeguarding individual and minority rights. For this to work, it is essential that the legitimacy of safeguarding institutions is accepted by politicians and that unwritten constitutional rules (especially in the UK, where the constitution is uncodified) are respected, so that a political culture that enables pluralism to thrive can take force. There must be relative independence of the judiciary from politics, and electoral laws must tread a fine line between representing the ominous ‘will of the people’ (although no-one is really sure what this is; see Arrow’s Theorem) and promoting stability (Hix and Careydiscuss this trade-off in depth).
Backsliding occurs when the core tenets of liberal democracy are undermined. It typically describes a gradual process rather than a sudden overthrow of power. Military coups, for example, removed the democratic status of countless Latin American and African states and transformed them into authoritarian regimes overnight. By comparison, backsliding is used to refer to states in which no sudden change takes place and in which the illusion of democracy (if not liberal democracy) still exist, but the way they operate in practice is far different to how they operate on paper. Zimbabwe still holds elections, yet violent repression, ballot stuffing and rigged electoral rules heavily favour the incumbent government.
Yet backsliding need not be that explicit. Hungary and Poland have eroded opposition, politicised courts and taken control of the media despite being EU members with treaty obligations supporting liberal democratic institutions. Similarly, Levitsky and Ziblatt’s recent book ‘How Democracies Die’ frames recent and historical politics in the United States, the leader of the (presumably liberal democratic) ‘free world’, as less democratic than typically assumed.
In short, it is clearly unwise to think the UK is immune to backsliding. British institutions might be stronger and more deeply rooted than elsewhere, but that does not mean it couldn’t happen here. As standards of public discourse and respect for institutions appear to decline, there are very legitimate questions about the longer-term implications of Brexit for British democracy.
How is the government’s current behaviour relevant to all this?
So, back to Johnson and Cummings’ recent manoeuvres. Does the behaviour of the current government genuinely represent the first steps of backsliding in the UK?
To begin with, the language used by Johnson and his followers does pose real danger when looked at comparatively. Such language clearly deligitimises opposition to the government, whether it is opposition in the form of political parties or the general public, as being against the ‘will of the people’. It is not unreasonable to suggest that many of the Brexit-supporting tabloids can be more easily compared to propaganda machines than to fact-based, pluralistic outlets. Experimental research is beginning to show the polarising effects of the media, both in heightening pre-existing biasesand influencing opinion through changing saliency. Debate is also increasingly populist in tone, exploiting an imaginary divide between a homogenous ‘people’ and ‘elite’, ignoring the obvious intersectionality within each group and often providing a mask for nativism. I leave the apparent irony of Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg claiming to be men of the people for another day.
Similarly, the government’s ambiguity over whether it will abide by the Benn law, combined with its attempts to prorogue parliament in a way that was unconventional, to say the least, indicate that the unwritten rules of the game are not being followed.
The government and its supporters’ behaviour are clearly symptomatic of eroding institutional legitimacy. The important questions are whether this has occurred before in the UK and if our system is robust enough to handle the challenge today.
Is this new in the UK?
There is an argument that, for a pluralistic democracy to function, political parties must respect each other’s right to govern and to exist. Part of the problem today, so the argument goes, is that British parties have become so polarised that they are willing to subvert convention to hold onto power.
This argument is too simplistic. Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are clearly vociferously opposed to each other, yet British party polarisation is not a new phenomenon. When measured programmatically, tracking parties’ policy positions and using them to build dimensions, such as economic left-right or socially liberal-authoritarian, we are not seeing change at unprecedented levels. It is true that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has shifted leftwards on economic policy and is arguably challenging the economic rules of the game. Yet, the same can legitimately be argued about Thatcher’s Conservative Party moving rightwards in the 80s, where the ‘rules of the game’ were rewritten to transition away from quasi social democracy and towards a more US-style neoliberal market economy. However, whilst Michael Foot and Margaret Thatcher were programmatically polar opposites, questions about the health of British democracy were not as urgently raised in the early 80s as they are now.
Brexit can account for some of the changing dynamics, with parties closer on economic policy rendered unable to work together due to opposing Brexit positions. Personal political gain is, as ever, seemingly still on the cards too. Why is Corbyn so desperate to lead a temporary government? Because there are various advantages to entering a snap election with incumbency advantage, such as access to Whitehall and the credibility that comes with holding government office. Similarly, if Corbyn is the Prime Minister who physically extends Article 50, his stock with non-Labour Remain voters might improve. Why is Jo Swinson so keen to not support Corbyn? Partly for this exact reason: she doesn’t want to lose her party’s Brexit valence (competency) advantage with Remainers. On top of this, a significant chunk of her new voter base (and MPs) are Cameronite ex-Tories, unkeen to install a socialist into Number 10. But again, political parties acting in their self-interest is something the British system has seen plenty of. It doesn’t represent a material change in 2019.
