Dominic Raab is the best stand-in we have. Arguing about the deputy prime minister position can wait

Editorial: Constitutional reform might be tolerable in normal times – but in the middle of this crisis, the foreign secretary’s colleagues must offer their support

Raab arrives at 10 Downing Street (AFP/Getty)

Even as we send best wishes to Boris Johnson for his recovery, there are pressing questions about how the country is to be run – and this crisis managed – while he is necessarily absent from decision-making.

Of course, the nature of the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented in many decades. No one could foresee that Mr Johnson would become so unwell so rapidly, nor that the prime minister’s fiancée, the health secretary, the chief medical officer and the Cabinet Office minister would also be self-isolating. Meetings are now digital. Even if it was sitting, parliament could not function normally. There is a new Labour leader, and no permanent Liberal Democrat leader. Journalists are attacked on social media for asking difficult but reasonable questions. All of this while the country is in lockdown and governed under emergency powers. These add up to a perfect storm of a public health emergency and democratic crisis that was plainly impossible to anticipate.

However, the notion of a prime minister being incapacitated is far from unimaginable, and it is becoming plain that the British constitution is not well suited to dealing with such a situation as this.

Early on in the crisis, the minimum that could be done to ensure the smooth continuation of government – the nomination of Dominic Raab to take on at least some prime ministerial duties – was done. When Mr Johnson formed his government last year, he named Mr Raab “first secretary of state” as well as foreign secretary. Mr Johnson’s intentions have been clear and consistent – in effect, to make Mr Raab his official stand-in should he be indisposed.

But Mr Raab was not made deputy prime minister, nor is he formally now “acting” prime minister because no such job exists. Mr Raab is not in the same position as say, the vice president in the United States, taking control seamlessly. Mr Raab may be performing the role of acting PM, but there seems uncertainty about how far his authority runs beyond chairing various cabinet committees concerning coronavirus. Full cabinet was cancelled this week, and the government refuses to discuss who is in charge of national security and the armed forces. Perhaps no one is.

This might be a tolerable state of affairs for a few days in normal times – but not now. The prime minister will not be restored to full strength for some time, and the cabinet and the country needs clear leadership in this emergency. Someone, and it must be Mr Raab, does need to be able to exercise executive power to the fullest extent while the premier is on an intensive care unit.

Perhaps Mr Raab’s role should be confirmed by full cabinet or the parliamentary Conservative Party, or indeed the House of Commons as a whole. The obvious danger there is that it would be an invitation to politicking and jostling for position, hugely damaging distractions in such times as these. It is true that Mr Raab lacks any national democratic mandate (he finished sixth in the Tory leadership contest last year), but the same goes for any premier who has not won an election.

For now, to borrow an expression, Mr Raab is the best “acting” prime minister we have got, and all his colleagues must support him in his task, whatever their reservations. Revisiting how best to create a statutory position of deputy prime minister – clearly an essential constitutional reform – can wait for a more opportune moment.