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MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 10:17 am
by erol
As ever the following is just my own personal 'musing' nothing more.

There is out there a feeling / view / opinion / belief , pretty wide spread I would suggest , that MP's are not reflecting the views of their electorates or the majority view of their electorates and are just instead reflecting their own views. I think there is also a belief, again quite widely held I would suggest, that this 'not reflecting the views of their electorates' is the reason or main reason why we are where we are right now. A view that 'if only MPs would fairly represents the views of the majority of their electorates, then we would not be in this mess we are now and we would have left the EU'. I also think there is a view / feeling that such behaviour is being done or predominately by MPs who voted themselves voted remain but represent constituencies in which a majority voted leave.

On the off chance that anyone else is interested at trying to look at this 'issue' in any kind of balanced way outside of our own personal 'wants', this is what I will be trying to do in this post (and I will almost certainly fail but I am trying).

The first thing you have to decide is 'which electorate' do you think MP's have a duty to reflect the majority will of. Those of their constituents that voted them in and invested them with 'power' and the right to speak on their behalves or the 'electorate' of the UK as a whole. If you believe that an MP's duty is to reflect the will of the UK electorate as a whole, regardless of and without regard for the will of their constituents, then you can probably just ignore the rest of this post. If however you believe their duty is to reflect the will of the majority of their constituents, then I hope you will keep going.

One more 'disclaimer' before I go on. There is only 'hard data' on which way a given constituency voted in terms of the 2016 referendum for about 20% of constituencies. For the other 80% of constituencies there are only 'estimates'. I do think good hard work has been done by the likes of Dr Chris Hanretty to provide us with the 'best estimates possible' and that such estimates 'usable' but it should not be forgotten that for most constituencies these are 'estimates' and not 'hard fact'.

So I am going to pose a series of question in the hope of encouraging some though and maybe even debate. On the chance that any of these questions 'upset' or 'anger' anyone I would ask them to remember that is all they are, questions.

If as someone who voted leave you believe strongly and passionately that MP's from constituencies that had a majority who voted leave have a duty to only pursue actions that are compatible with leaving and that any time they do otherwise they are betraying their electorates, is that not also true for MP's from constituencies that vote remain have a duty to pursue actions that are compatible with remaining and that any time they do otherwise they are betraying their electorates ?

For anyone who is wondering, as I did when thinking about this, are there MPs from consistences where a majority voted to remain, whilst they themselves vote leave and who have pursued actions that are odds with the majority view of the electorates as expressed in the referendum but compatible with their own personal view, then the answer to that question is 'yes there are'. Some examples would include

Kate Hoey - voted leave. Her constituency, Vauxhall, 77.6% voted remain
Graham Brady - voted leave. His constituency, Altrincham and Sale West 61.4% voted remain
Peter Lillie - voted leave. His constituency, Hitchen and Harpenden 60.2% voted remain
Dominic Raab- voted leave. His constituency Esher and Walton 58.4% voted remain
John Redwood - voted leave. His constituency Wokingham 57.3% voted remain
Gisela Stuart - voted leave. Her constituency Birmingham Edgbaston 52.7% voted remain

- just as a note, we here now get to around the point that matches the referendum split nationwide (51.89% leave 48.11% remain) and the point that 'estimates' of how a constituency voted become increasingly 'uncertain' -

Liam Fox - voted leave. His constituency, North Somerset 52.4% voted remain
Chris Grayling - voted leave. His constituency, Epsom and Ewell 52.2% voted remain
David Davies - voted leave. His constituency, Monmouth 51.9% voted remain

(source for figure above https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/pro-b ... ituencies/ )

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 10:51 am
by waddo
erol, you said - "The first thing you have to decide is 'which electorate' do you think MP's have a duty to reflect the majority will of. Those of their constituents that voted them in and invested them with 'power' and the right to speak on their behalves or the 'electorate' of the UK as a whole. If you believe that an MP's duty is to reflect the will of the UK electorate as a whole, regardless of and without regard for the will of their constituents, then you can probably just ignore the rest of this post. If however you believe their duty is to reflect the will of the majority of their constituents, then I hope you will keep going." Sorry to say that at this point I stopped reading further. Why?

