The Bonfire of the Decencies: Repairing and Restoring the British Constitution

A reflection on the state of democracy and observance of the British constitution in the United Kingdom.

In The Bonfire of the Decencies, Peter Hennessy and Andrew Blick use Boris Johnson’s tenure as prime minister to argue that mechanisms for the upholding of constitutional principles in the United Kingdom are deficient and require an overhaul. They show that, from the outset, Johnson’s time in office was a source of serious disruption that saw standards and integrity compromised, as well as constitutional values violated. Those problems, however, did not end with Johnson’s removal from office. Rather, they are part of longer-term tendencies in the UK, and of a worrying international trend towards the weakening of democracy. Hennessy and Blick analyze the pre-existing vulnerabilities that Johnson exposed in the UK system of government and conclude with a series of proposals to repair the damage and prevent a repetition of this anxious episode in the UK’s political history.
 

Peter Hennessy is the Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of several books, including the postwar trilogy Never Again: Britain 1945–51, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties, and Winds of Change: Britain in the Early Sixties. His most recent work is On the Back of an Envelope: A Life in Writing, also published by Haus. He is a fellow of the British Academy and an honorary fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He sits in the House of Lords as an independent crossbench peer.

Andrew Blick is professor of politics and contemporary history in the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, where he codirects the Centre for British Democracy. He is the author of Electrified Democracy: The Internet and the United Kingdom Parliament in History and Beyond Magna Carta: A Constitution for the United Kingdom. Before entering academia, he worked in the UK Parliament and at Number 10 Downing Street. His PhD on the history of special advisers in the UK government was supervised by Peter Hennessy. He is director of the Constitution Society, an educational charity for the promotion of knowledge of constitutional issues.