The recent defections from the Conservative Party to Reform have prompted a number of constituents to write to me demanding a change in the law which would require any such defection to trigger a by-election. Voters who elected the defector chose a particular party to vote for, so they ought to be able to review the decision if their MP has left that party for another.
I disagree.
We don’t elect political parties, we elect named candidates. It is only in the second half of the twentieth century that a candidate’s party allegiance could be placed on the ballot paper at all.
(It was the purpose of the poster campaign to associate the name of the candidate with the political party because it would not be apparent on the ballot paper.)
I recall listening to the BBC election results coverage on the radio in the early nineteen seventies. When the returning officer gave the votes cast for each candidate, the BBC commentator would have to whisper the candidate’s party immediately after the returning officer read the name.
The chief duty that a member of Parliament owes to his constituents is the exercise of his judgement on the issues of the day as they affect the lives of those constituents. When you vote to elect a candidate, you are putting your faith in that candidate’s judgement for the duration of the parliamentary term. That judgement will include the political party with which he chooses to associate.
John Wilkes, the eighteen-century campaigner for liberty, took a different view. He believed that voters ought to be able to mandate their MP to vote in a particular way. Such a system might have been sustainable before the extension of the franchise, but it would be unworkable as soon as the number of voters in any constituency rose beyond any means by which they might reasonably be consulted.
I receive two hundred emails daily but I’m confident that 99% of my constituents have never shared an opinion with me. Overwhelmingly it is the same people who repeatedly email me.
An MP must represent all constituents, not just those who shout loudest.
I believe firmly that, once elected, an MP should exercise his judgement on behalf of his constituents uninterrupted for the remainder of the parliamentary term. Where constituents disagree with his judgement, they can vote to be rid of him at the following election.