London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Jul 23, 2025

The week Boris Johnson went to war with the law

The week Boris Johnson went to war with the law

As PM takes aim at multiple international laws and courts after Partygate saga, critics fear escalating delinquency
Boris Johnson’s first speech in office extolled the virtues of “habeas corpus and the rule of law”. But three years later, the prime minister stands accused of trying to break international law twice in a week – on the Northern Ireland protocol and steel tariffs.

The latter led to the resignation of his ethics adviser, Lord Geidt.

It was also the week in which Johnson alarmed many in his own party, as well as in the legal profession, by suggesting that the UK could withdraw from the European convention on human rights. This was in response to a last-minute court order that halted his plans to deport people seeking asylum to Rwanda.

Johnson’s critics say his approach of changing or breaking the rules when they do not suit him has been his playbook throughout his political career, whether by changing the standards system, overhauling judicial review or proroguing parliament to avoid scrutiny. Nowhere is this more evident than his police fine for breaking the Covid lockdown laws that he had brought into force, which has earned him the dubious distinction of being the first sitting UK prime minister to have personally broken the law.

“The government confirmed it will change the law so it can ignore injunctions from the European court of justice retraining government action. The independent ethics adviser may not be replaced. The judicial review act now allows courts to ignore past breaches of law by the government on JR. The trend is clear,” observed Charlie Falconer, the Labour peer and former justice secretary.

The government’s “cavalier” approach toward the law under Johnson appears to be new, said Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and the UK in a Changing Europe.

Politicians railing against court judgments – particularly European ones – for the benefit of the rightwing press has long been a recurrent theme, she said. But she added that there was a sense among experts on government that Johnson’s administration has taken this further.

“We always says we’re interested in upholding an international rules-based order, but I think the bit that is new is the unembarrassed, flagrant proposal around the Northern Ireland protocol and making commitments that we then denounce relatively soon thereafter,” Rutter said.

Rutter said Johnson appeared to subscribe to “the divine right of the popular will, seeing any restraint on getting its way as illegitimate”.

Despite his fall in the polls, Johnson appears still to believe himself in tune with the public. “If you think you’re in a Spock-like mind-meld with the British people, then everything else is illegitimate, and I think that’s a sort of Johnsonian post-Brexit mindset,” she said. “They seem more unembarrassed by untrammelled executive power than any other government I’ve seen.”

Johnson’s first clashes with the law came early in his premiership, when he attempted to prorogue parliament for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis – a move that was ruled unlawful by the supreme court.

With his leadership on the rocks, there is a sense that Johnson may again be ramping up populist tensions with the law – especially on matters relating to Europe – as part of a fresh “people versus the establishment” narrative.

Sir Roger Gale, a Conservative MP and one of the prime minister’s biggest critics from his own benches, said the breach of international law in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol was particularly concerning.

“We don’t break international law. If we do, we have no right to criticise other countries when they break international law, and that of course would include the Russian Federation as well as anyone else,” he said. “We should be sitting down and talking to people in a civilised manner … We cannot go on scoring political points over Europe. It’s like the PM is a one-trick pony. All he’s got is Brexit and he wants to rub it in on every occasion because that’s his USP. We need to move on.”

He said the approach to the European court of human rights and the Rwanda decision was also a “dog-whistle, kneejerk response” and an example of “more Europe-bashing” when the court is associated with the Council of Europe, not the European Union.

Within the legal community, there have been wider concerns about the Conservative government’s approach to the law, including the failure of the lord chancellor and attorney general to stand up for judges in the face of pressure and abuse.

A highly critical report from the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and the constitution found earlier this month that ministers had acted improperly by questioning the legitimacy of judges and threatening to reform the judiciary. They argued that this had created an impression that recent supreme court decisions favourable to the government may have been a response to political pressure.

Ellie Cumbo, head of public law at the Law Society, said the job of the lord chancellor, currently Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, was a “constitutional grey area” when it came to how far he should go in sticking up for the judiciary.

She said every time inflammatory language around judges, immigration decisions or judicial review were challenged, the government appeared to take an approach of “ramping up those accusations and misleading rhetoric” rather than dampening it down.

“It’s not clear where it’s going to end,” she said.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×