Since the last general election, 24 MPs have faced at least a one-day suspension, according to Chris Bryant, the former chair of the House of Commons standards committee.
Bryant said this was because of those in power turning a blind eye to poor conduct, a temptation among politicians to protect their own, and hard-to-change behaviours and attitudes at Westminster.
When asked whether Westminster was a place women can feel safe, Walton told the House Magazine: “‘I don’t know’ is the honest answer. I wouldn’t say that nobody feels safe, but I have heard lots of things where women don’t from some of the engagement that I’ve done.
“I think all the time that there is a section of people that are saying they don’t feel safe, then people have to listen and do something about it.”
It is, constitutionally, an enormous hot potato. MPs are elected by their constituents. Any body that can fire an MP is a threat to democracy. It’s easy to say that rapists should be kicked out. But sex crime is often a crime with no direct supporting evidence. False abuse claims are an overblown threat in the general population, IMO, but if “Parliament HR” was a real thing then there’s a very obvious and easy route to force out MPs who aren’t toeing the line.
It also has to be balanced against lawbreaking as legitimate protest. Imagine an MP rejected by their constituents to legalise cannabis. If that MP smoked a fat dooby in public it’d be entirely consistent with their political mandate, but they’d be at risk of most HR policies as well as possible arrest. That’s why the current process is that an MP had to be sentenced to now than a year in prison before a recall petition, they have to have done something really quite bad.
Or, put another way, if a Berlusconi type was elected tomorrow and everyone knew they were a gropey sex pest at point of election, what right would any political body have to deny the voters specifically what they have requested?
Morals shift over time, politicians often drive those shifts, there has to be space for politicians to shift those morals even if you don’t approve of them.
Having said all that I think the best answer is a more aggressive approach to recalling MPs, we should be able to hold our MPs to account more than once every five years if their electorate desires it. And we should also have proportional representation so that unpopular views don’t get into parliament because of First Past The Post split vote nonsense.
Yeah it does sound complex when you put things like that. I just think there must be a better way than what’s happening now. Maybe take the party disciplinary part away from the parties and make that consistent and independent with the power to suspend only. Then the constituency can choose to deselect or not.
I dunno, just a thought.