What seems different this time is the apparent vulnerability of some key British democratic institutions. Before Brexit, debates about the Supreme Court or about how to reconcile representative and direct democracy simply did not come up, because they were not relevant. Now they are salient, they are becoming divisive and putting democratic institutions under threat.
There is an argument that extensions to Article 50 and the ruling of the Supreme Court show that British institutions are working. Yet this neglects Britain’s ‘majoritarian’ nature, i.e. the winner-take-all approach based on which our politics normally functions. Our electoral system ensures that, usually, one party has an absolute majority of seats in the House of Commons and can govern alone. If the legitimacy of institutions becomes a partisan issue, it is only a matter of time before a party (i.e. Johnson’s Conservatives, in this case) makes commitments in its manifesto to weaken them. After this it is only a matter of time before such a party wins an election outright and can implement these policies. It is telling, for example, that the Attorney General hinted at a role for parliament in approving Supreme Court judges in the future, a move that would represent the first steps towards a US (or Polish) style politicised court.
In sum, what is happening at present does seem to be new and our institutions can only protect us as long as a majority in parliament supports them.
What might the longer-term effects be and is there any cause for optimism?
As hinted above, the potential democratic backsliding in the UK depends on two key factors. The first is that public opinion on institutions has become, and remains, divided. The second is that mainstream political parties are willing to take steps to undermine institutions to serve their own short-term electoral interests.
Regarding the first point, it is simply too difficult to tell what the long-term effects might be. Certainly, Brexit will feature heavily in any upcoming snap election. Even when Brexit is resolved, it is unclear whether institutional questions will simply disappear. Whilst such questions arose because of Brexit, they are ideologically key to the appeal of populist parties. If voting behaviour remains driven by either Brexit identity or social dimensions of policy rather than economic issues, questions of institutional legitimacy will remain a salient area of political discoursefor years to come.
Regarding the second point, the Conservatives have some form. In offering an EU referendum and in now painting themselves as the party of Brexit, the Conservatives have shown they can be spooked by radical right populist parties into co-opting extreme policy. This is not unique to the UK and has affected many centre-right and centre-left parties across Europe,be it in Denmark, Austria or the Netherlands. I see no reason why the Brexit Party cannot push Johnson to going further, especially if a hostile media climate continues to divide public opinion on issues previously outside public discourse.
As to how this will play out, it is far too early to tell. Recent polling has suggested that the government’s approval ratings are declining and that most British citizens support the verdict of the Supreme Court, but this might change over time. Across Europe, it is true that far-right parties are losing ground, but it is also true that mainstream parties continue to adopt increasingly far-right policy and rhetoric to win votes, making this something of a pyrrhic victory.
British civil society, the forum for pluralism and democratic culture to embed itself, has arguably been weakened by distributional public spending cuts over decades, if not increasingly since 2010. At the same time Brexit has triggered heightened interest in Parliament, the UK constitution and Supreme Court, meaning the overall effects remain to be seen.
So, what’s the answer?
As ever in politics, the answer is that it is complicated. If the Conservatives win a majority in the next election on a manifesto that includes policies aimed at weakening parliament or the courts, we are in tricky territory. Similarly, if voting behaviour remains structured around Brexit or social (rather than economic) identity, the legitimacy of institutions will continue to be questioned by significant portions of the population. Then, it is surely only a matter of time before damaging measures are taken.
The Labour Party, by focusing heavily on redistribution and taking an ambiguous stance on Brexit, risks alienating the middle-income liberal voters who helped them secure a hung parliament in 2017. The Liberal Democrats’ proposal to revoke Article 50 outright is just as divisive as a ‘No Deal’, only at the opposite end of the spectrum. Both parties appear more committed to the rule of law, yet risk splitting each other’s vote because of a refusal to work together electorally.
In sum, then, British politics is in troubled waters. The next general election could well prove to be a critical juncture in our history, both in terms of the policy commitments to liberal democratic institutions parties make and in terms of the government we get as a result. In any case, there is nothing unique about British democracy that makes it exempt from backsliding concerns. Political scientists must continue to highlight the tell-tale signs of the government’s behaviour going forward.