Caucus dysfunction: The demise of the UK’s Liz Truss shows the true cost of a “team” that can’t see the forest from the trees.

The causes of political party dysfunction are easy to explain. The fixes are harder to achieve.

This morning Liz Truss, the Prime Minister of Great Britain resigned as the UK government further descended into chaos. Notably, Truss’s resignation occurred as a British newspaper was tracking whether a head of iceberg lettuce would retain its freshness longer than Liz Truss would remain Prime Minister of Great Britain.

The iceberg lettuce won the day, and presently, who will lead next is unclear.

Setting jokes about the waste of what could have been a perfectly decent wedge salad aside, the situation within the UK Tory party should not elicit feelings of joy or morbid fascination from anyone.  

Rather, the implosion of the current governing party and the gross instability it creates should elicit feelings of fear for every global democracy. And within the ruling Conservative Party, it should engender a moment of sobriety.

I'll pause here to say that it's important to point out that internal political party - or specifically caucus - dysfunction is not a problem that plagues one political party over another; it's baked into both the Canadian and UK systems of government. For example, former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had his share of caucus issues, and the Canadian Liberal Party saw years of factional infighting between former Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin while they were in government. When the Liberals finally lost government in 2006, it would be nearly ten years before the party selected a consensus candidate in a crushing leadership vote majority that led them to victory.

But that elected Members of the governing UK Conservative Party are in open mutiny just months after disposing Boris Johnson and the death of Queen Elizabeth is good news only for despots like Russian President Vladimir Putin. This chaos and instability are happening in one of the world’s most important democratic economies while the world is grappling with soaring inflation, rising interest rates, looming recessions, and food shortages. Adding the gross instability of leadership mutiny and tribalism means less capacity for the UK government to strategically address any of these issues, particularly Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. 

For the sake of the greater good, the world should be imploring every elected member of every party to expeditiously get their shit together and reassert that they are capable of providing the stability needed to govern. This is a time of significant global crisis. No one should be treating elected official party infighting as a spectator sport that has devolved into a head of lettuce with googly eyes and a wig.

But unfortunately for the democratic world, fixing internal party dysfunction is not an easy proposition - its root causes are tied to problems inherent to our system of government and the incentive structures that have emerged around it.

So why does dysfunction - multiple leaders tossed in few years - like what we’re witnessing in the UK happen in the first place? 

It’s actually not that complicated.

The roots of this problem have grown as the centralization of power within political parties has increased. There is some solid rationale for centralization - a tight decision making process can make a political party more nimble and effective, particularly in the brave new age of social media. But it also can open a party up to significant vulnerabilities. In this model, real decision making and policy development authority is restricted to the party leader, and a tight circle of staff with perhaps one or two closely trusted MPs. Other elected officials are expected to vote in line with what this “centre” of the party has decided, or risk demotion or be removed from the promotion list. 

But if a party leader has not been selected with a massive majority in a leadership race, and particularly if the leadership race that they were selected in was bitterly fought, they can lack legitimacy within their caucus and are rarely given room to grow or fail. If centralization of power is attempted in this situation, people might immediately chafe. 

Unless “the centre” can find ways to weave agency for MPs into this process, unrest inevitably evolves - particularly if it becomes clear to someone that their voice doesn’t carry weight or if they are being purposely marginalized. In her book, “Indian in the Cabinet”, former Liberal cabinet Minister Jody Wilson Raybould - herself having been removed from her role as Justice Minister by Justin Trudeau - aptly stated, “...our current (political) system is structured to reinforce the party system of control. It can be costly to think for yourself. Such costs include marginalization, a limit on opportunity, and even removal.”

Dysfunction can come to a head when a party has spent too long in either opposition or government. Without change, the wheel of fortune moves slower as time progresses, and MPs either get comfortable in or resentful about their positions and minor irritation and grievances grow into loss of trust and unrest. Put another way, MPs either get tired of losing elections or tired of winning them and not having a cabinet position, or having a role, and getting arrogant and lazy when it comes to assuaging their “less fortunate” colleagues' egos. 

