Via On Procedure and Politics On floor crossing There was a debate in the UK House of Commons today on a ten minute rule bill which would require MPs who switch parties to resign their seat and fight a by-election to secure the approval of their voters, if they want to remain in Parliament. For Canadian (and other) readers who aren’t familiar with a ten minute rule bill, bills introduced under the ten-minute rule are one of the ways in which backbench MPs (private Members) can introduce legislation. However, the process is used more as a means of making a point on the need to change the law on a particular subject as there is little parliamentary time available. They mainly provide the opportunity for MPs to test Parliament’s opinion on a particular subject. The ten minute rule allows a brief introductory speech of no more than ten minutes and one of the same length opposing the motion to be made in the House of Commons after question time on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the House is likely to be full. If the bill is approved by the House at this first reading stage, it joins the queue of private members’ bills waiting to receive a second reading. The government will only rarely allow a ten minute rule bill to progress far enough to become law so MPs tend to use this procedure simply as a way of gaining publicity for a particular issue. The bill introduced by Conservative MP Chris Skidmore would provide that any Member of Parliament who changes voluntarily his or her political party affiliation described on the ballot paper at the time he or she was elected is deemed to have vacated his or her seat; and would ensure that any such action by an MP would trigger an automatic by-election so that their constituents can have the final say on their decision. This would apply only to MPs choosing to cross the floor, and not to MPs who might be forced out of their party by the party Whip. Skidmore notes that 41 countries have similar legislation in place. There have been similar bills in the Canadian House of Commons, most recently Bill C-306. Indeed, Mr. Skidmore referred to this bill in his presentation before the UK House of Commons. Bill C-306, a private member’s bill, is virtually identical to Mr. Skidmore’s. It would require that a Member’s seat in the House of Commons be vacated and a by-election called for that seat if the Member, having been elected to the House as a member of a political party or as an independent, changes parties (or in the case of an MP elected as an independent, becomes a member of a party). However, the seat would not be vacated if the Member, having been elected as a member of a political party, chooses to sit as an independent. This practice, commonly known as “floor crossing”, doesn’t occur that often, but when it does, it generates a fair degree of debate on the rights of an MP to abandon the party under whose banner they were elected in favour of another party. There have been a few very high profile instances of floor crossings in recent years in Canada which raised many eyebrows. First among these was the case of David Emerson, who was first elected as a Liberal in the 2004 general election, narrowly defeating the incumbent MP. That election resulted in a hung parliament and a Liberal minority government, and Emerson appointed to cabinet. Emerson was then re-elected by a significant margin in the 23 January 2006 general election, an election which also resulted in a hung parliament, but this time, a Conservative minority government. At some point between election day and the day the Conservative government was sworn in, Emerson accepted an offer from from the Conservatives to cross the floor and become Minister of International Trade in the new Conservative minority government. Emerson’s decision was kept secret from his Liberal colleagues, the press, and even most Conservatives until 6 February 2006, when he arrived at Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General, for the swearing-in of the new government. Another recent high profile floor crossing incident involved a Conservative MP, Belinda Stronach, who joined the minority Liberal government on 17 May 2005, two days before a critical vote on the Liberal government’s budget. Stronach’s cross-over to the Liberals was instrumental in allowing the Liberals to survive the budget vote. Those who oppose floor crossing normally argue that it is anti-democratic, that an MP was elected by his or her constituents as a member of a certain party, therefore if they change parties, this is counter to the wishes of their constituents. For example, in the recent debate on Bill C-306, the MP behind the bill argued: The reality is that nobody votes for a candidate without considering what party he or she belongs to. It is a true slap in the voter’s face when elected representatives join another party without seeking approval from their voters. Parties are there to present a series of values to Canadians. Election platforms are value statements, and Canadians connect with those values. Canadians know there are differences in values between political parties. They know that the NDP is not the Conservative Party. It is a grave injustice to treat their choices and their political values as though they have no consequence. It is an insult to their intelligence However, as the BBC’s Mark D’Arcy notes, there is an “ancient Commons convention that MPs are elected in their own right, not as party place-persons.” Under our system of government, voters are supposed to elect their MP based on that person’s qualifications, believing they are best suited to serve the constituency. This means that while you, as a voter, might favour Party A, if Party C has the strongest candidate, in theory you should vote for that person, even if they aren’t from the party you prefer. Of course, not everyone votes that way. Some people are so blindly partisan that they will vote for one party and one party only, no matter how poor the candidate put forward by that party. Others don’t care who is running locally for a given party – they use their vote as a proxy vote for the party leader they prefer and would like to see as Prime Minister. Indeed, Mr. Skidmore acknowledged this argument during his presentation in favour of his bill, stating that the most common arguments against a bill requiring floor-crossing