{"id":76469,"date":"2024-07-07T09:36:44","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T08:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=76469"},"modified":"2024-07-07T09:36:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T08:36:44","slug":"i-want-to-abolish-the-whip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2024\/07\/07\/i-want-to-abolish-the-whip\/","title":{"rendered":"I want to abolish the whip"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning's short video<\/a> has now been published. In it, I argue that the whipping system in the House of Commons has always been pernicious. Now that Labour has a massive majority, it will destroy debate and dissent in Parliament. For the sake of our democracy, it has to go.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can view the video here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The transcript is:<\/p>\n

\n

I want to abolish the whip.<\/em><\/p>\n

I'm not talking about some form of corporal punishment; I'm talking about the whipping system used in the House of Commons to force backbench MPs to follow the party line that their leaders have decreed.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is going to be a massive problem in the Parliament to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

Labour has an enormous majority. There will be large number of backbench MPs who have no hope of ever reaching ministerial office, but they won't be able to say what they really think on behalf of their constituents or even their own opinion, because the Labor Party will tell them they are not allowed to.<\/em><\/p>\n

And that is going to crush debate in the Parliament to come because that will silence hundreds of MPs.<\/em><\/p>\n

We cannot afford to have a whip system in a democracy, particularly in the coming parliament.<\/em><\/p>\n

It has to go.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning’s short video has now been published. In it, I argue that the whipping system in the House of Commons has always been pernicious.
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76469"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76572,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76469\/revisions\/76572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}