Brexit does not excuse a Boris Johnson dictatorship – Bernard Ingham

Fundamentally, Brexit is to rescue our Parliamentary sovereignty from unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and so resuscitate our democracy. Or what is left of it. And there’s the rub.

Over the last 40 years I have seen our Parliamentarians fritter away their democratic rights, privileges and responsibilities.

When I joined the Department of Employment and Productivity in 1968, we had to be careful to avoid having our Minister censoriously called before the House to explain why the press had information before them.

This did not just relate to major policy and spending developments or events but also to answers to Parliamentary Questions.

MPs were jealous of their right as elected representatives to hear first and zealous in defending it. Now the substance of every announcement is systematically leaked. Not even Budgets are immune to selective leaking.

This erosion of Parliamentary rights was boosted by the seductive rise of television. I refer not to the televising of the House from 1989 but to the endless interviewing of MPs on College Green outside the Lords.

They understandably feel the publicity they get on regional TV is worth far more politically than the recording for posterity of a routine speech in Hansard.

In short, MPs have connived at the seepage of their rights and privileges for a mess of televised pottage.

They were so compromised by 1982 that they allowed an arrogant Sir Frank Cooper, head of the Ministry of Defence, to require an official, Ian McDonald, to give us nightly Dalek-style “situationers” on the state of the Falklands conflict.

That ignored the long-established requirement for Ministers to be the front men in Parliament, not officials on TV.

And then came coronavirus with the evening parade of Ministers, scientists and medics giving us their update on the pandemic. MPs should never have allowed it outside the House.

All this ignores Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell playing fast and loose with the constitution to centralise power in No 10.

Which brings me to another fundamental of our British democracy: the dispersal of power. In my day even a PM as dominant as Margaret Thatcher was no more than first among equals with her Cabinet colleagues.

It is now a serious question how far that now exists. Whatever the protestations of Boris Johnson’s over-bearing adviser, Dominic Cummings is now engaged on a Campbell-like centralization of 20 years ago.

That, after all, is how Boris Johnson lost Sajid Javid as his Chancellor because he sought to impose No 10 advisers on him. We now see this centralization being taken two notches further.

First, we are to have televised White House-style press conferences from No 10 instead of televised statements and cross-examination in the Commons. Narcissistic television reporters must be rubbing their hands with glee at their further chance to “shine”.

Second, it is clear from an otherwise incoherent letter to the Government Communications Service (GCS) – yes, Communications Service – that long contemplated centralization of the Government’s information apparatus is under way.

The euphemism employed is that the GCS is to have a single employer. I had naively, it seems, assumed that every Government press officer was employed by the existing Government.

What this seems to mean is that no longer will Ministers be in charge of their information staffs. Press officers will report to two high ranking but unelected official controllers in the Cabinet Office.

All this sees the erosion of Ministerial power – though not being landed with taking the flak – and with it Parliamentary control of the executive.

Some may feel all this is a bit arcane. It is not. What is the point of swapping Brussels bureaucratic rule for a Boris/Dom dictatorship?

It is about time our elected representatives – at least those in England since most of them in Scotland are desperate to remain under the thumb of Brussels – began, in Cummings’s words, to “take back control”.

Ministers must report to them in Parliament, not to TV. And Ministers, under collective responsibility, must be in command of their departments in order to answer effectively.

I am sure that would improve the quality of government. It would be pointless to swap Brussels bossiness for an alien Washington DC style of presidential government, especially 
when its supposed checks and balances seem rather ineffectual under Donald Trump.

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