When new members of Parliament enter the building, they are suddenly presented with an impossibly complex web of rules, conventions, precedents and demands that they have no experience of nor any training for. Former Special Advisers – spads – have an advantage, in that they know how Westminster works and how to navigate it. Former lawyers do too, because they can at least read legislation. The rest have no experience of what is happening at all. For many MPs, the moment of rebellion (during a vote) is traumatic. “It was horrible,” Lisa Nandy says. “You’re walking through the division lobby and your colleagues are swearing at you. These are people I’d been mates with.”

Westminster is broken - New Statesman Westminster is broken - New Statesman

A discussion with Ian Dunt and an expert panel about his recent book on the perceived problems facing the UK political system. The complexity of Parliament and the ignorance of its inhabitants are both part of a system of control. It is useful for the party leadership that the situation should remain this way, so it does. Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from Bookshop.org, who support independent bookshopsThere’s a quote by the philosophical father of conservatism, Edmund Burke, about the role of an MP that often does the rounds in Westminster. It’s one of those lines that reliably pops up whenever there’s some matter of constitutional importance being discussed. He made it in a speech in Bristol in 1774, as he outlined what constituents should expect of their local MP. MPs feel its force immediately, because it’s the Whips’ Office that allocates them their parliamentary office when they arrive: spacious penthouses at the top of Portcullis House for favoured MPs, and dark little cubbyhole basements for lowly ones. If that happens, an MP is said to have “lost the whip”. This means that they can sit in Parliament as an independent, but are no longer representing the party. Electorally, it is the kiss of death – independent candidates almost never succeed in elections.

Westminster – and make MPs How the whips actually control Westminster – and make MPs

It’s a very nice quote, elegantly expressed. It is also hard to think of any vision of MPs that could be further removed from their current status. inews.co.uk https://inews.co.uk/author/ian-dunt . Retrieved 25 May 2022. {{ cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= ( help) This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources. ( May 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Deputy Tory chief whip Chris Pincher resigned in 2022 following allegations he had sexually assaulted two men. The government initially insisted Boris Johnson had no knowledge of previous complaints about Pincher – a position that became untenable when new evidence emerged. The scandal ultimately led to Johnson’s departure from Downing Street.

How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn’t by Ian Dunt review

Tim Fortescue, Tory chief whip in the 1970s, admitted in a 1995 documentary that the whips office had covered up MP scandals. “If we could get a chap out of trouble,” he said, “then he will do as we ask forever more.” Ian Dunt’s new book reveals Britain as a country of inept civil servants, deluded ministers, blinkered journalists and unscrutinised power. Here and there Dunt finds reason to be cautiously cheerful. The House of Lords has shown remarkable independence, a real ability to affect the outcome of legislation by managing its own timetable and contributing much-needed expertise (the cross-bench system, he argues, works particularly well). And select committees turn out to offer a model of how things should be done – listening to the evidence and privileging cooperation and compromise over crude partisanship. The importance of a vote was once communicated by how many times it had been underlined. A single-line whip was non-binding, a two-line whip was an instruction, with attendance required unless given prior permission, and a three-line whip was of the utmost seriousness, with failure to attend and vote as directed possibly leading to exclusion from the Parliamentary party.While the culture of the Whips’ Office has become less explicitly bullying, the fundamental nature of the operation and the extent of its influence remains nearly as strong as ever. In almost every stage of the parliamentary process, it acts to stifle debate, limit scrutiny, close down avenues of interrogation, reduce independent thought and strengthen the power of the political parties. Dunt’s analysis is refreshingly focused on reality, rather than academic abstraction. When he advocates change, it is because his book has shown how an existing set of incentives is ensuring failure. Read it and you will see just how deep our problems run. The central mechanism for enforcing the compliance of MPs is the Whips’ Office – the surveillance and disciplinary system for parliamentary votes. It threatens MPs who vote against their party, rewards those who vote with it, and passes intelligence up to the leadership about any possible rebellions. In a series of deeply informed and carefully worked out examples, Ian Dunt takes us through the Westminster labyrinth to reveal an omnishambles. It is not – and he is clear here – because the people involved are corrupt or lazy. It is because the system is not fit for purpose. MPs are impossibly burdened by having to do two jobs simultaneously, first as local representatives and then as national politicians. Most of their constituency work is stuff that should be done by councils, were these not also failing. Cabinet ministers often appear poorly briefed, but they may have up to 20 meetings a day and can’t always start on their red boxes until the rest of us have already gone to bed.

Ian Dunt - Wikipedia Ian Dunt - Wikipedia

It is not about the failure of a particular project. It is systematic and existential,” Dunt writes. “In short,” he says, prefiguring Succession’s Logan Roy, “it is about whether this is a serious country or not.” Any reader of this essential guide will struggle to conclude that we are. Dunt diverges from other books bemoaning the state of our politics: they often call for an elected House of Lords, but he argues it is “one of the best-functioning institutions in Westminster”, rigorously evaluating bills in a way the Commons does not. “There is no need at all to make the Lords democratic.” It’s changed enormously,” veteran Tory rebel Peter Bone says. “When I first came in in 2005, it was very much ‘you’ve got to do what you’re told’. I remember being summoned in with Brian Binley by the senior deputy chief whip about some abstention we made and being talked to like we were schoolboys by the headmaster. They would threaten you with your career. I’ve been sworn at. All that sort of stuff.”

The parties organise little training. MPs are given no instruction in how to scrutinise or even read legislation, let alone introduce it. Most remain largely ignorant of parliamentary procedure throughout their time in Parliament, no matter how long they’re there. And this is not a failure by the political parties. It is a choice. If there is something they want, like support in a Commons vote, they make sure they get it. But it is simply not in their interests to tell MPs how Westminster works or what they’re supposed to do. Because if MPs are ignorant, they will rely on the whips to explain everything to them – to tell them where they need to be and what they need to do. Jill Rutter, Senior Research Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government At this point, the whips will go into action. If the situation is desperate enough, they’ll sometimes resort to trying to manhandle MPs into voting for the party line. “I have literally seen people being physically pushed into the aye lobby or the no lobby,” MP Caroline Lucas says. “They’re still protesting, saying, ‘I’m not sure if I want to vote this way.’ And the whip pushes them in, because once you’re over the line, then the convention is you can’t reverse out again.” Dunt began his career as a journalist for PinkNews. He then switched to political analysis for Yahoo!, before becoming Political Editor of Erotic Review, a position he held until January 2010, when he became editor of politics.co.uk. He regularly appears on TV, commenting on political developments in the United Kingdom. [7] Those terms remain in use today. Most government legislation involves a three-line whip to ensure it goes through, but the circumstances can become even more acute than that. In 2021, for instance, Tory MP Owen Paterson was found guilty by the Committee on Standards of an “egregious case of paid advocacy” after he used his parliamentary position to promote two companies that hired him as a paid consultant. The committee recommended that he be suspended from the Commons for 30 days, but the government moved to protect him.