Ministerial Irresponsibility in the UK Government: Constitutional Accountability after Theresa May and Boris Johnson

Gordon, Michael ORCID: 0000-0002-8830-891X (2024) Ministerial Irresponsibility in the UK Government: Constitutional Accountability after Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Public Law (July).

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Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the operation of the constitutional conventions of ministerial responsibility in the UK between 2016 and 2022, during the momentous governments of Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson. It argues that the UK government has entered an era of constitutional accountability defined by ministerial irresponsibility. This re-conceptualisation of the UK's framework of political responsibility has five dimensions: a historic volume of ministerial resignations; the existence of gaps and imbalances in the application of the conventional rules; the exacerbation of tensions in political responsibility by intense political disagreement; the specific challenges generated by the role and responsibilities of the Prime Minister; and the failure of the dual normative purposes of these rules underpinning responsible government. By arguing that the UK government's constitutional practice is now best characterised using the idea of ministerial irresponsibility, the article moves beyond claims that the conventions of ministerial responsibility were either destroyed or vindicated during the May-Johnson era. Instead, the concept of ministerial irresponsibility is intended to capture the systemic failings of this fundamental part of the UK's political accountability framework, in a context where the specific rules of ministerial responsibility retain both descriptive and normative constitutional salience. The article argues that these constitutional norms must ultimately be redeemable, although there is little evidence in the period after May and Johnson that the UK's era of ministerial irresponsibility was a short-term deviation from standard practice, rather than a more fundamental shift.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Law and Social Justice
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	23 Feb 2024 14:49
Last Modified:	23 Feb 2024 14:51
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3178845