Next British PM really can ‘take back control’, in more ways than one

During Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, the Leave Campaign famously promised to “take back control”. The slogan, although politically effective, was entirely fatuous. The UK’s loss of control over the decisions at European level through which it could best shape its own future was a foolish price to pay for being able to take domestic decisions in splendid isolation.

However, the next British Prime Minister, whether it be Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss, will have an opportunity to take back control in several meaningful ways.

First and foremost, the next occupant of Downing Street can take back control from the malevolent ghost of Boris Johnson. The outgoing prime minister’s long-term assault on the institutions and practices of British democracy was so relentless that no fewer than 57 of his ministers had to resign before he could be prised out of Downing Street. Johnson’s ghost continues to hover ominously over the party leadership contest, with levels of loyalty to him playing both ways. He has threatened to reappear on the backbenches, like Banquo’s ghost, to defend what he optimistically calls his legacy. His childish parting shot to the mother of parliaments, “Hasta la vista, baby,” suggests that he plans further havoc. Liz Truss, as the Johnson continuity candidate, seems less likely to break free of him.

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The first blow the incoming prime minister could, at least in theory, strike to take back control from Johnson would be to reassert the importance of respect for parliament, the courts, an independent media, ethics advisers, and the advice of the security services.

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The second important battle in taking back control would involve the next prime minister being prepared to take on the faction in the Conservative Party that enabled and controlled Johnson, its principal manifestation being the European Research Group. It has been a baleful influence for decades, either undermining party leaders, such as Theresa May, or corralling them towards acts of grievous national self-harm, as with David Cameron. The caucus, although only a minority within the parliamentary party, has been determined to choose Johnson’s successor or to tie the new leader’s hands. It is pleased to see Truss through to the vote of party members. If the new prime minister is serious about taking back control, the tail can no longer be allowed wag the dog.

A third challenge will be to seize back some measure of control over the political agenda from the tabloid newspapers that have infantilised British political debate and the British public over many years.

Brexit has morphed into a pervasive, irrational hostility towards an organisation of which the UK was a valued and influential member for half a century

Fourth, Sunak or Truss will have an opportunity to take back control of the United Kingdom’s approach to its relationship with its European neighbours. For many years now, the British government’s approach to the countries that should be its closest friends has been driven neither by a natural instinct for friendship nor by Britain’s own interests. Brexit has morphed into a pervasive, irrational hostility towards an organisation of which the UK was a valued and influential member for half a century.

Co-guarantors

Fifth, the new prime minister will have an opportunity to reset Britain’s relationship with Ireland and to re-establish the fundamental, necessary and long-standing principle that Ireland is a co-guarantor of the peace process. It is not possible to “take back control” in Northern Ireland, as the Johnson government believed, by acting alone or by aligning itself with the aspirations of only one community or by acting in the interests of one political party. Northern Ireland cannot be “controlled” from London in that sense. As the Good Friday Agreement recognises, managing the challenges there requires understanding the complexities, embracing the contradictory aspirations and avoiding the folly of acting unilaterally.

Above all, Sunak or Truss will have the opportunity to take back control of the sacred idea that truth is the most precious of commodities

A sixth opportunity for the incoming Prime Minister to take back control would be to wrest the objective of “going global” from those in the Conservative Party who have been brazenly using the slogan as a cover for going insular. Going global is incompatible with the breaking of treaties or international law, with leaving the European Convention on Human Rights or otherwise abandoning accepted international constraints and norms.

Finally, above all, Sunak or Truss will have the opportunity to take back control of the sacred idea that truth is the most precious of commodities. The concept of “misleading the House of Commons” may come to mean something again.

It remains to be seen whether a prime minister Sunak or prime minister Truss will seek to take back control in any or all of these important ways. Nor, indeed, is it clear whether the forces that controlled Johnson will allow his successor the freedom of manoeuvre to do so. However, the winner of the current leadership contest will have an opportunity, should they choose to use it, to try to give real meaning to the idea of taking back control.

Bobby McDonagh is former Irish ambassador to London, Brussels and Rome.