Then, mix in weeks away from home in long sitting days, followed by dinners with colleagues instead of family members, and grudges can become polished and weaponized. As in the case of Boris Johnson’s ouster, people start thinking they could do a better job than the person in charge. The bigger picture is lost, plots are hatched, and lettuce ends up on the front page of a newspaper.

That this happens in a system that falls into a gray area of labour code and good practice human resource systems is no coincidence. For example in Canada, recent amendments to the Labour Code exempted federally registered political parties from laws to prevent workplace harassment. In Canada, the House of Commons' own harassment policy offers little support or formal recourse for neutrally mitigating conflict between MPs, leaving it instead to the centres of parties to manage. There is no formal expectation setting or performance review framework for members of party caucuses, and if there were, they would not easily be governed by labour code. Few people in charge have a formal background in human resources management, or hands on experience in people management in general. It is no wonder that political grievances are settled through conflict and coups. 

So what is the fix?

It’s not simply replacing an old leader with a new one. Without systemic change, history is bound to repeat itself, as it did with former UK Prime Minister’s Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss.

Political parties need to change governance models and laws to reject the ability for caucuses to turf leaders without some sort of direct accountability to the party membership. These systems only serve to foment harassment between MPs and political instability. They hinder a leader’s ability to set a vision and execute it. 

I wonder if the UK Tories would be so quick to turf leaders if each immediately had to go to an open primary in the aftermath to account for their decision. 

Additionally, I wonder if Boris Johnson’s or Liz Truss’s head (ofs lettuce) would have been on the proverbial chopping block if their party and legislature had more rigorous requirements related to labour standards that apply to virtually every other workplace in her country. It is pure insanity to leave hundreds of people in charge of making laws in a highly charged environment, often away from family members for long stretches of time, with few meaningful tools to de-escalate and prevent conflict in a neutral manner. 

Performance metrics for persons with cabinet roles could be clearly stated and include a requirement to meaningfully consult with caucus prior to taking decisions. The same metrics should be in place for caucus members, and should be aligned with formal workplace codes of conduct. And the centres of political parties should seek dissenting opinions on policy and tactics. I highly doubt Liz Truss’s career ending mini-budget was thoroughly vetted prior to launch. I also suspect there was a great degree of ideological puritanism involved in its development as opposed to realism.  Surely there were people within her party that could have been trusted enough to go through it in principle with a critical eye in order to prevent disaster - humility seems to have been lacking.

But most importantly, malcontent MPs need to understand that power and agency in politics is something that is given to an individual MP by the people they represent, not granted from the centre of a political party. What one chooses to do with that power and agency is entirely a matter of personal choice; successes or failings should never entirely be shouldered by the party leadership. 

Being an MP in either the UK or Canada in 2022 means having a generous salary to be able to solely focus on identifying and solving problems experienced by the community one represents. Virtually anyone in the country will take our calls to educate us on any issue we set our hands to. Social media means we don’t need political parties or newspapers to platform our causes. 

What I mean by that is this; it's better for the people and the soul of the MP if less attention is paid on score settling, coups, and armchair quarterbacking of a party leader and more attention is paid to reclaiming power that has been relinquished in a centralized party system and using it for the greater good. In the coming week it is my hope that my British colleagues will select a new leader with the understanding that no one is perfect, and no one’s ego should be serviced at the cost of a nation’s economy. 

I hope they realize that they have the power and obligation to lift this new leader up and help them succeed, not just tear them down to fail - and that stability is always greater than a quest for perfection. It’s my hope that this new leader will give their caucus a chance to do the same. And if any of them can’t summon the courage to do these things, it is my hope that some decide to step back from the fray as opposed to continuing to poison the well. 

Lettuce pray that everyone gets their act together, swiftly.