From candidate to elected member: will new MPs face a trial by fire after the 2019 Canadian federal election?

Posted on October 21, 2019 by The Constitution Unit

Canadian voters will today cast their votes in a tight federal election, after which a large number of first-time MPs are expected to take their seats. Following interviews she conducted with sitting MPs and parliamentary staff, Louise Cockram argues that new members are currently forced to rely on their parties to acclimatise to the House of Commons, and that the official House induction has limited impact.

While the UK waits for a possible snap election, Canadians have been in election mode for months in advance of the federal election that will take place today (21 October). Public opinion polls and the backlash to recent controversies suggest that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals may lose some seats, while a third of New Democratic Party MPs plan to leave politics altogether. This means that a fresh crop of MPs will arrive in Ottawa in late October. These rookie MPs will have spent the past few months knocking on the doors of potential voters, attending community events and coordinating campaigns for party members in their constituency. Once elected they will have to adapt to the procedural rules of the House, as well as answer demands from their constituents and party whips. What will it take for these new MPs to transition from being a party candidate to an elected member?

A joint project between Carleton University and the Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield attempts to answer this very question. As part of the project we have spoken to 26 Canadian MPs who were elected following the 2011 and 2015 federal elections, as well as seven House of Commons staff who are responsible for facilitating the induction of MPs. The purpose of these interviews is to find out how newly elected MPs learn to do the job of an elected representative once they enter the House. The MPs interviewed for the project were from all the major parties in Canada (the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP) and were from different parts of the country. Indeed, due to Canada’s vast geography, many MPs face challenges balancing their constituency and parliamentary duties. It takes a full day for an MP who represents a riding (electoral district) in Northern British Columbia to travel to their constituency from Ottawa. This presents difficulties for the MP not only in terms of their ability to represent constituents but also puts a strain on family life. Continue reading →

Rethinking democracy: is our democracy fit for purpose?

Posted on June 14, 2019 by The Constitution Unit

On 14 May, the Constitution Unit hosted an event to launch ‘Rethinking Democracy’, which was published by Political Quarterly earlier this year. The collection contains essays from leading academics, in which they explore the problems of representative democracy and suggest ways it might now be extended and deepened. In this blog, Tony Wright, Joni Lovenduski, Andrew Gamble and Albert Weale summarise their contributions to the event.

Tony Wright

Earlier this year, I gave evidence to the House of Commons Liaison Committee (alongside Professor Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit) on the topic of the effectiveness and influence of select committees. At that session, I was asked about the reforms instituted as a result of the recommendations in the 2009 report of the Reform of the House Committee, on which I served as chair. That committee came about because the expenses scandal had spurred me into writing to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in a bid to encourage him to reform parliament in a way that might increase public regard for it, at a time when it was perhaps lower than it had ever been. The reforms made as a result of what is now called the Wright Committee have, I think, proved relatively successful. However, in that same letter I also proposed setting up what I called ‘a democracy commission’ to think through what kind of democracy we now wanted. Part of the problem I wanted that committee to deal with was the fact that people were increasingly disengaged from politics.

Ten years later, it is extraordinary what has happened: we have had democracy by the bucketload, so it’s claimed, and people’s engagement with politics has most definitely increased. But it wasn’t supposed to be quite like this. People like me had spent years looking for ways to replace or improve upon representative democracy, but now events have caused us to come to its defence. This is because this established democratic model is under assault across – and indeed beyond – the western world, and from all directions.

In this country, the 2016 referendum was the spur for this. And the result of that referendum was traumatic not just because we lost the vote, but because we lost the democratic argument. By this, I mean that we lost the argument when it comes to the idea of democracy itself. The Leave campaigns were the ones making the argument for democracy; they made the case for democratic self-government and sovereignty. And that case went unanswered, because instead of making a democratic argument, those campaigning for Remain focused on economics and how we would be ‘better off in’. There was a different argument that could have been made by Remainers, albeit a more complicated one. But it wasn’t made, and because of this, the proponents of a certain view of democracy prevailed. Continue reading →

This time it’s a crisis: results from the 2019 Audit of Political Engagement

Posted on May 2, 2019 by The Constitution Unit

Each year, the Hansard Society conducts an Audit of Political Engagement, which seeks to measure how the public views and engages with the political process. The latest Audit demonstrates that public dissatisfaction with our political systems and actors is worryingly high and increasingly intense. However, as Lawrence McKay explains, disaffection has not yet translated into disengagement.

The Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement, now in its sixteenth year, is an annual study, giving a benchmark to measure public opinion about politics and the political system, as well as how engaged people are in the process. The Society describes it as an ‘annual health check’ – and this time round, the patient is in a bad way. Commentators love to declare a crisis, and the Society has often cautioned against such framing. More often than not, there is more continuity than change. Yet this year’s findings can hardly be described any other way.

Opinions of the system of governing are at their lowest point in the 15-year Audit series – worse now than in the aftermath of the MPs’ expenses scandal. People are pessimistic about the country’s problems, and large segments of the public seem willing to entertain radical changes which would alter or even undermine our democracy. While they are no less engaged in the democratic process, many people increasingly want to keep their distance and not to take part in decision-making.