Because I live here (TRNC) and have no reason to ever return to the UK but because I care for the future of my children/grandchildren & great grandchildren I voted to remain, not for those reasons alone as everybody is selfish to some extent, so I also thought of my future here and how Brexit would affect that as well. I am not saying that I am right or wrong but I voted on the amount (limited) information that was available to me at the time of the referendum.

I have never had much time for MP's throughout my whole life, as I see them mainly as people who have a job to do for the people they represent and that, again in the main, they consistently fail in there tasks. Yet, whenever they fail it is never their fault, it is either the fault of the opposition, their own party or the people. They get elected on the basis of a manifesto (promise) of what they will do but once elected that manifesto becomes a thing to argue about and eventually to put to one side when it gets too difficult.

Personally, I ask one thing from any MP - honesty! In effect they are the parents of the people who vote them into power and they have an obligation to ensure that they do the best for their children. If their children all gang together and request that their parent loads them into a bus and drives it over a cliff, then the parent has to point out to the children that this is a very silly thing to do and that they will all suffer if it happens. Then they have an obligation to ask the children if they understand what they have asked for! But in the final act of parenthood they must always protect those children from doing harm to themselves. That is what we pay them to do - the best job they can to honestly make the lives of the children safe and secure and ensure, as far as possible, that they have a safe and secure future.

To me it seems the whole of the UK electorate was sold a Friday Car - they were promised one thing (The Government would listen) and then given another thing (the Friday Car) and now the whole of the UK do not know what to do. Now the parents keep having meetings and casting blame in any direction that makes sure they are not at fault. None of them, of any party have the honesty and courage to take hold of the problem so they simply resign.

It is a very sad situation that the UK as a whole finds itself in, constant threats from all sides of how any solution will tear apart the UK population and set it against itself. Why not just stop it all? Why not just agree that leaving the EU is going to happen in the future? Why not actually have a plan of how that will happen in the future before they tell the EU that they are leaving. Stop crawling to the EU with wishes, stop groveling around for the EU's crumbs. Make a decision, make a plan and stick with it by leaving. That is not to say "crash out now" and not to say "Accept the plan as offered" now, it IS to say make your plan, get it in place then tell the EU and leave.

I spent 25 years in the Military and a further 17 years in the MoD Civil Service, if I had managed my staff and resources in the same manner as the Government has managed Brexit I would have been either jailed in the military or sacked from the Civil Service. I wish now I had not wasted my time and instead become an MP - my retirement would have been so much easier and my bank balance (such as it is) so much better! Disgusted of TRNC.

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 11:26 am
by erol
Thanks for the input and sharing your views here Waddo. Appreciated.

I can not say there is anything you have written that I personally disagree with. The only thing I would add is that whilst I personally agree that your 'suggested way forward' of stopping, taking stock, getting all our ducks in a row and then leaving 'properly' and in light of and with the benefit of all that we have learnt or should have learnt, makes compelling sense to me, I do also understand how and why for someone who voted leave it could be seen as just a 'remainer trick' to 'thwart the will of the people'. I currently feel like I have 'nothing' that could effectively address such concerns from those who voted leave in the referendum

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 12:49 pm
by waddo
I voted to stay for the reasons stated, people voted to leave for their own reasons, the coin was tossed and came down on the side of those who voted to leave. So be it, I have no axe to grind and no hidden agenda, the leavers may well be right and I may well be wrong - only time will tell. I do know for sure that in the very unlikely event that there was to be another referendum that I would not vote again - unless it was a referendum on a plan that all voters had been provided with and had been given time to assimilate and understand first. I fully accept that leavers won the last vote on the simple questions asked of them and have no fight with that. Like yourself it is all just my own personnel musing!

