At this point, the whips will go into action. If the situation is desperate enough, they’ll sometimes resort to trying to manhandle MPs into voting for the party line. “I have literally seen people being physically pushed into the aye lobby or the no lobby,” MP Caroline Lucas says. “They’re still protesting, saying, ‘I’m not sure if I want to vote this way.’ And the whip pushes them in, because once you’re over the line, then the convention is you can’t reverse out again.” It’s changed enormously,” veteran Tory rebel Peter Bone says. “When I first came in in 2005, it was very much ‘you’ve got to do what you’re told’. I remember being summoned in with Brian Binley by the senior deputy chief whip about some abstention we made and being talked to like we were schoolboys by the headmaster. They would threaten you with your career. I’ve been sworn at. All that sort of stuff.” Ian Dunt (born 4 February 1982) is a British author, political journalist and broadcaster. He currently writes as a columnist for the i. [1] He previously served for many years as the Editor of politics.co.uk. He was also a host on the Remainiacs podcast. [2] [3] [4] Early life [ edit ] A discussion with Ian Dunt and an expert panel about his recent book on the perceived problems facing the UK political system. Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell resigned in 2012 after an altercation with police in which they reported he had called them “plebs”. Officers involved later issued a statement in which they apologised for misleading the public, but a subsequent libel trial saw the judge rule that Mitchell had said “the words alleged or something so close to them as to amount to the same”.

Ian Dunt, How Westminster Works…and Why It Doesn’t Ian Dunt, How Westminster Works…and Why It Doesn’t

While the culture of the Whips’ Office has become less explicitly bullying, the fundamental nature of the operation and the extent of its influence remains nearly as strong as ever. In almost every stage of the parliamentary process, it acts to stifle debate, limit scrutiny, close down avenues of interrogation, reduce independent thought and strengthen the power of the political parties. Dunt began his career as a journalist for PinkNews. He then switched to political analysis for Yahoo!, before becoming Political Editor of Erotic Review, a position he held until January 2010, when he became editor of politics.co.uk. He regularly appears on TV, commenting on political developments in the United Kingdom. [7]There’s a small army of people involved in the parliamentary whipping operation. On the Government side you have the chief whip, who is appointed by the Prime Minister, along with three senior whips, six other whips and seven assistant whips. The opposition has a chief whip, a deputy and perhaps 12 or 13 others.

Ian Dunt - Wikipedia Ian Dunt - Wikipedia

The importance of a vote was once communicated by how many times it had been underlined. A single-line whip was non-binding, a two-line whip was an instruction, with attendance required unless given prior permission, and a three-line whip was of the utmost seriousness, with failure to attend and vote as directed possibly leading to exclusion from the Parliamentary party. In a series of deeply informed and carefully worked out examples, Ian Dunt takes us through the Westminster labyrinth to reveal an omnishambles. It is not – and he is clear here – because the people involved are corrupt or lazy. It is because the system is not fit for purpose. MPs are impossibly burdened by having to do two jobs simultaneously, first as local representatives and then as national politicians. Most of their constituency work is stuff that should be done by councils, were these not also failing. Cabinet ministers often appear poorly briefed, but they may have up to 20 meetings a day and can’t always start on their red boxes until the rest of us have already gone to bed.The word “whip” actually refers to three things: an instruction, a person and a process. It’s the name of a document circulated to MPs on a weekly basis by the party, listing the business of the next fortnight and the expectation of when they’ll vote. The book is at its most illuminating when it focuses on one of the least scrutinised power blocs in the UK: the civil service. Dunt cites the example of Antonia Romeo, the civil servant who carried out Grayling’s ruinous probation reform, which was cancelled in 2018 after offences spiked, costs spiralled and probation providers went bankrupt. Romeo was nevertheless promoted. “No one lost their job, or was penalised, or even rebuked,” Dunt writes, echoing Dominic Cummings’s fundamental criticism of the civil service, that promotion bears no relation to performance. This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources. ( May 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) The parties organise little training. MPs are given no instruction in how to scrutinise or even read legislation, let alone introduce it. Most remain largely ignorant of parliamentary procedure throughout their time in Parliament, no matter how long they’re there. And this is not a failure by the political parties. It is a choice. If there is something they want, like support in a Commons vote, they make sure they get it. But it is simply not in their interests to tell MPs how Westminster works or what they’re supposed to do. Because if MPs are ignorant, they will rely on the whips to explain everything to them – to tell them where they need to be and what they need to do.

Westminster is broken - New Statesman Westminster is broken - New Statesman

Ian Dunt’s new book reveals Britain as a country of inept civil servants, deluded ministers, blinkered journalists and unscrutinised power.

MPs feel its force immediately, because it’s the Whips’ Office that allocates them their parliamentary office when they arrive: spacious penthouses at the top of Portcullis House for favoured MPs, and dark little cubbyhole basements for lowly ones. You’re humiliated by the whips, who force you to vote on the party line day in, day out,” Rory Stewart says. “There’s barely any point reading the legislation. It becomes clear your promotion has nothing to do with expertise. It’s about loyalty and defending the indefensible. The culture in the tearoom is very gossipy and trivialising. You can’t earnestly grab someone in the corridor and try to talk seriously about a policy issue. It’s not the done thing. It’s a very unserious culture. It doesn’t reward earnestness in any way.” Whip scandals It is not about the failure of a particular project. It is systematic and existential,” Dunt writes. “In short,” he says, prefiguring Succession’s Logan Roy, “it is about whether this is a serious country or not.” Any reader of this essential guide will struggle to conclude that we are. Dunt diverges from other books bemoaning the state of our politics: they often call for an elected House of Lords, but he argues it is “one of the best-functioning institutions in Westminster”, rigorously evaluating bills in a way the Commons does not. “There is no need at all to make the Lords democratic.”

Ian Dunt’s How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn’t Ian Dunt’s How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn’t

Jill Rutter, Senior Research Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government It put MPs on a three-line whip to dismiss the committee report and scrap the existing standards system. Many Tory MPs were dismayed by what they were being asked to do: 13 rebelled against the whip. Others abstained, which means they refused to vote either way. But the party disciplinary system held together. It won the vote by 250 to 232. When new members of Parliament enter the building, they are suddenly presented with an impossibly complex web of rules, conventions, precedents and demands that they have no experience of nor any training for. Former Special Advisers – spads – have an advantage, in that they know how Westminster works and how to navigate it. Former lawyers do too, because they can at least read legislation. The rest have no experience of what is happening at all.The central mechanism for enforcing the compliance of MPs is the Whips’ Office – the surveillance and disciplinary system for parliamentary votes. It threatens MPs who vote against their party, rewards those who vote with it, and passes intelligence up to the leadership about any possible rebellions. Deputy Tory chief whip Chris Pincher resigned in 2022 following allegations he had sexually assaulted two men. The government initially insisted Boris Johnson had no knowledge of previous complaints about Pincher – a position that became untenable when new evidence emerged. The scandal ultimately led to Johnson’s departure from Downing Street. Those terms remain in use today. Most government legislation involves a three-line whip to ensure it goes through, but the circumstances can become even more acute than that. In 2021, for instance, Tory MP Owen Paterson was found guilty by the Committee on Standards of an “egregious case of paid advocacy” after he used his parliamentary position to promote two companies that hired him as a paid consultant. The committee recommended that he be suspended from the Commons for 30 days, but the government moved to protect him. It’s a very nice quote, elegantly expressed. It is also hard to think of any vision of MPs that could be further removed from their current status.