MPs to stand face voters in a by-election hark back to a speech delivered by Edmund Burke in 1774, a view which Mr. Skidmore argues is no longer relevant today: Burke argued that we are sent here as representatives, not delegates, and as such sit in the House as individuals, not bound by party constraint, but each free to choose how we best represent our constituents, even if that seems to be against their best interests. The notion that constituents vote for their Members of Parliament as individuals to exercise their judgment on behalf of their constituents, and not to stand for the party ticket on which they were elected, may have been relevant in the 18th century, but that is no longer the case in the 21st century. We can no longer continue the charade that we are each elected solely as individuals. To do so is simply not to be speaking the same language as our constituents. It is an undeniable truth that the vast majority of constituents will vote for the party, with the Member the embodiment of the party locally. But the fact remains that the convention is that MPs are elected because of their individual merit – their party affiliation is a secondary point. If one looks at it from that point of view, then the fact that an MP might cross the floor to sit as a member of a different party really doesn’t matter. The government’s spokesperson in the Canadian debate on Bill C-306 acknowledged as much: While I understand that the goal of this bill would be to ensure that a member’s decision to cross the floor is endorsed by a member’s constituents, the result of it would be simple. This bill would seriously undermine the independence of members of this House and I do not think that is something we should encourage or support. (…) This bill would have some practical negative consequences. The bill would impose restrictions upon members who wish to express a different position than the one endorsed by a majority of their caucus. This bill would also impede members of Parliament in representing the interests of their constituents, which is one of the fundamental duties under our Constitution. I have some concerns about the technical wording of the bill and not only with its principles. I will speak a bit about the bill’s reference to registered parties. Our party system plays a fundamental role in our democracy but, in fact, there are a few statutory provisions regulating the role of political parties in Parliament itself, including the Parliament of Canada Act which Bill C-306 would modify. In contrast, the roles, rights and obligations of individual members of Parliament are well established in Canada’s legislation whereby members of Parliament are central actors in our Westminster system of government. Practically, the caucus system in our Parliament is joined with, but distinct from, the registered party system. Bill C-306 would go against existing rules and traditions by allowing the party machinery to take precedence over individual rights and responsibilities of each member of Parliament and their caucus choices. This does not correspond to our system of government. As I stated earlier, I believe Bill C-306 would have negative and undesirable consequences on the roles of members of Parliament. In effect, the bill would require members who fundamentally disagree with their caucus or with the leader of their party to resign their seat or to sit as independents. However, it would blur the line between party membership and caucus membership. Such restrictions would strengthen the control of political parties over individual members by bolstering a party’s threat of expulsion in order to maintain party discipline and limit the representative role of members. Therefore, the bill could discourage elected representatives from expressing their views in caucus debates and encourage party leaders to act without regard to their caucus members’ best interests. We should remember that members of Parliament have three competing but equally important representative roles in Parliament. They are to represent the interests and opinions of their constituents, to present their personal views and judgments, and to support and promote their political parties and party By seeking to punish members of Parliament who disagree with their parties so fundamentally that they decide to change their political affiliation, the bill would focus exclusively on the party role of members. This would be detrimental to the individual roles of members, including their duties to act as trustees of the public interest and that of their constituents. In the UK House of Commons debate, the Member who opposed the bill (as per the conditions of the 10 minute rule bill) was also a Conservative, Sir Peter Bottomley. Sir Peter noted that when he first became interested in politics, there were no political parties listed on the ballot paper – only the candidates’ names, and that perhaps it would be a good idea to return to such a practice. He also noted that while it was true that many MPs owed their election to their party, he believed that constituents’ trust in their MPs “comes from what we do, not from whether we decide to change our party.” He did agree with Skidmore that the matter should be debated, but “that it should be the subject of a Bill that should be enacted is controvertible, and I would say that it is wrong.” The BBC’s Mark D’Arcy raised another argument in favour of passing a bill to regulate floor crossing, which is that it “would also stop constituencies which thought they had elected someone with a particular point of view being lumbered with something they didn’t vote for”. This argument would have more legitimacy if countries such as the UK and Canada didn’t use First-Past-the-Post as their electoral system. Given that the majority of MPs are not elected with majority support in their riding, it is a bit difficult to argue that an MP winning his or her seat with less than 50% of the vote (often much less than 50%) can be interpreted as a solid endorsement of that MP’s party (or even that MP). Bill C-306 was soundly defeated at second reading, 181-91. In the case of Mr. Skidmore’s bill, as is usually the case with ten minute rule bills, it didn’t receive any further debate.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 20:37:26 +0000
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