The BBC states that MPs who oppose the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill will be allowed a free vote and will not face sanction as long as the law is passed by Parliament. An act of conscience becomes an exercise in power.
The prime minister is prepared to allow MPs who oppose a controversial embryo bill to vote against pieces of the legislation, the BBC has learned.
A senior government official said the sanction would be permitted only if it did not threaten the passage of the bill to develop human-animal embryos.
The official said Gordon Brown accepts that some members of his government object on grounds of conscience.
This is a compromise that smacks of Brown’s calculation: you may vote as you wish, but you will have to take the possibility of defeat into account. That is when you will face sanctions. Like many other vanished parliamentary conventions, this government will overturn liberal principles in pursuit of advantage.
All MPs whould receive a free vote, even though the Bill is worthy of support. No law needs to be passed: another hoary shibboleth trotted out by Labour. Comparisons with the masochistic contortions that the Liberal Democrats put themselves through under Clegg are clear.
One almost wishes that the bill is defeated so that the ‘moral’ Prime Minister is seen to punish those who acted freely. If any Prime Minister is able to sully an act of conscience, it is Gordon Brown.
You beat me to it.
What’s still more incoherent about Brown’s position is that the bill contains some clauses that affect abortion law, and on that Labour MPs will have a free vote.
The other parties are regarding the whole thing as a matter of conscience, it seems.
I find it weird that procreation and the death penalty are matters of conscience whereas the administration of medicine, what people do to their own bodies, and general sentencing policy is not.
I’m confused.
What is a “free” vote? Does that imply that, on other matters, MPs do not vote for themselves but instead merely vote as ordered by party leaders?
Or do I misunderstand?
Sunfish,
You got it.
Any MP is capable voting in any way on any matter, but when an MP votes contrary to party policy there are implications and sanctions, their career can be damaged or even destroyed.
Within the Westminster system party cohesion and discipline tends to be far stronger than under the US system.
Really? I thought it only applied to votes of no confidence.
Well I do find the distinction being made between issues like this (which have alleged religious implications) and any other matter of policy where somehow conscience is to be set aside rather worrying to begin with. Unless these (in this case) catholic MPs are closet theocrats, just because their religion bans something, doesn’t mean they have to vote against it in legislation, although they could try to ensure that doctors are permitted to exercise their conscience.
Besides that, what sympathy in the end can we have for these MPs? They choose the whip of a party controlled by a control freak. They are free to leave it if their conscience gets too heavy and it wouldn’t be before time!
Sunfish,
There is a degree of negotiation allowed, and a wide range of sanctions from the mild to the serious. The system is implemented by officers known as “Whips” who send round a letter (also called “the whip”) listing future parliamentary business and which way they would like MPs to vote. The votes are underlined with one, two, or three lines. A one line whip means that the MP’s attendance and vote is requested, but is not compulsory. A two line whip means voting is compulsory unless one has permission to be excused from the Chief Whip. This is often allowed where an MP’s own constituency is being adversely affected. It also can involve the practice of “pairing”, in which the whips of opposing parties agree to match abstentions – allowing MPs more time for constituency business without threatening the government majority. The three line whip means voting is compulsory. A vote which is not whipped at all is known as a free vote. Private members’ bills are always free, but anything put forward by the government, except in cases of extreme controversy, generally has a whip.
The formal sanctions start with withdrawal of the whip, which means the MP is effectively suspended from being a member of the party. They continue to sit as an independent MP, but are cut off from the party’s information and support networks, and lose their channels by which they can talk to and influence the leadership. There is also deselection, in which they are permanently thrown out of the party, and at the next election will have to stand for another party or an independent. Since the electorate in the UK tends to vote along party lines, this usually means they have no chance of being elected again.
There are a whole variety of informal sanctions, ranging from not getting the support of one’s colleagues on constituency issues, one’s views not being weighted as highly when influencing party policies, not getting permission to abstain on future two line whips, not getting promotion to ministerial jobs, or seats on committees or any of that other gravy-train stuff, all the way down to not getting a nice office or decent staff, since the accommodation is also in the hands of the whips.
