Is the justification for the Whip in the Lords (a revising chamber) the same as for the Commons? What proportion of the Lords – assuming we continue to have a nominated second chamber – should be cross-benchers?

Actually, as I understand it, all MPs are technically independent. They may state that they intend to take a particular party whip at election time and let the voters decide on that basis. That is how MPs can change parties without forcing a by- election. Upon election they take the whip and agree to follow the party line where required in return for access to the levers or power, government positions etc. If they fundamentally disagree with a manifesto commitment they shouldn’t be taking the whip. Conversely it would make for better laws if differing points of view were listened to and amendments made to proposed laws,

The Whips have the power to increase an MPs income; if they have independent means this type of offer is less tempting.

I think lying behind this comment, and possibly other comments, is the belief that a three line whip is a relatively rare thing. Three line whips are not rare. Almost all Government business and all business put down by opposition parties is subject to a three line whip. The two line whip has fallen into desuetude, and a one-line whip only applies to Private Members’ Bills and to debates on which there will be no vote.

The same can be said of most parties, that’s kind of the point of a three line whip. More than your assertions it begs the question as to whether Lib Dems are more ideologically in sync with one another than the other parties, or whether dissent only really manifests within the comfort of power and size.

Simply put, if we are voting for MPs we are electing individuals to parliament to reflect our constituency views as best as they can, with their own knowledge, beliefs and biases included. In this system there should be no whip, because everyone should be an individual, not a party member. Party power in terms of governance is just a side effect of public support for MPs that belong ideologically to these different groupings.

Of course we know realistically that there are also a proportion of people that vote for their MP not because of the individual but because of their party. They are, for all intents and purposes, electing a prime minister in a way such as the American Presidential system. In this case whips make perfect sense as people need to know that they are getting the policies they voted for actually enacted.

The problem here is not whips, it is that our first chamber is duly representative and legislative. We can talk about these little ideas until the cows go home, the ONLY reform that needs to happen is for representation and legislation to be seperated in to two distinct houses in some form; personally I’d prefer abolition of the Lords, AV votes for representative MPs and a separate STV vote for a legislative chamber.

Some of the trade union MPs back in the 1950s and 1960s were not very good (Bill Stones, MP for Consett, is the canonical example) but others could be excellent. The NUM’s hard policy that its sponsored MPs had to retire at the next election after their 60th birthday, whether good or bad, and that tended to remove a lot of the genuine talent.

This formalisation does not recognise party whips, so “abolition” is a logical nonsense. The Chief Whip of the governing party is traditionally given a nominal ministership and a place in the cabinet (to receive instruction, rather than to participate). The various party whips are provided with accommodation within the buildings of parliament. However I am not aware of any legal privilege that is provided to the whips. Whilst they may receive organisational privileges in the conduct of debate, that is a convention rather than a set of rules.

“Taking the party whip” is an informal contract accepted by successful parliamentary candidates. (I daresay that somebody can name an MP in days gone by, elected as a party representative, who declined to take the party whip. Tom Driberg almost fits that case.) If that informal contract is “abolished”, it and the whipping system will be replaced by something else.

As Mike Killingworth said, it’s the selection process that is the problem.

The title of this thread is currently misspelled: “Reform parliment: abolish the whip”. It makes us all look rather foolish.

Many of the mistakes made by politicians occur because they they no relevant experience for the decision they have to make. The days when engineeers, industrialists and experienced military personnel were happy to sit on the back benches and offerr their wisdom to the H of C are long gone . It used to be said that it did not matter what was being discussed in the H of L, there was usually a worlds class expert who could offer the wisdom of their experience.

“The next general election is ‘very likely’ to produce a hung parliament, former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine has said.

“This was because to take overall control, the Conservatives needed the biggest electoral swing, ‘with two exceptions, since the war’, he said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8335377.stm

With that said, I doubt professional politicians and political activists fully appreciate just how deeply unimpressed most of the electorate are with political parties and politicians. Apart from the shameful matter of MPs’ expenses, the votes on the Iraq war were whipped to ensure all accepted Blair’s lies.

“Public funds totalling £500 million a year are being spent on an army of at least 29,000 professional politicians in the UK, according to new figures.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8605308

The turnout at the election in 2005 was the second lowest since 1918 and Blair won the election with the lowest ever recorded share of the total vote. A larger percentage of the electorate didn’t vote in the 2005 election than voted for Labour candidates. Only a quarter of the electorate voted for Labour, so much for the New Labour claim to have an electoral mandate for government.

My assessment of the EU has risen now that it looks unlikely Blair will be made the first President of the Council of Ministers.

The problem is rather in the selection process: broadly speaking, anyone who puts themselves forward to be an MP is ipso facto not the sort of person any intelligent constituent would want in the job. An open primary system would enable us to compare the shortcomings of the sundry egoists who offer themselves and hopefully choose the one who is the least damaged.

Party HQ parachute candidates onto supine constituency parties. They are adopted as PPCs, elected as MPs and then whipped into supporting the policies of the executive. We have a dictatorship not a real democracy.

Voting only allows the electorate to substitute one party dictatorship with another.