(Photo by Per Olesen at Flickr)
As I write this, UK government is still in a leadership crisis. Large pieces of government operation became unable to do much this week because whoever was in charge of a department resigned (including junior ministers) and there was no one left in a position to take up the reins. We’ll see whether the hastily appointed successors can get a grip fast enough to keep everything going.
The UK relies heavily on custom and tradition. We call that our unwritten Constitution, but it doesn’t have the heft and solidity of a written one. Britons tend to swear oaths of service to a person (usually the Crown). Americans routinely swear oaths of service to democracy and the rule of law, represented by the Constitution.
Thursday morning, Julian Smith was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 about the ongoing meltdown of British government. He's a Tory MP who was chief whip 2017-19 and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 2019-20. He came right out and said Johnson is trying to stay as Prime Minister "in Trumpian style" (in defiance of norms). A few moments later I could swear I heard him say Johnson saw what Trump did last year to try to stay in power and has decided to give it a try himself. Since then, in both social media and mainstream media there has been ample mention of Johnson as Trumpian.
Later in the day, Boris Johnson announced he will resign as leader of the Conservative (Tory) party, but will remain in post until his successor is chosen. This means he is still PM under rules that could take weeks or months to select a new leader. Johnson could in theory attempt to be chosen as his own successor. Notably, he did not say he is resigning as Prime Minister and does not appear to have visited the Queen to do so. Trumpian style indeed.
It is not clear how well this will go. By the time of the announcement, resignations in the government had exceeded 50. The UK may be in turmoil with a hobbled government for quite some time before its leadership crisis resolves. For many companies, turmoil and uncertainty make running the business extra hard, so this is particularly difficult when the whole world is in the midst of difficulties.
In the meantime, we as “ordinary people” already have a few small insights from this for whatever organizations we run in any country, such as:
Beware of those who promise good things based on falsehoods. That’s how we got this Prime Minister in the first place.
Beware of any leader who habitually, obviously, shamelessly lies.
We should write down our rules. We may write them imperfectly and need to revise them as we discover flaws, but having them in writing helps us hold ourselves to them. When we rely on norms and traditions and the pressure of community opinion, it’s too easy for those who don’t care about such things to do whatever they want in defiance of community standards.
We should make sure the rules apply evenly to everyone. Exemptions are bad examples that encourage more and more rule-breaking.
Bad examples are like bad apples. They rot adjacent fruit. In this case, did a mother country catch some rot from an offspring?
Heaven knows what will happen by the time you read this. At least we have this start on a list of insights from it.