Should we do away with the Whips?

[Chris_Sleeps]

they help maintain party discipline, and at the end of the day if an MP is a Member of a party which has funded his election and supported him/her then he should follow the party line and at the end of the day a party which is divided on too many issues can neither form an effective government nor an effective opposition.

I believe in the absolute opposite. A politician isn't paid to represent his party's interests, he is paid to represent the people who voted for him. If party interest goes against what his constituants are telling him then it is the fundamental job for a politician to take this view to parliament. Not to ignore it.

[ampersand]

While his/her party may have funded and supported them, the real debt is owed to the constituants who voted for him/her- IMO, first loyalty should be to them.

 

True, but most people don't vote for a person, they vote for a party - most people wouldn't be able to name their MP but they'd have a better idea which party they represent - most MP's wouldn't be in Parliament if they didn't have a Party hat on

[esme]

Do you think having the Whips in Parliament is democratic, why should our representatives be harried into voting a certain way?

 

No I don't, we elect our MP's in the faint hope they will represent our views in parliament.

 

The party whip makes that idea a nonsense.

 

The wants of the party come first specifically the handful of people in the cabinet who make decisions behind closed doors and then get the whips to enforce the decision, then any lobbyists who happen to have bought the MP a big dinner recently, then their own wants and desires, then their family and friends wants and desires and then a loong way down the list comes the wants and desires of their constituents providing they don't conflict with any other parties wishes.

 

The whip comes first as any MP who defies the whip often enough will be removed from office by their party, probably by being put on the back benches and given menial tasks until the next election when a different candidate for their constituency will be put forward, their nice office and salary will disappear, so the majority do as they are told.

 

The party can effectively remove an MP from office but we can only elect them.

 

We need the ability to remove an MP from office and force a by election to replace them if a certain percentage of their constituents express sufficient dissatisfaction with their performance to want them removed, this percentage should be large enough to prevent malicious or harassing removals but small enough so that it can reasonably be attained.

 

If we can hoik them out of their salaried, comfortable position of power and make them fight for re election in a constituency that has just removed them from office then they might put the constituencies wishes before the whips.

 

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to pass any legislation that allows this.

[andyofborg]

I believe in the absolute opposite. A politician isn't paid to represent his party's interests, he is paid to represent the people who voted for him. If party interest goes against what his constituants are telling him then it is the fundamental job for a politician to take this view to parliament. Not to ignore it.

 

and as pointed out above if everyone did that then almost nothing would get passed.

 

the duty of the mp is to represent everyone in his constituancy which means trying to establish just what his constituents actually feel might be hard, especially when most probably wouldn't bother to fully inform themselves about every little issue. equally of course, there is the wider national interest which may or may not entirely match the narrower interests of the constituents.

 

and finally what's the point of an mp if they can't use their mind and talents to probe issues and come to the correct decision.

 

there are certainly issues of the separation of the legislature and the executive and lobbying and indeed the quality of the candidates but fiddling with the whips wont fix any of those

[andyofborg]

We need the ability to remove an MP from office and force a by election to replace them if a certain percentage of their constituents express sufficient dissatisfaction with their performance to want them removed, this percentage should be large enough to prevent malicious or harassing removals but small enough so that it can reasonably be attained.

 

in cases of gross misconduct or criminal activity then yes, but you need to be careful if you make removal too easy then the mp will either be to scared to make any meaningful decision or simply do what seems popular regardless of whether or not its right.

 

If we can hoik them out of their salaried, comfortable position of power and make them fight for re election in a constituency that has just removed them from office then they might put the constituencies wishes before the whips.

 

But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to pass any legislation that allows this.

 

you can do that quite easily by not voting for them at the election or even joining the local party and campaigning for a different candidate when they are selecting the candidate for the next election

[esme]

in cases of gross misconduct or criminal activity then yes, but you need to be careful if you make removal too easy then the mp will either be to scared to make any meaningful decision or simply do what seems popular regardless of whether or not its right.

No if large enough percentage of the constituency makes their feelings known on an issue and the MP continues to follow party line then the constituents should have the right to remove their consent for this person to represent them in parliament.

 

The aren't elected to represent their party they are elected to give their constituents a voice in parliament.

 

If their constituents do not express an opinion on an issue then the MP can follow party line or their conscience as they see fit.

 

And I did say this should only happen if a certain percentage of their constituents want them removed, where this percentage is large enough to prevent malicious or nuisance removals from office but not so large that removing an MP from office becomes unattainable.

 

This could be done in libraries, if any remain open, over a monthly period.

 

You go to the library, verify you are on the electoral register and that you haven't voted this month, then at the end of the month a count of the votes is made and if it exceeds a critical value then the MP is deselected.

 

I'm sure enough volunteers could be found to do the counting.

you can do that quite easily by not voting for them at the election or even joining the local party and campaigning for a different candidate when they are selecting the candidate for the next election

Yes, but you have to wait until the next election before you can do that, MP's know they have several years of office, they also know that the public has a short memory, they also know that the majority of their constituents would rather stay at home than actually do anything and that they can ignore us until shortly before the run up to the next election when the PR and spin machines will be telling us lots of things we want to hear.

 

No one else has job security these days, why should we guarantee an MP several years in office based on a decision we made by looking at the promises they gave us before the election, but have not kept after the election.

 

If the CEO of an organisation fails to live up to the expectations of the shareholders the shareholders will summarily boot them out and find someone better, I saw this happen in a multinational company, the CEO was there one day and gone the next because of one decision the CEO made that the shareholders did not like.

 

Why should MP's be different to the CEO of a multinational organisation ?

[WeX]

Every MP should be able to vote in accordance to his or her constituency's views.

[Chris_Sleeps]

and as pointed out above if everyone did that then almost nothing would get passed.

Firstly, I don't agree with the conclusion. To say "nothing would happen" is only supposition. Before the Party Whip, politics was fractured, and to use that to conclude about today is silly. Before universal suffrage we had two parties built around the nobility and the middle class, and plenty happened. Parliament could be rested for years on end without meeting, and politics still rolled on. The conclusion that we'd be stuck in an endless limbo of debate isn't true, I believe.

 

You're verging on a contradiction with the second part. Are you saying that the duty of an MP is to represent his constituants, and he does this best by ignoring them in favour of Party Line?

 

if you make removal too easy then the mp will [...] simply do what seems popular regardless of whether or not its right.

The fundamental criticism of democracy; Mob rule. It is true, but it is equally true that ignoring the masses isn't democratic. The dichotomies we see in life.

[esme]

...the duty of the mp is to represent everyone in his constituancy which means trying to establish just what his constituents actually feel might be hard, especially when most probably wouldn't bother to fully inform themselves about every little issue.

It would be up to the constituents to inform their MP of their feelings on any one particular issue, these would also need to inform themselves of the details of these issues in order to make a sensible argument.

 

If a critical mass of constituents fail to make their feelings known, then the MP is free to act according their own conscience or even follow the party line.

 

However they should still take these concerns on board and consider them objectively, rather than reject them out of hand because they run contrary to the party line.

[cressida]

The things is not all constituents are going to agree on any particular issue, which then leaves the MP to choose for himself which to support although I think he shouldn't be pressured into voting against his own judgement by the Whips