Newton Emerson: While Johnson chips away at rules, Labour chips away at him

Boris Johnson’s fine for breaching lockdown rules is the “most severe constitutional crisis involving a prime minister that I can remember”, according to Lord Peter Hennessy, an academic specialising in British government history.

The peer’s claim, argued with cold fury in a BBC radio programme on Sunday, has caused a minor sensation in the UK. While Hennessy’s knowledge of his subject must be respected, sensationalism is how the claim still comes across.

To less erudite observers, breaching lockdown does not even appear to be the most severe constitutional crisis involving Johnson. In 2019, he prorogued parliament to stop votes on Brexit, until the UK supreme court ruled he had acted unlawfully. Along the way, Scotland’s supreme court found he had “misled the queen” for “improper purpose”.

Doing something drastic to parliament or the queen is perhaps the minimum standard for a constitutional crisis in the British public’s mind, given there is no constitution in straightforward written form.

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Referring to the lockdown fine, Hennessy said, “The prime minister sealed his place in British history as the first lawbreaker to have occupied the premiership.”

At the rational level this demands to be taken seriously, yet it feels overdone. There have been 55 British prime ministers, many of whom must have been guilty of far worse. Johnson is merely the first to get a fixed-penalty notice. The comparison, once contemplated, becomes laughable.

The crux of Hennessy’s argument is not the seriousness of the initial offence but that Johnson has traduced every mechanism to address it. The prime minister has “misled parliament and has, in effect, shredded the ministerial code”, when he “should be the guardian of the code”.

‘Tory sleaze’

Unfortunately, misleading parliament is something most people assume politicians do every day. The UK has only had a ministerial code since 1997, with a revealing provenance. Downing Street began compiling confidential rules for ministers in the 1980s. John Major’s Conservative government started making them public in a firefighting response to “Tory sleaze” scandals. Tony Blair compiled them into a formal code, then invaded Iraq – the history lurking in the back of most minds when all this good behaviour machinery is mentioned. The ministerial code, like much of the British constitution, is just a recent fix passed off as an ancient feature.

A prime minister and party that see opportunities in "culture war" may welcome the confrontation

Lord Hennessy is hardly alone in making claims about Johnson and his government that must strike the average voter as over the top. He is qualified to do so but the impact is usually counterproductive. Criticism viewed as hyperbole is known to rally the base around a politician and earn them wider sympathy, while making opponents appear negative or rattled. A prime minister and party that see opportunities in “culture war” may welcome the confrontation.

Criticism kept in proportion but kept up relentlessly is proven to be more effective. This is difficult when Johnson downplays his wrongdoing as a succession of harmless accidents: a slice of cake here, a misunderstanding there, a fine no worse than a speeding ticket. Contrasting these trifles with the weight of his office, even the war in Ukraine, is meant to make his critics look hysterical.

An unsuitable character, rather than a systemic crisis, is the more measured line of attack.

Hennessy tried but again went over the top, accusing Johnson of turning Downing Street into “an adventure playground for his narcissistic vanity”.

‘Sociopathic narcissist’

This was too personal and pseudo-medical – Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s estranged former adviser, has also called him a “sociopathic narcissist” over the lockdown parties.

Exposing the snarl behind the good-natured bumbler would debunk that act to devastating effect

The criticism that resonates is that the prime minister is simply not sorry. Anyone can make a mistake with Covid rules and everyone is exhausted by them. Johnson exploits that to try and be relatable. But his apologies are insincere, his linguistic evasions are ludicrous and his attempts to laugh it all off turn nasty the instant anyone calls the trick out. This is relatable too: in the end, he is a rather ordinary unpleasant character. Johnson’s particular appeal to the English is not the “English nationalism” of fashionable legend. He has connected with them as a leader who, just for once, is entirely comfortable in his Englishness. Exposing the snarl behind the good-natured bumbler would debunk that act to devastating effect.

Labour leader Keir Starmer is taking exactly the right approach, keeping up proportionate pressure. The Commons will vote on Thursday on an opposition motion for a standards inquiry, which the opposition will lose. However, there will be some Tory rebels and some more dismay at Johnson thumbing his nose at another parliamentary process. The press has already speculated as to what suppressed facts, reports and photographs the inquiry might have uncovered. Starmer will have another chance, as he did on Tuesday, to use the words “dishonest”, “insulting”, “mealy-mouthed”, “absurd” and “a joke”.

While Johnson chips away at the rules, Labour is chipping away at him. Nothing else is going to work.