Parliament’s enforcers lose the whip hand over irksome backbenchers
The Commons’ whipping system appears to have broken down amid the Brexit mayhem. Will they ever regain their authority?
Whatever happened to the parliamentary whips, once the feared scourge of Westminster? Brexit has transformed them into figures of virtual impotence, compared with the power they wielded only a few months ago.
In those days if, as a backbencher, you fell foul of the whips, by defying your party’s official line, your entire political career could be on the line.
If you were reported to your local constituency association, chances were you could be “deselected” and not allowed to stand for the party at the next election.
There was talk of the whips having black books containing intimate details of MPs’ peccadilloes, which they would threaten to bruit abroad.
And errant MPs could be denied overseas jaunts, or put on tedious committees. There was even talk of arm-twisting. An altogether fearsome and all-powerful lot.
But now, nobody gives a fig for them. With scores of MPs voting all over the place over Brexit, the whips have simply lost control, their power evaporated.
It also means Tory MPs, when appealed to by the Prime Minister to unite over Brexit, simply take no notice.
Despite accusations of “treachery”, they will continue to be as wayward and disloyal as they choose.
Whether once Brexit is behind us — that will be the day — the whips will regain their former power is doubtful.
Backbenchers have tasted freedom and they are not going to surrender it lightly.
Anarchy will continue to reign at Westminster.
The death has occurred of Lady Falkender, formerly Marcia Williams, who “enjoyed” an extraordinary turbulent political and personal relationship with Prime Minister Harold Wilson at 10 Downing Street.
She made many enemies finesse. (The Russians have already dubbed him the “Secretary of State for War”.)
Williamson’s announcement that he proposed to send an aircraft carrier into the Pacific so riled the Chinese that they have cancelled Hammond’s weekend jaunt to Beijing — which would at least have allowed him to escape from the Westminster swamp for a day or two.
The Cabinet has not exactly been a happy band of campers for some months now. This little incident will simply make a bad situation that much worse.
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