On party discipline (3)

In the first post in this series I claimed that a representative assembly could allow "horizontal" political pressure among the representatives (such as that found within internally democratic parliamentary parties) without losing its character as an independent check on the executive. This claim has to be qualified considerably. "Horizontal" pressure will strengthen discipline within the parliamentary party. Such strengthened party ties within the legislature are not in themselves destructive of the independence of the legislature as a whole. However, at least under the parliamentary system, it seems inevitable that each legislative party will be closely associated in the minds of ordinary voters with a particular candidate for the position of Prime Minister who is also the leader of the party's parliamentary contingent. As a result, any strengthening of party within the legislature will at the same time be a strengthening of ties between the executive or party leader and the legislature; and nowadays this seems to mean a subordination of the legislative party to an autocratic party leader who is also seeking to become the Prime Minister. It thus appears that restoration of an independent legislative assembly may, after all, require that the representative become independent of other representatives as well as of the executive.

For example, suppose that the MPs as a whole elected the parliamentary front bench (as I was suggesting), with opposition MPs choosing the shadow cabinet and government MPs choosing the cabinet. Now, the front bench is not an internally undifferentiated body. Cabinet posts are much more desirable than shadow cabinet ones; and the MP's cabinet—as opposed to front-bench—prospects will depend not only on his stature in the eyes of his fellow parliamentary party members, but also on his party's winning a majority of Commons seats. This in turn will depend in large measure on the popularity or unpopularity of the governing executive. Similarly, even if the party leadership has no power to refuse re-nomination to the MP, the MP's retention of his parliamentary seat will also depend to a large extent on the continued popularity of the governing executive (if the executive is drawn from his own party) or its continued unpopularity (if it is drawn from the opposing party). Thus, to further his career aims, the MP must to a large extent act as a professional advocate for, or opponent of, the government of the day.

Suppose there exists a link between the legislative parties and executive candidates in the minds of voters to whom the legislative representatives are accountable. Such a link implies that popularity or unpopularity for the executive will largely translate into popularity or unpopularity, political rewards or penalties, for the party's legislative representatives, as well; thus the representative will be "duty bound" to support an executive elected under the banner of his own party (or oppose an executive from the other party). This link seems to be comparatively weak in the American system. It is bound to be strong, however, where the parliament is an "electoral college" (see the second post in this series) determining which party is to furnish the government.

It appears, then, that under the parliamentary form of government, even horizontal pressure or incentives, such as that which would result from the election of the parliamentary front bench by the MPs as a whole, will produce an assembly which is made up of advocates for the party leaders rather than for constituents.

There is nothing intrinsically objectionable in having advocates for executives as just described. Indeed, it is widely appreciated that they may provide a means both of reducing a complicated political debate to understandable terms and of providing a clear alternative government, without which the ruling executive may be given too free a hand. The problem is that a Commons made up of such advocates makes a poor "higher jury" of the nation, to use a Burkean term. It is in effect a "jury" of defence lawyers and prosecutors, appealing to the casual spectators in the public gallery. Such a Commons does not seem to be capable of serving as an independent check on the government, because the Commons majority is preordained to support the government (in the usual case of a ruling party which holds an absolute majority).

Before the centralisation of power in the hands of party leaders, a justification for the parliamentary party system was that the party's MPs could act as a check on their leader away from the public eye, in informal caucus meetings. But even in this case, there seems to be something missing that is vital to a representative-, as opposed to a direct-democratic constitution: an assembly of respected representatives who can actually be swayed by the formal political debate in which they are participating. Once a measure has been introduced into the Commons, the majority is basically bound to support it under the confidence convention (although it may be possible to pass amendments). Debate is thus addressed not to the representatives but to the public; its quality surely suffers as a result.