The basic justification for it is that MPs get a big boost in their electoral chances by being members of a party, since the public votes for the party’s policies rather than the individual’s, and as such they have a duty to implement those party policies they were elected for, rather than their own personal controversial opinions (which they’ve probably kept very quiet during the election). An individual is only one of 646 and has no chance of getting anything done, while a party (so long as it is disciplined) can. In practice, party rebels tend to be very popular with the electorate, much more so than the faceless yes-men if they don’t push it too far, so parties usually tolerate a few of them. But you have to be both charismatic and very good at your job to survive out on your own like that.
Basically, it means that instead of power being vested in 646 MPs, it’s actually concentrated down even further into perhaps a dozen or so party leaders. Representative democracy in action.
Pa,
An excellent exposition of the whip system of the kind which should be regularly broadcast to the electorate.
Step-wise argument:
(i) Within-party politics is a s***pit.
(ii) We have too much party politics in government; hence government is a sh**pit.
(ii) We have too much government in the country; hence the country is a shi*pit.
[Note aside to the English-speaking: please excuse my French. Note aside to the French: please excuse my English.]
Best regards
Sounds like death or mau mau to me.
Vote your conscience as long as the Bill gets passed.
What’s the point of that?
I think there should be a free vote on all Legislation, and if some Bills dot get passed, well woopedoo!
I’m not totally sure, but it sounds a bit like a standard two line whip to me. Those whose consciences (or local constituency positions) are giving them trouble can go to the whips and bid for a certain number of permitted abstentions or votes against, which are all choreographed so everyone gets their share. The government gets its bill through, but doesn’t wreck the electoral chances of its own MPs with strong religious constituencies, upset its own internal supporters (risking a party split), or get hit with quite as much public disapproval. It also gets to make deals with those who want to rebel – if they’re allowed to rebel on this, they owe the party a favour in return, or this constitutes repayment of an earlier favour. Prospective rebels who are persuaded not to rebel are conversely owed a favour by the party, which they may be able to use in future to do some good. (Or whatever passes for it in Parliament.)
Crikey! These are politicians. Didn’t you know they were like this? “There should be a free vote on all legislation…” I mean, really. LOL.
Nigel, I assumed at first you meant “snake pit”. It took me a moment to work it out.
Yes I have met enough politicians in my time to know it’s wishful thinking PA.
You could say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one…
I don’t understand. Is he saying the bill must be passed, and MP’s will face sanction if they oppose the bill and it doesn’t pass? And this is legal in Britain? I must be missing something.
Party association is voluntary. If a politician doesn’t like the system, he can run as an independent. Good luck with that:-|
All this is a very interesting commentary on what has become os “representative” governments in both the U.K.and U.S.
Whom do these elected individuals represent, their constituent electors (See, Burke) or the power brokers of factions setting “policies?”
In the U.S it has come to pass that we are “legislated” by the unelected (the Staffs).
“Thy Rod and Thy Staff Do Conflict us.”
OH! and is this “Islamist” submission?
Paul, I think perhaps I should point out that any MP opposing the bill will not be sanctioned by disappearing into the foundations of the new Olympic stadium. That will only happen if you upset Red Ken.
No, the sanction s/he will face is to lose, or never get, the appoinment as Junior Minister for paper clips.
Westminster politics is more about power and it’s perks rather than money, though as Brussels increases its hold on our system and the distribution of those funds we can claw back from the EU becomes more important, then good old fashoined greed will become more of a factor.
Funny how suddenly they gone all worthy. I didn’t hear much about their consciences when they voted to kill 3/4 of a million Iraqis. And where were these consciences when they voted for the Lisbon Treaty, thus destroying what little was left of the sovereignty of this land?
Why all the fuss about being able voting with their consciences anyway? They should be voting to represent the views of their constituents, which is of course why they are there in the first place and why they receive a fat wedge of taxpayers money.
If they want to worry about their consciences they should have gone into the catholic priesthood, in these cases, their consciences shouldn’t even come into it.
