On party discipline (2)

In the preceding post on this subject, I was attempting to build up an argument in favour of a modified Westminster-type constitution under which "horizontal" party ties within the Commons might remain strong, but which would break the excessive power of party leaders over parliamentary parties by legally requiring that cabinets and shadow cabinets—the "front bench" of the Commons—be elected by backbench MPs. This need not give the back bench the ability specifically to appoint ministers to portfolios; rather, the MPs would determine who was eligible to be appointed by the Prime Minister or opposition leader. In other words, the back bench would nominate the cabinet and shadow cabinet, whose actual election would remain in the hands of the party leaders. Such a nomination vote would probably have to be held by secret ballot in order to have the desired effect of taking power out of the hands of the party leadership. If successful, this measure should restore the legislature as an effective check on the executive, without having to replace the parliamentary system by a presidential one. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it should restore the independence of the parliamentary party as a check on the party leader: with tight-knit parliamentary parties, everything of interest tends to occur within the party, rather than in the Commons as such (except under minority governments).

However, I have been having second thoughts about this, because the proposed measure alone seems insufficient for reversing the accumulation of power in the hands of the party leader. In the first place, the leader would typically still have at his disposal various tools for preventing too much independence on the part of his MPs. Most of these are associated with the leader's control over the party "brand name". For example, he may in recent times have acquired the authority to refuse to sign the nomination papers of an MP, thereby requiring him to run as an independent or not at all; he might also be able to expel a rebellious MP from his caucus. Since the party of a parliamentary candidate (where party signifies both the party label and the identity of the current party leader) is the main determinant of whether an MP will get elected, these forms of authority to decertify the MP as a party member amount to the ability to sign the MP's political death warrant. Probably the leader would also be able to withhold an MP's share of central party campaign funds if he wished to penalize that MP in a less drastic fashion. There is a tendency for the party leadership to take increasing control at the electoral district level, for example by insisting that some districts run candidates belonging to specific demographic groups, where in the not very distant past this would have been regarded as unconscionable interference in free local representation. Centralized control is also favoured by the rise of the national mass media in general, and party leaders' debates in particular, which focus the attention of constituents on the leaders rather than the local representatives. If a party wins elections mainly because of the popularity of the leader, that leader will inevitably gain a preponderance of power within the party.

In principle, these disciplinary devices which are available to the party leader might also become available under an American-style, presidential constitution, so they may not constitute an argument in favour of the latter. But an additional factor which definitely tends to tighten up party discipline under the Westminster system, as compared with the presidential one, is that the presidential system gives the voter the ability to vote for the executive and his legislative representative separately. The legislative representative has no say in the appointment or removal of the executive (except in the extraordinary case of an impeachment or a deadlocked Electoral College). This means that the voter does not regard his legislative vote primarily as a means of supporting one party leader or another, so that he does not require assurances that his legislative representative will support a specific party leader. The voter will want his representative to be be reasonably cooperative with the President's legislative initiatives, if the voter approves of that President; but this is a different matter from being concerned lest his MP help to remove his government from office by opposing the Prime Minister on a "question of confidence". Under the Westminster system, the "confidence convention" means that there is no way for the MP to oppose his leader openly on any legislative matter without posing a threat to the leader's tenure as Prime Minister, and thereby betraying the MP's implicit promise to his constituents to support the party leader for the duration of the parliamentary term.

Thus, the parliamentary system in its current form tends to strengthen the control of party leaders in two ways, by comparison with the presidential system: by giving the party leaders the power of cabinet or shadow-cabinet patronage; and by debasing the legislature into a kind of Electoral College (in the American sense), whose principal function is the predetermined choice of the executive. Even if the former cause could be removed by means such as the parliamentary election of the front bench, one would still be faced with the "electoral college" problem.