Coronavirus: Boris Johnson’s hospitalisation has created an unprecedented UK power vacuum
- Dominic Raab has become Britain’s stand-in leader, but does he command support from rival colleagues?
- Comes at crucial time for UK government, which must make critical decisions about country’s health crisis
Boris Johnson’s hospitalisation with coronavirus has created an unprecedented power vacuum in the UK government that threatens a political crisis when the country is in the grips of fighting a pandemic.
The UK prime minister spent his third night in hospital Tuesday, the second in intensive care, leaving his designated substitute, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in charge.
Unlike the US, the UK constitution does not provide for a clear chain of successor should the prime minister become ill or incapacitated. Prime ministers can choose whether to have a deputy prime minister or not. Johnson chose not to, and instead made the decision only recently for Raab to stand in as his substitute.
Although Raab can, in his new position, make decisions about national security, he has no powers to fire a member of Johnson’s cabinet. He is still ensconced at the Foreign Office surrounded by his own officials – not those of 10 Downing Street – probably because he doesn’t want to be seen to be too eager to jump into the prime minister’s shoes.
At the daily coronavirus press conference Tuesday, a visibly shaken Raab said there was an “incredibly strong team spirit” within the cabinet to get things done, and that the country would be run “by collective cabinet responsibility”.
“We got very clear directions, very clear instructions from the prime minister and we are focused with total unity and with total resolve on implementing them so that when he is back, and I hope in a very short order, we would have made the progress that he would expect,” Raab said.