Alistair Carmichael: Ludicrous Leader of the House has made Westminster a laughing stock

When I was first elected to Parliament in 2001 the Leader of the House of Commons was the late Robin Cook. Having been Foreign Secretary in the first Blair government many saw the job as a demotion for him. The man himself felt otherwise.

Jacob Rees-Mogg's actions risks shutting out constituents. Picture: Getty

Robin understood what being Leader of The House of Commons involved. It is a job like no other in the Cabinet. As well as being a minister accountable to Parliament the Leader has a duty to represent the interests of Parliament in government.

He understood what accountability meant and that was why, two years later, he went to the back benches because of the Iraq War. To this day, those of us who knew and admired him, can do worse than ask themselves “What would Robin do?”

I wonder how many of the newly elected members from December 2019 will feel the same in years to come about the current Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg. As things stand, the list will not be a long one.

This week Angela Eagle, a former Labour minister, told him in the Commons that he was “the worst holder of the Commons Leader title in living memory”. Given that four years ago the job was held by Chris Grayling, that is saying something.

There may have been some hyperbole in Ms Eagle’s accusation but there is no denying that it also had some substance.

The belief in Westminster has always been that Rees-Mogg was parked in the Leader’s Office to stop him causing trouble. We all know Lyndon B Johnson’s line about why he kept Edgar J Hoover as Director of the FBI. Another Johnson may have reached a similar conclusion.

In normal times this slightly cynical appointment might not have mattered. These are not, however, normal times and putting a man whose instincts are reactionary has been catastrophic for our democracy.

The virtual parliament with which we worked for several weeks was not perfect, but it was better than no scrutiny and it was getting better. The last couple of weeks saw MPs master the art of electronic voting. This sudden rush of modernity was clearly too much for a Commons Leader who in a different age would almost certainly have been on the side of the hand-weavers taking hammers to mechanised looms.

As a result, MPs were commanded to return to the Westminster last Tuesday. The virtual parliament, we were told, had failed. That is just bogus.

Minsters were regularly questioned and challenged by MPs and less than three weeks ago the government got its Immigration Bill past its first stage after a vote and the next day achieved the same thing for its Finance Bill. The system cannot be that inadequate or the House of Lords would not now be adopting it. Think about that for a second. The House of Lords will now have a more modern and tech-based response to the need to do business in the age of social distancing than the elected chamber.

The idea of concession does not come easily to those imbued with the sort of self-entitlement that characterises the Rees-Moggs of this world. His concession that MPs with caring responsibilities like my Scottish Liberal Democrat colleague Jamie Stone and those with underlying health conditions like his own colleague Robert Halfon could continue to join debates and question times virtually was delivered with ill grace.

He must now agree a mechanism for them to vote, or risk shutting out their constituents.

Covid-19 and lockdown challenge us all. Families and workplaces the length and breadth of the country have had to make do and adapt. To insist that Parliament alone should cleave to processes born in the 19th century risks the integrity of the institution and makes it a laughingstock around the world.

It is time all parties listened to the people and got behind change.

Alistair Carmichael is Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland