In most modern day political parties, there members of the party appointed by the party leader who are responsible for keeping Members of Parliament in check and ensuring that they vote with the party, rather than against the party. These people are called Party Whips.
Whilst I understand the need to present a unified image to constituents by showing them the party and their repesentatives are voting in a set way, I also believe Party Whips shepherding MP's isn't democracy at work.
True democracy will only work when an MP has the right to vote for whatever makes the greatest positive contribution to their constituency, not what their party wants. I believe the role of Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition is to set a national agenda and affect national issues. They should be responsible for overseeing the introduction of national legislation which they believe will improve our country.
Once they have set the agenda it should be up to locally represented officials such as councillors and MP's to get a feel for the proposed changes and how they would affect their constituency and vote accordingly.
The outcome of this style of voting is that changes which will have a positive effect will be made law and those which don't won't.
Whilst I object to party whips I believe there are circumstances in which the MP can differ from their constituency and where the opinion of the public may not be the best informed opinion based simply on the lack of information available to the public. An example of this would be taking the country to war. It is inconceivable that the public will have all of the information and intelligence available to make a decision on whether our country should go to war or not and in these circumstances I would look to present the information and intelligence to MP's and I would look for them to make a decision based on the best interests of our country as a whole rather than on the basis of each constituency. Certain functions of government rarely recieve unanimous support, and war is sometimes a necessary evil, but if left to constituents war would be one of the few evils that would recieve unanimous support for the case against it. History has shown us that if we fail to use a small amount of force where appropriate then it can lend itself to a much greater loss of life.
A prime example of this occured during 1936 when Hitlers forces invaded the Rhineland. At the time Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain adopted a policy of appeasement during which Britain and its allies objected verbally but offered no physical deterrent. If substanstive intervention had been pursued from this point it could have prevented one of the bloodiest wars ever witnessed by the world. Instead the policy of appeasement was followed resulting in World War Two and the deaths of between 50 million to 70 million people. In effect the population of the UK was wiped out.
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The Candidate