Agree, the whips system is an affront to democracy!
The whips system is a system where the MPs represent their party leader as a Parliamentary dictator rather than represent the interests of their constituents (whose interests they are supposed to be representing). Therefore, the current ‘whips’ system is an affront to democracy and needs to be reformed.
The Whips system must be curtailed so that an MP as a party member can only be ‘whipped’ into using its Parliamentary vote for policies which such party put in its election manifesto.
That is, can only be ‘whipped’ into voting for the policies which the constituent voters had voted for. That is, the constitutional democratic mandate which a MP has lawful authority to represent and speak for and use his/her Parliamentary vote as the representative of his/her constituents.
MPs should be compelled as a matter of law to represent the will of their constituents i.e., those who elected them and put them in Parliament. The public did not put their MP in Parliament to serve their own ‘career’ interests nor to use their Parliamentary vote as a puppet of their Party Leader.
The Whips system is the reason Starmer (and other governments) have been empowered to behave like dictators. That must change. Thus, if it’s not in the election manifesto then the MP has no mandate from his/her electorate to use his Parliamentary vote for whatever whims of his Party Leader. The MP must use his/her Parliamentary vote as the representative of what his/her constituents want — and not whatever secret policies his/her Party Leader wants to impose on the people but had chosen to conceal and not disclose in its election manifesto! .
We need to take a good look at the Whips system and reform it by legislation if necessary. We need to curtail the anti-democratic excesses of the ‘whips’ which in effect, give rise to what we now seem to have which is authoritarian dictatorship governments who disregard the interests of the people whom they rule over. That’s how we ended up with the injustices and oppression of this the current two-tier system. We need to return to a real and effective functioning democracy.
Incidentally, whilst on this topic even the Reform UK ‘Chief Whip’, whipped Rupert Lowe out of the party and thereby overruled the will of Mr. Lowe’s constituents. So even Reform UK have proved themselves abusers who are intoxicated with the power of the whip. Need to reform the Whip system.
