According to the concept of 'parliamentary sovereignty' (or parliamentary supremacy) the main legislative body (in the UK being the House of Commons) has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all other government institutions, including the executive and the judiciary. However, there have been many circumstances in recent political history where it is clear that it is in fact the Prime Minister who is supreme over parliament. In a lecture at the BBC in 1976, the Lord Chancellor of the UK coined and popularized the term 'elective dictatorship' to describe the situation.
So what did Lord Hailsham mean by an 'elective dictatorship'
In short, the term is a description of the state in which parliament is dominated by the government.
The nature of the majoritarian first past the post electoral system, Prime Ministers can often gain an disproportional, yet significant level of power over parliament as their party enjoys a share of seats in the House of Commons in excess of the share of votes it receives. For example in the 2019 general election, Boris Johnson's Conservative party won 56% of seats in the Commons with only 43% of total votes, however, a more severe example of this is in the elections of 1983 and 1987 when Margaret Thatcher's won majorities of 144 and 102 respectfully, on only 42% of the vote. This gave Thatcher an unfair amount of power to carry out her plans for the reduction of trade union powers and privatization, making it near impossible for parliament to carry out effective checks and balances on her powers.
Prime Ministers are able to easily control and manipulate their significant powers of patronage and the imposition of party discipline, which always ensures loyalty. In the absence of a codified constitution, this tendency toward prime ministerial dominance is compounded by the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 and Salisbury Convention which circumscribe the House of Lords and their ability to block prime ministerial initiatives. Patronage powers entails the Prime Minister to be able to 'hire and fire' cabinet ministers effectively giving them the ability to control its own executive. A prominent example of this was the 2020 Cabinet reshuffle where Boris Johnson notably replaced his Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid with Rishi Sunak who identified as matching Johnson's economic stance. Furthermore, the Prime Minister is able to control the cabinet agenda and therefore choose what is discussed and how often they meet, during Harold Wilson's government he forbid the topic of the British devaluation of the pound, this is a clear example of how Prime Ministers prerogative powers lead to a lack of democratic legitimacy.
If the role of the Prime Minister continues to be able to exert this much power the British political system will soon evolve into a more presidential style of governance whereby parliament is no longer able to effectively limit and scrutinize the policies of the Prime Minister to the same degree.
The best way to reduce the likelihood of this happening is to reduce the power of the majority party by adopting an electoral system based on proportional representation for the Commons. The fact that the two major parties, which have monopolized government since 1945, have been ignoring calls from the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP who have consistently supported the PR for the Commons is testament of the excess amount of power Prime Minsters have wielded.
Written by Conleth Gaallagher - Instagram @conlethgallagher_
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