Dr James Strong looks to history to understand the influence of the House of Commons over the UK’s use of military force abroad, in a blog from our recent Making Sense of Parliaments conference.
Both practitioners and outside observers wonder what influence the House of Commons holds over how the UK uses military force abroad. When MPs approved the controversial invasion of Iraq in 2003, then derailed intervention in Syria in 2013, they made the issues especially salient.
We can learn a lot about parliament’s war powers by studying these recent events. Placing them in their proper context, however, requires looking back much further. By considering deeper historic precedents, we can glean new insight into the roles MPs could play at present and might assume in future. Six stand out.
First, MPs have historically used their power of supply to influence government behaviour. The Bill of Rights enshrined parliamentary control over Crown expenditure, and the right to block the government assembling a standing army except in times of war. Over time these powers became enshrined in annual votes of supply to the military, votes which gave MPs indirect control over the use of force.
Following the British defeat at Yorktown in the American War of Independence, Sir James Lowther MP attempted to block the 1781 supply to prevent the North administration continuing the conflict. It passed in part because ministers maintained that the estimates presented allowed no room for further offensive operations, though the reprieve proved temporary. The government fell in early 1782.
After a scandal over the supply of cordite to the military rocked the Earl of Rosebery’s government, MPs passed the 1895 supply vote with a critical amendment. They reduced by £200 the salary of the Secretary of State for War, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as a censure of his conduct.
Both the First and Second World Wars saw frantic parliamentary efforts at their outset to ensure sufficient supply. By the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, however, the Blair government relied on central contingency funds and the wider budget process to pay for extraordinary operations abroad. This shift arguably reduced the room for parliamentary influence.
Second, MPs possess the power of inquiry into government activities. That power ranges from everyday parliamentary questions through the work of established and ad hoc committees.
In recent years the Foreign Affairs, Defence, Public Accounts, Intelligence and Security and Political and Constitutional Reform Committees have inquired into questions about the use of force. Historically MPs have shaped the government’s decision-making agenda by demanding information and asking questions. Sir John Roebuck MP’s January 1855 motion for an inquiry into the Aberdeen government’s conduct of the Crimean War, meanwhile, brought the whole government crashing down.
Third, MPs have the power to debate the use of force. Doing so requires the government to explain itself publicly and to subject itself to critical questioning by (often well-informed) observers. It potentially brings deliberative legitimacy to particular operations, provided discussions happen in an open, well-informed environment.
By challenging Neville Chamberlain over the British campaign in Norway in May 1940, for example, MPs called the foundering Prime Minister to account. At the same time, however, Sir Anthony Eden and Tony Blair seemingly hoodwinked parliamentarians by withholding information about Suez and Iraq. That suggests governments can constrain debates.
Fourth, MPs can directly constrain the government. Henry Conway used an humble address to the throne to force the American War to a close. David Cameron agreed to respect MPs’ refusal to endorse his substantive motion calling for intervention against Bashar al-Assad. Questions remain over whether precedents set over Iraq and after established a new constitutional convention that MPs should have prior veto powers over military deployments.
Theresa May suggested not in launching airstrikes on Syria in April 2018, and considerable uncertainty remains over what sorts of operation might be affected, and when MPs should have a vote. No-one seems much interested in resolving the matter through legislation. Yet the humble address procedure remains an option, used to great effect by the Labour Party over Brexit.
Fifth, MPs retain their ultimate power to withdraw confidence in the government. Though this clearly is a nuclear option, nuclear options influence behaviour whether or not they are used. Each of the governments historically felled by parliamentary opposition to their attempts to take military action experienced a loss of confidence.
Lord North resigned rather than lose a direct confidence vote, having failed to block Conway’s motion against him. George III considered abdicating in turn. Lord Aberdeen stood down after MPs approved Roebuck’s inquiry proposal, taking the Duke of Newcastle – the first Secretary of State for War – with him. He considered the motion evidence that the House lacked confidence in the both of them. Rosebery treated the vote against Campbell-Bannerman as a question of confidence to some extent against the will of MPs themselves, who sought only to rebuke rather than to remove his government. Chamberlain won the vote that ended the Norway debate, but the direction of many speeches – Leo Amery quoted Cromwell in demanding “in the name of God, go!” – convinced him the House was lost. Cameron survived defeat over Syria precisely because he still possessed confidence.
The rise of organized political parties in the mid-to-late nineteenth century changed the nature of confidence between 1782 and 1895. The relative decline of the House of Lords, cemented by the Parliament Act of 1911 but under way well before, made MPs’ opinions progressively more important. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act did away with implicit and designated confidence motions, changing the nature of the sorts of defeat that North, Aberdeen, Rosebery and Cameron suffered. So the context has clearly changed.
Sixth, and finally, MPs have an under-remarked power to support the government. An administration backed in threatening force by the legislature arguably carries greater credibility than one without parliamentary support. Winston Churchill understood as much. At his request, the Attlee government allowed MPs a vote on British participation at the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War. His goal was to signal to enemy governments that the British political class was united behind the policy. That a similar vote might make British efforts at coercive diplomacy more credible, and so effective, played little role in debates about parliamentary influence in the early 21st century. Yet the possibility remains.
How useful are these scattered historical observations for our contemporary understanding of parliament? Answering that question requires that we draw on two different academic fields; foreign policy analysis, and UK constitutional studies.
Foreign policy analysts treat history as a cognitive variable. They consider how individual leaders perceive and misperceive past events, then use those (mis)perceptions to interpret contemporary developments. Yaacov Vertzberger, for example, described decision-makers as ‘practical-intuitive historians’ feeling their way through current events with reference to what they believed the past to be.
UK constitutional scholars see history somewhat differently. To them, history directly influences the present. AV Dicey famously described the constitution itself as ‘historic’; a collection of laws, conventions, customs and practices gradually accumulated over time. Individual perception mattered less, and actual past events mattered more.
Arguably, the events described above offer a combination of insights into the contemporary role of the House of Commons when the UK goes to war. On the one hand, past precedent determines the range of possible future options. On the other, the way contemporary decision-makers – both ministers and MPs – (mis)remember those events exerts a significant intervening effect on what actually happens.
We can learn a lot about parliament’s war powers from studying history, in sum. To truly explain its contemporary significance, however, we need also to appreciate how individual members of the political elite misperceive, sometimes deliberately, the past in interpreting the present, and adjust our conclusions accordingly.
Notes
Dr James Strong is a Lecturer in British Politics at Queen Mary University of London. Follow him on Twitter @dr_james_strong