RRS,
“Whom do these elected individuals represent, their constituent electors (See, Burke) or the power brokers of factions setting “policies?””
Both.
In an idealised situation, you can argue that each individual MP should vote their conscience as represented to the electorate on each individual issue. But there is a problem in that voting is a binary affair – you vote yes or no, and the law passes or does not. Since people’s preferences and priorities are more subtle than that, there is scope for extra profit. Furthermore, different constituencies value different measures differently, introducing scope for trade. I can trade my vote on matters where I don’t have any strong preferences for the votes of others in situations where I care greatly but they in turn are indifferent. Thus, a market in votes is born, with political favour as its currency.
MPs represent the interests of their constituencies in all the horse-trading that goes on before one of these whipped votes, or even earlier. OK, so a lot of MPs don’t like it. That raises the price, meaning that for its supporters to get it through they will have to spend a lot of political capital. Favours will have to be done – maybe one can get some urban regeneration funding or progress on one’s pet policy initiative, which is seen as more important than regulating what scientists get up to in their own labs. If the leadership consistently ignore it’s party’s preferences and drive it to every vote, the party will first rebel with increasing frequency, and then oust its leadership. MPs only cooperate with the party while it is in their interests to do so.
Essentially, the party bosses are like rich people in a more financially based market place. They can buy people’s labour, and order things as they please, but they have to pay for it. And everybody else works for the rich to produce things they personally don’t want, in exchange for the money to buy what they do want. A world in which everyone only ever does only what they want doesn’t work so well. And of course the rich only stay rich by keeping both their customers and their suppliers reasonably happy.
The analogy, I’m sure, is not exact. But to some degree thinking of politicians as akin to city traders, trading political favour on behalf of their electors, gives an interesting perspective.
Like Sunfish, I am amazed that members of Parliament need the permission of their parties if they want to represent the constituents who elected them. I don’t know how the political parties in the UK get away with astonishing theft of government from the voters representatives, but I know how they do it in the US. Our parties function as a trade union in a closed shop. Once in power, they rewrote the rules to make independent candidates almost impossible to get on the ballot and politically impotent if ever elected.
Our only hope for a return to government in the US that is run by representatives of the people and not by those political trade unions, is to enforce an ‘open shop’. Absolutely all preferential treatments of members of political parties must be abolished. Especially when qualifying candidates for placement on a ballot. A Supreme Court Justice should know that denying any candidate equal access to the ballot is a violation of article XIV, section 1. Our constitution prohibits treating people differently under the law depending on their beliefs and associations.
This court had the courage to tackle the 2nd amendment issue (we think), maybe they’ll have the courage to end the difference between party members’ rights and commoners’ rights we have in this country. Currently a popular system used to keep non-party members off of the ballot is to allow easy ballot access to people who claim membership in an association with other members who have received a certain number of votes in earlier elections. Nuts. Make every single candidate get the same number of signatures for any office regardless of what other members of his/her party have done in prior years. If a candidate associated with a major political party cannot raise the signatures for a particular candidate, that candidate should not be on the ballot. If no candidate can raise the signatures, the bar is too high.
P.A.,
In an idealized situation, the member of parliament could decide how to best act in the interest of his or her constituents. If that involved horse trading, then that is the member’s decision. All the present system does is fetter the people’s delegates to the will of the political class.
They should be voting to represent the views of their constituents, which is of course why they are there in the first place
No, an MP is not a delegate, voting according to the views of the electors. There are just too many matters fot the MP to to be able to know his electorate’s collective opinion on them all.
An MP is a representative, and votes according to his understanding of the interests of both the electors and the wider country.
Mid, the problem with the parliamentary system is that there is no real separation of the legislative branch from the executive one. So the “party discipline” is essential to keep the government stable (to prevent votes of no confidence). Whether this stability is a good thing is a different matter.
Mid,
Yes, of course. But my point was that that is the present system. An MP can rebel any time they like – and there have been quite a few rebellions. They usually don’t because the party affiliation is so incredibly valuable to the constituents interests, (since without it they lose all influence). As is the case in any trade, you get slightly more on average than you give. The problem is the same one you always get when you develop big monopolies in markets – and monopolies are a real problem – but trying to regulate them out of existence doesn’t work well either.
