How the Sue Gray report may (or may not) lead to a new British PM | Boris Johnson

The United Kingdom does not have a codified “written” constitution, and this means that power shifts can take unusual and unprecedented forms. The current prime minister, Boris Johnson, faces the loss of his office, but not because of any formal mechanism. His weakening position is because of the publication on Monday of some of the results of an internal civil service investigation.

The investigation, conducted by senior government official Sue Gray, is into whether the prime minister and his circle on Downing Street disregarded lockdown regulations and partied away instead. This was while the rest of the British public were required to comply with strict social distancing rules, including not being able to attend those in hospital or on their deathbeds.

We do not have the final report, only a partial “update”. This is because London’s metropolitan police are also investigating the parties so as to see if there need to be any criminal proceedings. For the police even to be involved means they believe there were grounds to suspect “serious and flagrant” breaches of the law.

The beleaguered prime minister may insist that critics await the conclusion of the police investigation, but for the police to be investigating twelve incidents – including two at which the prime minister appears to have been present – cannot be positive for him on any view. As the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, said in the House of Commons, the necessary implication is that the British prime minister is under police investigation.

Much of the immediate focus has been on what is not in the report and if the final report will ever be published. But what was in the report is bad enough. There was “a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of Government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”.

Gray continues: “There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times”. In any sensible political system, these partial findings would be enough for a prime minister to lose office. But in the super-charged post-Brexit politics of the UK, however, Johnson and his hyper-partisan supporters are seeking to hold on.

The decision as to whether the prime minister will be replaced now falls to government backbenchers. If enough indicate that they do not support the prime minister, then there can be a vote of no confidence. Significantly, few government supporters could be found to support Johnson in Monday’s debate and the speaker of the commons was forced to keep calling opposition members of parliament.

If Johnson loses a no-confidence vote, then government backbenchers and the wider Conservative party have a process for electing a new leader. This may take time, especially if there is no obvious frontrunner. But it is not an uncommon experience: This is the way Theresa May was selected after the Brexit referendum and how Johnson himself took the leadership.

Indeed, many prime ministers have lost office in ways other than general elections. In both world wars, government supporters in effect chose a new national leader without a general election. More recently, both Margaret Thatcher (1990) and Tony Blair (2007) lost their office because of Westminster politics between elections rather than because of popular votes.

And so what the world may see this week is how a political system without a formal constitution yet again removes – or does not remove – a weakened prime minister. If Johnson does not go on this occasion, then it will only be a matter of time before the same problem again arises – either with the conclusion of the Downing Street parties investigation or otherwise. The British political system abhors a weak prime minister.

As this drama converts into a crisis, the everyday work of British government is paralysed. This is because the issue is only incidentally about the Downing Street parties – the real matter at stake is whether an executive can impose rules on the rest of us and disregard those rules itself.

People made unimaginable sacrifices to comply with the rules. Some people were arrested and prosecuted for similar breaches. At the heart of this political situation is a basic sense of inequity. The feeling that, when it mattered, there was one rule for citizens generally but another rule – or no rules – for the prime minister and his circle.

Perhaps if Johnson had admitted the transgressions immediately and apologised with actual sincerity, he could have survived. This story has now dominated politics for months, but it might already have been forgotten.

But the prime minister sought to evade accountability and gamed the process so that he could avoid being accountable either to parliament or, through the media, the people. We were all to wait for the Sue Gray report – and he could not comment otherwise.

Well, now the Sue Gray report is here – at least in part. He could only evade giving an account for what happened in Downing Street for so long, and now he is running out of excuses. The British constitution may abhor a weak prime minister – but it also abhors sustained lack of accountability to elected representatives. The longer Johnson put things off, the bigger the problem became.

Few things in human affairs are inevitable, and the British prime minister certainly believes he can survive this political predicament. But the decision is now out of his hands. And we will see whether the un-codified system that has installed or got rid of many other prime ministers will get rid of this one and install another one instead.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.