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Markets shrugged off on Tuesday the news that U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had tested positive for COVID-19, had been taken into intensive care in a London hospital. That doesn’t mean that investors don’t care about the identity of the man or woman who happens to be governing Britain. It can be interpreted as a sign of robust confidence in the capacity of U.K. institutions to keep operating, whoever the operators are.
The pound GBPEUR, +0.17% quickly recovered after an initial fall. The FTSE100 UKX, +2.77% stock exchange market rose on Tuesday, up 2.7% in midday trading, along with other European markets SXXP, +2.77%. And yields on U.K. 10-year gilts TMBMKGB-10Y, 0.351% spiked briefly before falling back to their Monday morning level.
The U.K. doesn’t have a determined process to deal with the case where a prime minister becomes unable to do his or her job. One of the characteristics of what the British call their “constitution” is that it is not a formal, written text with rules and procedures written in stone for decades. It is rather a flexible addition of successive laws and political practices and customs, contrasting with the solemn constitutions of countries such as the U.S., France and most European democracies.
The document closest to a written constitution is currently the “cabinet manual” written by a civil servant back in 2010, compiling the laws, customs and practices of the U.K. institutional system. It has no legal standing in and by itself, and must rather be read like a guide to follow by governments.
The U.K. system is clear on what happens in case of death or resignation of the prime minister — the ruling party will choose a new leader, whom the Queen will then appoint as head of government. But there is nothing in the case of temporary absence from the job.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had also been appointed “First Secretary of State” by Johnson when the current cabinet was formed in December 2019 following the election. He was naturally confirmed as a caretaker when the PM isolated himself after testing positive for the virus. But that is not a general rule — it just reflected Johnson’s choice. He could have chosen someone else to chair the cabinet meeting in his place.
Johnson could also have appointed a deputy prime minister when he formed his cabinet. He didn’t, because he didn’t have to. And even if he had, the so-called deputy wouldn’t have necessarily become the caretaker in any case. Like “first secretary of state,” deputy PM is an honorary title that doesn’t come with specific powers unless the PM decides it does. During the first term of David Cameron’s premiership, from 2010 to 2015, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was the deputy PM. But as leader of the coalition’s junior party, he wouldn’t have taken over if Cameron had been incapacitated.
And while Johnson is in intensive care, it doesn’t mean that Raab is the real acting PM. Michael Gove, a senior member of the government with the title of “Minister for the Cabinet Office,” insisted in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday morning that decisions would from now on be taken “by the cabinet,” collectively.
Gove is among the ministers said to have jockeyed for the position of caretaker (and lost) when Johnson was found to have the virus, but he is legally right: in the U.K. system, the PM is first among equals in the cabinet. “Cabinet is the ultimate decision-making body of government” and “the cabinet system of government is based on the principle of collective responsibility,” the manual indicates.
The U.K. system remains mum on two points. The first is who is in charge of the nuclear button when the PM is incapacitated. The only official response, as Gove and others reiterated this week, is that “procedures are in place” for such cases, but that nothing more can be said due to the need for secrecy.
The second source of uncertainty is what happens if the PM becomes unable to perform his or her job but doesn’t realize it and cannot or refuses to resign — the cases of dementia, or of a long coma, being the most obvious examples. Depending on the legal scholars, forcing the PM to quit could then fall either to the Queen, the cabinet, or the ruling party. But there is no rule — and for a sacking by the monarch, no precedent since the early 19th century.
Even in that extreme situation — certainly not the one the U.K. finds itself in at the moment — markets have some reasons to be sanguine about Johnson’s travails. The government will go on, with the same ruling party. Under a parliamentary system, Parliament matters most.
Read:Who is Dominic Raab?