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 2:30 pm
by mrsgee
waddo wrote:I voted to stay for the reasons stated, people voted to leave for their own reasons, the coin was tossed and came down on the side of those who voted to leave. So be it, I have no axe to grind and no hidden agenda, the leavers may well be right and I may well be wrong - only time will tell. I do know for sure that in the very unlikely event that there was to be another referendum that I would not vote again - unless it was a referendum on a plan that all voters had been provided with and had been given time to assimilate and understand first. I fully accept that leavers won the last vote on the simple questions asked of them and have no fight with that. Like yourself it is all just my own personnel musing!
I don't want to get into too much of a debate, but whilst your comment 'I fully accept that leavers won the last vote on the simple questions asked of them and have no fight with that.' rightly or wrongly, but surely the same applies to the remainers..... did everyone not have the same information on which to base their decisions? Why is it always the leavers who are somehow made out to have a lack of understanding? Were the remainers then privileged to some information or insight that the leavers were not...... I thought everyone ran from the same starting blocks. I am not saying who was right or wrong, simply, everyone was on an even footing, they voted for whatever reason, on the information they all had. Sadly, it is a total fiasco, and it is also interesting to note how many MP's voted to remain against the wishes of their constituencies, mainly in the northern counties of England of course. Who knows where this will lead, no-one does. The sad fact, in my view, is that no proper exit plan was ever put in place when the EU was set up, and I feel this has compounded the mess. I guess no-one ever thought anyone would want to leave, so why provide an exit route..... a bit arrogant but there you go.

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 3:50 pm
by EnjoyingTheSun
A wonderfully subtle production of facts which you can’t argue are accurate if heavily slanted. It certainly looks as if those Conservatives are thwarting their constituent’s wishes to remain.

But let’s have a dig down into those figures, 64% of the parliamentary seats voted to leave, approx. 70% Conservative and 60% Labour.
So congratulations to you or The Guardian for finding 9 MPs who have voted Leave against their Remaining constituencies wishes.
Seven are obviously Conservative (drip drip), two are Labour although Stuart stood down in 2017. Kate Hoey the other Labour I fully expect to be deselected in the near future as she won’t exactly be too popular with the trots.

Another way of looking at it is generally the North of England voted leave and Labour has many MPs in the North so many of those frustrating the process to leave are frustrating their constituent’s wishes.

Interestingly Islington was one of the highest turnouts for Remain at 75%.
I assume since it gentrified the need for those au pairs at under minimum wage is vital.
One of their MPs is Jeremy Corbyn who, despite hiding and using this process to gain power, is a devout leaver.

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 4:10 pm
by turtle
Erol.... Why have you only listed 9 of the names that went against their constituents remain majority and not the hundreds of the other way round..are you saying that 80% of constituencies have not "properly" declared the result or have I misunderstood this ?.

In answer to your question no I don't think MP's should honour the majority of their constituents wishes this would only create massive unrest to the minority voters so it's lose lose for them...What I do think they should do is have a seperate MP's vote so they can show what they think then support the majority in any subsequent votes whether they like it or not... on that subject this should get them off the hook for any criticsim thereafter. But being Brexit would there be any other situation like this ever again ?.
The bottom line is constituents will show what they think the next time they vote and boot them out or vote to retain them . This has already started out in the constituencies as you have seen.

For me the question that really gets to me is the accusation the Leave voters didn't know what they were voting for.....poppycock....the leave voters new the working of the EU as being part of it for 40yrs and made a judgement of what they knew was actually happening at the time of the vote and decided they wanted no more to do with it...that to me is an informed decision.
I suppose the only real way of sorting this out locally is for the MP who simply can not back the majority then they should resign and have a by election in that way I would guess Leave would be home and dry with 408 constituencies against 242 voted to leave.

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 5:45 pm
by Mowgli597
Interesting topic when considering the DUP and their influence on the subject.

Out of 18 constituencies in the North of Ireland 11 voted to remain.

And doesn’t the whip system make the whole idea of MPs representing their constituents wishes moot?

