British Politics Is Working Too Well - WSJ
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/british-politics-is-working-too-well-11569538342 You’d be forgiven some skepticism. This week’s main development is that Parliament no longer even knows when it’s open. Prime Minister Boris Johnson attempted earlier this month to prorogue the legislature for approximately five weeks, suspending its operation to buy himself some breathing room to negotiate a new divorce deal with the European Union. On Tuesday Britain’s highest court ruled that gambit illegal, meaning that Parliament technically has been in session this whole time without realizing it. This follows a recent round of Brexit covfefes great and small that have grown worse instead of better since Mr. Johnson took the reins from the hapless Theresa May. Selected as Conservative leader on a pledge to unite the fractious party behind a Brexit-or-bust program, Mr. Johnson instead has lost his hair’s-breadth majority in Parliament through resignations and expulsions from the party. He has yet to win a parliamentary floor vote on anything important, including his two bids to topple his own unpopular administration in order to vie for a new majority in a general election—which he might manage to lose. Rather than creating an opening for his opponents to do better, Mr. Johnson’s foibles seem to be goading them into a competition over who can govern worse. The prorogation gambit stirred opponents of Brexit into uniting behind legislation to “stop Brexit” that may or may not work. Yet they can’t organize themselves to do anything else. The main opposition, the Labour Party—which at its annual convention this week failed for the third year running to coalesce behind a single, coherent Brexit platform—has blocked a new election because it fears it might still fall short of Mr. Johnson. Other opposition parties also fear ousting Mr. Johnson because they trust Labour’s quasi-Marxist leader, Jeremy Corbyn, even less. The main result is an “opposition” that now controls a majority of seats in Parliament but can’t say what it wants, only what it doesn’t. Don’t ask who’s running the show. Apparently no one is. This, counterintuitively, is what a functioning political system looks like. The conceit we’ve inherited from the Progressive era is that government ought to be judged by the decisiveness and efficiency with which it acts. Brexiteers themselves, for all their talk about British traditions of governance, tap into this sentiment when they complain that Parliament hasn’t gotten on with implementing the verdict of the 2016 referendum. Yet an older and deeper understanding of good governance recognizes that what matters to a society is not how quickly or comprehensively the state acts, but whether a government rallies broad support for whatever it does or doesn’t do. It’s a high bar—a simple majority won’t do, as the deepening controversy over a 52% referendum victory for Brexit shows—and the safest default option for a government that can’t meet the threshold is paralysis. That’s precisely what British politics is delivering now. The most important manifestation is the omnipresent question of whether voters knew what they were voting for in 2016. It’s fair, up to a point, to suggest that this accusation from Remainers—that the referendum is tainted because voters did not know Brexit might happen without a deal, or weren’t asked exactly what sort of Brexit they’d want, or some other defect—is a rearguard action to delegitimize a historic democratic vote. But delegitimizing that sort of democratic exercise is what politics in a free country does—all the time. British parties are elected on manifestos they routinely fail to deliver in at least some particulars. American presidents are elected by landslides and then struggle to advance their agendas without terminal meddling from Congress. The main purpose of the Anglo-American system, properly understood, is to ask voters again and again whether they really want what they claim they want, and to give it to them only once they’re quite sure. British lawmakers aren’t wrong to worry about whether Leave voters really envisioned departure without a trade deal with the EU in place first, or whether those voters envisioned the sort of profound economic disruption Mr. Johnson’s government itself seems to fear based on recently leaked planning documents. In asking, those lawmakers are only doing their job, and they’re doing it surprisingly well. Rather than creating an opening for his opponents to do better, Mr. Johnson’s foibles seem to be goading them into a competition over who can govern worse. The prorogation gambit stirred opponents of Brexit into uniting behind legislation to “stop Brexit” that may or may not work. Yet they can’t organize themselves to do anything else. The main opposition, the Labour Party—which at its annual convention this week failed for the third year running to coalesce behind a single, coherent Brexit platform—has blocked a new election because it fears it might still fall short of Mr. Johnson. Other opposition parties also fear ousting Mr. Johnson because they trust Labour’s quasi-Marxist leader, Jeremy Corbyn, even less. The main result is an “opposition” that now controls a majority of seats in Parliament but can’t say what it wants, only what it doesn’t. Don’t ask who’s running the show. Apparently no one is. This, counterintuitively, is what a functioning political system looks like. The conceit we’ve inherited from the Progressive era is that government ought to be judged by the decisiveness and efficiency with which it acts. Brexiteers themselves, for all their talk about British traditions of governance, tap into this sentiment when they complain that Parliament hasn’t gotten on with implementing the verdict of the 2016 referendum. Yet an older and deeper understanding of good governance recognizes that what matters to a society is not how quickly or comprehensively the state acts, but whether a government rallies broad support for whatever it does or doesn’t do. It’s a high bar—a simple majority won’t do, as the deepening controversy over a 52% referendum victory for Brexit shows—and the safest default option for a government that can’t meet the threshold is paralysis. That’s precisely what British politics is delivering now. The most important manifestation is the omnipresent question of whether voters knew what they were voting for in 2016. It’s fair, up to a point, to suggest that this accusation from Remainers—that the referendum is tainted because voters did not know Brexit might happen without a deal, or weren’t asked exactly what sort of Brexit they’d want, or some other defect—is a rearguard action to delegitimize a historic democratic vote. But delegitimizing that sort of democratic exercise is what politics in a free country does—all the time. British parties are elected on manifestos they routinely fail to deliver in at least some particulars. American presidents are elected by landslides and then struggle to advance their agendas without terminal meddling from Congress. The main purpose of the Anglo-American system, properly understood, is to ask voters again and again whether they really want what they claim they want, and to give it to them only once they’re quite sure. British lawmakers aren’t wrong to worry about whether Leave voters really envisioned departure without a trade deal with the EU in place first, or whether those voters envisioned the sort of profound economic disruption Mr. Johnson’s government itself seems to fear based on recently leaked planning documents. In asking, those lawmakers are only doing their job, and they’re doing it surprisingly well. Previously he worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C. Raised in Vermont, Mr. Sternberg is a graduate of The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. From To Message This article has been sent to WSJ+ Membership Benefits Digital Subscription Print Subscription Print and Digital Subscription Why Subscribe? 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