Discontent: more widespread and more intense

The striking thing about this year’s Audit is that not only are more people unhappy, but the intensity of their discontent is unprecedented. Our ‘core indicators’ are the best evidence that something is amiss – in particular, our question on ‘the present system of governing Britain’, and how much it could be improved. We find that discontent is at its historical peak, with more than seven-in-ten feeling it needs either ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of improvement. Furthermore, people are moving into the most negative category. The proportion who stated that it needs ‘a great deal’ of improvement, at 37%, has roughly doubled since the first Audit in 2004. This increased discontent is broad-based, occurring across all social classes, age groups and levels of education. If there is a common thread to where it occurs, it is among non-voters where discontent has risen most. It may be that people who are already disengaged are finding more reasons to hate politics, but many voters are, too.

Yet, while the wider system is held in contempt, it is mostly political actors that bear the brunt of this. We asked our respondents to give their level of confidence in different groups ‘to act in the best interests of the public’. Groups like civil servants and judges generally garnered positive ratings, but the government, MPs, Lords and political parties were judged more negatively, with around two-in-three expressing low or no confidence. The exception – in line with results of previous studies – was local councils and the Scottish government who were seen somewhat more positively than UK-wide actors. Continue reading →

On restoring responsible political parties

Posted on December 12, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

As calls for another Brexit referendum grow ever louder, Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro discuss their new book, Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself, in which they argue that attempts to decentralise political decision-making in the US and UK have made governments and political parties less effective and damaged their ability to address constituents’ long-term interests.

Since the 1960s, powerful movements across the democratic world have sought to bring politics closer to the people. Party members more often elect their leaders directly. There has been greater use of referendums and plebiscites. Many political parties have adopted decentralised ways of choosing candidates. Boundaries have been redrawn to create ‘majority-minority districts’ – in which the majority of the constituents in the district are non-white – and thus ensure selection of racial and ethnic minorities. In many (especially newer) democracies, proportional representation (PR) is favoured as more inclusive of non-majority voters. Unlike single member district systems, which generate two big catch-all parties, parties proliferate under PR; minority groups can all vote for parties they expect to fight for them in the legislature. These changes are touted as democratic enhancements that move decisions closer to the people and elect politicians who are less remote from – and more responsive to – the voters.

Paradoxically, however, this decentralisation has been accompanied by dramatic increases in voter alienation. Poll after poll reflects historic lows of citizen trust in politicians, parties and institutions, dramatically underscored in 2016 by the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s populist stampede to the US presidency. Similar patterns prevail in many democracies, where anti-establishment parties and candidates enjoy unprecedented support from voters. They reject government recommendations in referendums and plebiscites, and elect anti-establishment figures who would not have been taken seriously half a generation ago. Incumbency, which used to be a decisive advantage, seems increasingly to be a liability as ‘tossing the bums out’ shortens political half-lives at every turn. Angry voters flail at their own impotence, waging semi-permanent war on their representatives. Continue reading →

The future of referendums: what role should they play and how should they be conducted?

Posted on March 23, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

Two decades have passed since there was last a serious consideration of how the UK uses referendums. For this reason, the Constitution Unit established the Independent Commission on Referendums to examine whether and how the way in which referendums are regulated in the UK should be changed. Ahead of a public event in Edinburgh, the Commission’s research director, Dr. Alan Renwick, explains its terms of reference.

The referendum is now entrenched as a part of the UK’s political system. The principle that a referendum is needed before some fundamental constitutional changes – notably in relation to sovereignty – are made has become well established. It seems likely that politicians will continue from time to time to find it useful to manage conflicts by proposing to put certain decisions to the people.

Yet, crucially important though referendums are, there has been little concerted thinking of late about how they should be conducted. Two inquiries carried out in the 1990s – by the UCL Constitution Unit’s Nairne Commission and by the Committee on Standards in Public Life – led to the creation of some basic rules, laid down in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. But these rules were always incomplete: for example, they say nothing about who is entitled to vote in a referendum. They are also now two decades old. Much has changed in the intervening years – not least through the rise of the internet and social media. Four major referendums have also been held in that period – on Welsh devolution (2011), the Westminster voting system (2011), Scottish independence (2014), and EU membership (2016) – from which lessons can be learned. Many observers have been dismayed by the conduct of those referendums, whether they agreed with the results or not. A careful review of whether we could do better is therefore overdue.

That is the task of the Independent Commission on Referendums, established by the Constitution Unit last autumn to examine the role and conduct of referendums in the UK and consider what changes might be desirable. Comprising twelve eminent individuals with diverse perspectives on referendums, including current and former parliamentarians, journalists, regulators, and academics, the Commission is due to report this summer. It is keen to hear as many views as possible, it is holding seminars in all of the UK’s capital cities. The Edinburgh seminar is the next in this series, co-hosted with the Royal Society of Edinburgh next Monday. Continue reading →

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From candidate to elected member: will new MPs face a trial by fire after the 2019 Canadian federal election?

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Rethinking democracy: is our democracy fit for purpose?

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This time it’s a crisis: results from the 2019 Audit of Political Engagement

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On restoring responsible political parties

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