Parliamentary rebellions, we might be led to believe, are a declining practice that ought to be revived, since they are integral to a strong Parliament. This view needs revising on a number of counts.
The latest research by Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart of the University of Nottingham was reported in the Telegraph on Tuesday, demonstrating that the pronounced tendency for Labour MPs to rebel that emerged during the Tony Blair premiership has continued under Gordon Brown. During the parliamentary session just ended, Labour MPs rebelled on 74 occasions, a rate of 30 per cent. Moreover, since 2005 a total of six whipped votes have been lost by the government, a post-war record for a party with a majority of more than 60. What should these figures mean to those with an interest in democratic reform?
First, they confirm Cowley's explosion, since he began his groundbreaking work on rebellions, of the simplistic portrayal of parliamentarians as increasingly supine indivdiuals, waiting to be herded through the lobbies, in contrast to their supposedly more independent-minded predecessors of earlier times.
Second, any view of rebellions as necessarily a sign of a healthy, flourishing parliamentary democarcy requires reexamination. They could just as well be viewed as the symptom of a failure by the government effectively to consult with backbenchers over policy. Were the Parliamentary Labour Party involved more fully in the development of programmes from their early stages, MPs might feel less disposed to take the 'nuclear option' of rebelling when measures were presented for parliamentary approval.
A lesson that can be drawn from Cowley and Stuart's work is that new mechanisms need to be developed to make possible this kind of liaison. Were there in place a proportionate voting system that prevented single party majorities in the Commons, such devices might, out of necessity, already have been created, in order for coalition governments to hold together.
So will rebelling be less of a feature of a possible Conservative government under David Cameron? I would not count on it. Some would argue that the Conservative Party has a greater tradition of deference that will make its MPs more loyal. But the Conservatives have become increasingly committed to ideological principles over recent decades and they may be willing to ignore the whips in pursuit of them. Particularly over an issue that will be crucial to a prospective Cameron premiership - the European Union.
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I suspect that Cameron will have a bigger problem with rebellions than Brown. Whereas New Labour marked a fundamental shift in thinking within the Labour Party across the board, as Tim Montgomerie et al make clear on an almost daily basis, Cameronism is a mere flag of convenience for a significant proportion of both MPs and target seat candidates.
In 1997, Mandelson and his pals were engaged in a final sweep to wipe out the remaining far left from the party's candidates. By contrast, the people on the back foot in the Conservative Party at the moment are old school parliamentarians like the Wintertons - the type who might grumble about Cameron but would probably back him to the hilt. The ideologues, by contrast, are very much on the rise.
Does Andrew Blick have any idea what Labour Party Conferences of the '50s, '60s and '70s were like and how they compared to the entirely docile stage-managed affairs post 1995? Or what the latter publicly announced about the willingness of the leadership to even listen to dissent? I assume not. Hitherto the Labour Party had been an ideologically driven and defined party. Because of heated debate and the highly contested policies MPs were obliged to take their own stands. New Labour in contrast was first and foremost a vote capturing strategy, ideologically defined only as far as being not Old Labour. What then, if ideology was not the issue, motivated the crop of '97 intake of MPs to join such a party other than the achievement power - and prospects - for them as individuals? (The very rare exception might have felt it their duty to become a Labour MP in order to frustrate New Labour's architects). Enhanced financial inducements make boat-rocking by an MP an increasingly unwise move, something party leaders on both sides surely considered advantageous.
But as others have written elsewhere the fractiousness of MPs naturally tends to increase over time. Increasing numbers having enjoyed promotion then found themselves returned to the ranks and have more incentive to please their voters than the party managers. Similarly those who have given up all hope of promotion. Sometimes their demotions have left them feeling slighted. Approaching defeat steadily reduces the powers of patronage. All these processes have increased fractiousness. Rebels they might be but generally without a cause.
Very far from the myth of the supine MP having been exploded, the general public sees the reality only too clearly - and doesn't like it - or its deniers.
Today, at least, the EU Premier-Issue have had its (predictable) back-clash. Speaking from the continent, it would be lovely for BNP if Comeron gets the lead, but it would be bad for Europe. After all Brown inherited the "poodle-mess".
What this piece actually tells us is that we accept that the majority of MPs are party representatives under the anti-democratic control of cabinet and shadow cabinets by 'whips'. There should be no question of there being 'rebels', and those who control this process ought rightly to be in the dock facing charges of treason.
The real indictment on our 'democracy' is that there 'needs' to be such research as the above; that there is no way to insist that MPs represent their constituents, and have the processes of coersion and whipping made properly illegal.
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