Duncan Borrowman looks increasingly like being Old Bexley and Sidcup’s next MP. His blog details the outrageous embezzlement by Tory MP Derek Conway and evidence that local people want Conway to resign from Parliament
Duncan has, amongst many other things, set up a Facebook group.
It’s time we had the right enjoyed by voters in large parts of the US and Canada to “recall” their elected representatives. Recall is an intitiative by citizens. If a very large number of electors sign a petition, their elected representative is removed from office and a by-election occurs.
There is supposed to by a social contract between people and their elected servants. If politicians break the contract by incompetence, dishonesty, or neglect the electorate should have a mechanism to remove them without having to wait years until the next General Election. The public shouldn’t have to wait one day to remove an MP who loses the confidence of his or her electorate.
UPDATE: Duncan has a further perspective on how this MP has become useless to his constituents and needs to be sacked.
February 4, 2008 at 4:16 pm |
There is a place for recall under the first past the post electoral system, but since we shouldn’t have FPTP in the first place, campaigning for recall would be the height of futility.
Under PR, you couldn’t have a recall system that would be fair. Unless of course you established a system that caused all out elections in the constituency – not just the individual politician who’s hand had been caught in the cookie jar. Otherwise it would simply be used by people to get rid of politicians representing minority views. It would be majoritarianism gone mad.
The day we have recall in this country will be a crushing defeat for democrats.
February 4, 2008 at 4:34 pm |
I really do think that at this difficult time, when public trust in politicians and politics is at an all time low, it would do a lot of good for Parliament to say to the public “you can have the right to get rid of the worst of us any time you like”.
A “crushing defeat for democracts” is Derek Conway’s continued existence!
I agree that recall would not suit a proportional representation system but we have to deal with the world as it is not as we might like it to be.
While the people of Old Bexley have to suffer FPTP they should have the mitigating relief of being able to sack their corrupt MP.
February 4, 2008 at 6:23 pm |
Recall versus PR is a zero-sum game. You can have one or the other. I would suggest you are marginally more likely to get the latter than the former any time soon. You certainly can’t support both.
If we go down this cul-de-sac then not only will be not get the fair voting system that we want, but we’ll have our own MPs under attack every time they make a marginally controversial decision.
You want recall for Conway, but you can’t have it for just him. Introduce recall and you can bet that iwantareferendum.com will start a campaign to call by-elections on every single MP who disagrees with them. And that’s just the start.
February 4, 2008 at 6:41 pm |
[...] the sort of kneejerk reaction we see from our Labour and Tory rivals all the time. Sadly, Antony Hook and Duncan Borrowman have done this over the “solution” of recall for MPs to solve the [...]
February 4, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
You can trust the public to be sensible.
In the US only two people have been recalled in 100 years.
In Canada no-one has ever actually been recalled (although the looming threat of it forced one resignation).
February 5, 2008 at 6:17 pm |
Either it will be an effective tool, in which case it is subject to the law of unintended consequences, or it won’t be in which case what’s the point?
February 5, 2008 at 10:32 pm |
Don’t set up false dichotomies.
Something can be effective without having to be used frequently (e.g. the threat of prosecution for corruption is rarely, if ever, used against MPs, but the possibility of it improves their behaviour).
February 5, 2008 at 11:13 pm |
I’m not setting up a false dichotomy. I’m saying it’s a bad idea whichever way you look at it and it certainly wouldn’t be effective.
Fundamentally, let’s be clear. Recall wouldn’t apply to constituencies like Old Bexley and Sidcup where the incumbant party has a huge majority. Recall would apply to constituencies like Taunton where the majority is wafer thin. That’s where the resources would go – I’m sure they’d be able to cook up all sorts of reasons. California is an excellent example. Gray Davis wasn’t corrupt – his main problem was trying to balance the books under a tax and spend regime dictated to him by the electorate. If California wasn’t such a swing state, he would still be governor.
It is people like that you would be destroying, not people in safe seats like Conway.
February 5, 2008 at 11:56 pm |
The evidence is that a very large number of Bexley-ites want Conway out. I suggest recall might in fact be a very real prospect there.
Nor is it for you or me to say they shouldn’t be allowed recall because they might just elect a different Tory in the resulting by-election. They may not. The point is not a change of party but a change of Member- if that is what people want.
Even if you and I think Gray Davis is the greatest thing, I don’t think our opinion is a good reason to have denied the people of California the right to sack him.
Essentially, you’re saying we can’t have recall because we can’t trust the people to use it responsibly?