Here, pretty much anyone can stand for election*. Pay a deposit of £500, which you get back if you get more than 2% of the vote, and you’re in. We’ve got the BNP and the Monster Raving Loony Party and the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, and Respect, the Socialist Alternative, and the Greens, and Sinn Fein (who were well known to be the political wing of the IRA terrorists), and the Liberal Democrats and the ‘Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket’ party. We had more than 25 parties, 165 independents standing in 2005, and 153 candidates for ‘miscellaneous’ parties not listed in my source. We’re not fussy.
Of course, if you want anyone to know who you are you’ve got to pay for the advertising yourself, which is how they keep the riff-raff out, but that’s ever been the way.
[* British citizen, at least 18 years old, sane, not serving a prison sentence of more than a year, not bankrupt, not having committed electoral fraud in the last ten years.]
Having re-read the above I think I need to say, in case all that comes across as too supportive of politicians and their ways, that I agree with the original sentiment. I see MPs having to vote for the party line as morally the same as Microsoft operating system customers being forced to buy into DRM. That’s not a good thing. But there’s a good reason why people still buy/use MS (or Linux) OSes anyway, rather than going with a minor player or developing their own.
Things being what they are…and, mostly, what they always were…it is reasonable that, should you join a ‘team’, you are expected to be a team player. Demonstrations of individualism or independant thought &/or action are (considered) intolerable unless the individual is personally outstanding…and then probably not. Those such do not exist on the ground these days.
It follows that your MP is not ‘my elected representative’ simply because you did not choose him/her…but a political party…any… noted for its lack of ruth.
“Henry is a really nice & solid chap & so he got my vote.” ROTFFL Poor old emasculated Henry; ditto you.
The argument from permanentexpat @ March 24, 2008 12:41 PM strikes me as a claim along the lines of “religion is the opium of the masses”.
There might be some historical truth in that. However, I feel that the recent half-century or so of my experience (and perhaps longer) have replaced the culprit of that with the politics of communism and, more recently in the UK, socialism.
Much of politics is, of course and like religion, a matter of faith: “heaven forbid” though that we should accuse our political masters (the alpha of alpha fe/males) of that.
The trouble is that, in the modern western world at least, the consequences of religion on one’s life are largely optional. The same cannot be said of the consequences of politics. And are the masses any more intellectually discriminating than they always have been?
And is permanentexpat really arguing that the alpha fe/male hegemony will disappear with the removal of religion from society; I doubt it and (as I value highly his analysis) sincerely hope not. Surely the truth is that those of a dangerously hegemonious nature will exploit any tribal affiliation they can, to get to the top of a bigger heap.
As to Perry’s point that religions fight for market share, the current “belief fight” (even beyond the Embryology Bill) seems to be that between religion and authoritairian politics, with the latter winning. And will the world be a better place through this?
Best regards
Apologies; my above comment @ March 24, 2008 01:31 PM should have been posted to another thread: Religions fight for ‘market share’ like everyone else, which I have now done.
Perhaps an editor would be kind enough to undo my carelessness on this thread.
Best regards
Without wishing to be personally rude to any one individual, but can all the people quoting Mill and Burke just fuck off. This isn’t about some two hundred year old political philosophy this is about the hear and now and democracy being fucked up the arse by ill-informed superstitious ego-manics shouting “Frankenstein” and “monstrous”, while theocratic MPs attempt to subvert a whipped bill and stir up a public frenzy when they haven’t got a clue about the science involved or the implications of what these people are doing. Conscience, my arse. The word is dogma.
Kind Regards.
Me? Confused. Support the Bill, but support a free vote even more so!
The power of the political parties has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished.
End all private donations.
State funding for parliamentary candidates, and for elected MPs [NOT for parties]
Candidates can sign up to existing parties, or club together to create new ones, or remain independent, as they choose. They can leave, join, combine or re-combine as and when they choose.
Goodbye Brown, Maceroon and Whasisname! Hello democracy!