How Jacob Rees-Mogg is making a mockery of British democracy

The consequences of the Commons leader’s obstinacy could force the government into yet another U-turn, writes Sean O'Grady

MPs queue outside the House of Commons as they wait to vote on the future of proceedings (PA)

For a building completed in around 1870 (late and over budget), and in need of £4bn of refurbishment and riddled with vermin (no joke intended), the Palace of Westminster functions surprisingly well. But it does not, it has to be admitted, function efficiently at all in its traditional, neo-gothic way in the age of Covid.

After the business secretary, Alok Sharma, had to self-isolate and be tested for Covid-19 after showing signs of illness at the dispatch box, attention has turned once again to the government’s decision to end most of the remote-working “hybrid parliament” arrangements launched with the lockdown on 23 March. These were working, a few internet glitches aside, but have now mostly been scrapped. The restoration of the old ways has been pushed through by the leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg. A noted traditionalist with a taste for interwar-era fashions, Rees-Mogg objected to members voting while walking in the sunshine, and highlighted the risk that a child might vote by accident (again, no joke intended). Others suggested that he wanted to restore the usual noisy claque of Tories to support the prime minister at question time.

Labour MPs, Conservative backbenchers, unions representing staff, and the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, have all expressed misgivings about the Rees-Mogg plan and the safety of such an environment as the parliamentary estate. In particular, there was outrage that older MPs and others obliged to stay at home and shield were to be prevented from recording a vote and representing constituents because they did not do so in person. There followed concessions for “pairing” and, in a fresh U-turn, proxy votes, but resentments persist; they have not been assuaged by the new, supposedly Covid-secure method of voting. When the old lobbies were declared unsuitable, a new procedure had to be devised that involves a queue of MPs half a mile long snaking around Westminster (again, no joke intended). Candid photographs showed many legislators, including Mr Rees-Mogg, apparently neglecting social-distancing rules on crowded escalators and in congested undercrofts. They then have to pass by the very dispatch boxes where Sharma was mopping his brow (the boxes since subjected to a deep clean). Voting may take hours, and has made the mother of parliaments look rather foolish. The Health and Safety Executive might declare it an unsafe place of work; though as a royal palace, Westminster enjoys certain legal privileges.

Meanwhile, a Westminster Council track-and-trace squad would have to find all of Sharma’s contacts and ask them to self-isolate for 14 days. He attended a slimmed-down cabinet meeting in person earlier in the week and was in the building with scores of people.

The week has, in other words, added to the “narrative” of a government that is, at best, not fully in control of events, or, at worst, thoroughly incompetent. The rows over testing, the 14-day quarantine and the Cummings affair have damaged the poll ratings of the prime minister and his government. Not being able to embrace electronic voting for MPs using the kind of modern technology taken for granted by every other workplace makes ministers look ridiculous and out of touch (Mr Rees-Mogg’s antique posturing doesn’t help). Another U-turn may be approaching. Slowly.