Limit the number of ministers, abolish Parliamentary Private Secretaries and further place a limit on the number or percentage of ruling party MPs that may serve in Government. Granting Government jobs to MPs has been used increasingly as a way to help ensure more MPs 'tow the party line' often in the face of staunch opposition from constituents. Limiting this tactic will help to ensure more MPs remain more accountable to their electorate, not the party.
Ban unelected Lords from serving in Government.
We will introduce a system that allows constituents to overrule their MP.
A platform will allow constituents to register their discontent with the way an MP voted on an issue. If 20% or more of constituents do so it will trigger a local referendum, the result of which could overrule the original vote.
Such an occurrence is undesirable, with the system acting as a robust democratic 'stick' with which to encourage MPs to take care to represent rather than blindly towing the party line.
To help MPs avoid discontent they will be provided with digital tools to actively engage and consult consituents throughout their term. This is the 'carrot'.
It is expected that this system will produce few referendums but it needs to be incredibly efficient to minimise delays in Government business.
@PaulJRobinson - about 10 years ago
I think at the moment I'm 👎 on this. Sorry.
I'm happy for a decent system of MP Recall for those persistently failing to represent constituents. I'm happy for more direct democracy within the legislature, but I don't think a 'post-MP's-vote-override' is the right way of achieving that.
It does seem to me that being overridden by your constituents is effectively a vote of "no confidence" in an MP, and so the general rules of recall would seem to allow the same thing. I think I'm a no also, this seems too complex to me. 👎
@philipjohn is there a particular example you could give that would require this, but not result in recall? That might help us think through the implications.
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
I hadn't thought about it that way @Floppy, but a disagreement on one issue doesn't necessarily mean constituents have completely lost confidence in their MP. Case in point: the Iraq War.
The likelihood of an override ever swinging the decision of the Commons is tiny. Most votes just aren't close enough. You'd probably need tens of constituencies to simultaneously instigate an override for it to go anywhere.
A good example of that is probably the Iraq War again. That was probably the last time there was enough public dissent that this override idea might have been used extensively by the electorate. But the majority on that vote was 263. That means 263 constituencies would have needed to complete a successful override to change the decision. Clearly, that's highly unlikely. Far less than 100 constituencies would even get close...
You may say that means the override would be useless because it would hardly ever go aware.
True, but my aim with this is to fundamentally change the relationship between constituents and individual MPs. MPs are more likely to be scared of their electorate's response to their voting behaviour knowing they can be slapped down if necessary. They may be less inclined to simply tow the party line on a contentious issue is there is enough public pressure.
Too often Governments (whether directly, or through rhetoric) rule by fear. I passionately believe MPs should fear the electorate and that's what overrides would do. As Jefferson said, "A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy."
@PaulJRobinson - about 10 years ago
I can't remember if I've already 👎 (I assume it won't count my vote twice just in case). I don't think this PR is a practical solution. I remain in favour of MP recall whilst we retain representative democracy, but like that we are open towards direct/liquid democracy as a much better system to aim towards in future.
The example you use is an interesting one: An override would take so long we'd have been in Baghdad by the time it would have taken effect.
with kind regards, Paul Robinson
about.me/pauljrobinson
On 3 April 2014 23:26, philipjohn [email protected] wrote:
I hadn't thought about it that way @Floppy https://github.com/Floppy, but a disagreement on one issue doesn't necessarily mean constituents have completely lost confidence in their MP. Case in point: the Iraq War.
The likelihood of an override ever swinging the decision of the Commons is tiny. Most votes just aren't close enough. You'd probably need tens of constituencies to simultaneously instigate an override for it to go anywhere.
A good example of that is probably the Iraq War again. That was probably the last time there was enough public dissent that this override idea might have been used extensively by the electorate. But the majority on that vote was 263. That means 263 constituencies would have needed to complete a successful override to change the decision. Clearly, that's highly unlikely. Far less than 100 constituencies would even get close...
You may say that means the override would be useless because it would hardly ever go aware.
True, but my aim with this is to fundamentally change the relationship between constituents and individual MPs. MPs are more likely to be scared of their electorate's response to their voting behaviour knowing they can be slapped down if necessary. They may be less inclined to simply tow the party line on a contentious issue is there is enough public pressure.
Too often Governments (whether directly, or through rhetoric) rule by fear. I passionately believe MPs should fear the electorate and that's what overrides would do. As Jefferson said, "A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy."
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openpolitics/manifesto/pull/103#issuecomment-39512761 .
The OpenPolitics Manifesto
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
I actually did this ages ago but for some reason forgot to submit this pull request... here it is.