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 6:51 pm
by erol
turtle wrote:Erol.... Why have you only listed 9 of the names that went against their constituents remain majority and not the hundreds of the other way round..
This enquiry, for me, started with me wondering were there any examples of constituencies where the MP voted leave but their constituencies vote remain. Despite all the time and debate and my interest in this subject I really did not know the answer so I went and looked. By comparison not only was I already aware that there were many MPs that voted remain when their constituencies voted leave and could even name at least one without any need for 'research' (Yvette Cooper) an example where there has been, imo, much coverage and focus (including here) on her having voted remain in a constituencies that voted leave, yet her actions have been 'at odds with the majority in her constituency'. So I went and looked and found such a list, the source of which I also included in my post. I then summarised that list down to those MPs I 'recognised' and that in my perception could be (fairly) said to have been at odds with their constituency. Those were the ones I listed in my post. I also actively did not list if they were labour MPs or conservative MPs despite that being in the original source list and despite being aware that on that list there were more conservatives than labour ones. I did not put in which party they were from specifically because what I was trying to look at was not about party - it was about answering the question 'are there examples of leave voting MPs that have clearly acted against the 'will' of the majority in their own constituency. I find it mildly interesting that despite me doing this both you and ETS 'jumped' on this point none the less. I personally was genuinely surprised to see names like Dominic Raab in there. If I had been asked to 'guess' before doing the 'research' I would definitely have said he was from a leave supporting constituency and with a fair degree of 'confidence'. I would of course have been wrong.

Anyway here is the list for MPs the 'other way round'. Should you want to go through that list and reduce down to MPs on that list that have clearly been acting against the will of their voters, like Ms Cooper, then please do go right ahead and do so. Just for the record this list also comes from the Independent (are they still called that or just I now ?) and not the Guardian, like the first list.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/every ... remain-mp/

I do have to say this constant 'suspicion' and 'questioning of my motives' based on accusations of lack of 'impartiality' coming from people who are (imo at least) hardly models of impartiality themselves, is somewhat 'wearing'. Anyway I am a 'big boy' and can 'take it' but did just feel like mentioning it.
turtle wrote:are you saying that 80% of constituencies have not "properly" declared the result or have I misunderstood this ?.
The counting 'areas' for the referendum were not based on existing constituencies. Now some of these counting areas for the referendum chose to also count and split the numbers by constituency, but they were not obliged to do this. Around 20% of constituencies were in referendum counting areas that chose to do this - so these we do have 'hard numbers' for how each constituency voted. However around 80% of constituency were in counting areas that did not do this, so the figures for constituencies in these areas has been 'derived / estimated'.
turtle wrote:What I do think they should do is have a seperate MP's vote so they can show what they think then support the majority in any subsequent votes whether they like it or not... on that subject this should get them off the hook for any criticsim thereafter. But being Brexit would there be any other situation like this ever again ?.
I do not really 'get' what you mean here but regardless I welcome any and all discussion that looks at ways we could or might do things differently in light of what we have seen / learnt so far because of this process, so thanks for that.
turtle wrote:For me the question that really gets to me is the accusation the Leave voters didn't know what they were voting for.....poppycock....the leave voters new the working of the EU as being part of it for 40yrs and made a judgement of what they knew was actually happening at the time of the vote and decided they wanted no more to do with it...that to me is an informed decision.
Not something I have ever said directly myself and something that I have repeatedly explicitly 'refuted'.
turtle wrote:I suppose the only real way of sorting this out locally is for the MP who simply can not back the majority then they should resign and have a by election in that way I would guess Leave would be home and dry with 408 constituencies against 242 voted to leave.
Well in my thread that was trying to promote discussion and ideas about what we might think about 'doing differently', that so far no one other than me has expressed any interest in, I did suggest the idea of there being some mechanism where by local voters could 'mid term' vote 'no confidence' in their sitting MP and force a by election. As I say so far does not seem to be much interest is such discussions.

As an aside another one of my 'suggestions' for changes we could consider in out political system in light of what we have 'learnt' was the idea that all and any ballots have to have a 'none of the above' option on them. Can you imagine if a snap general election was called right now and we did have such a thing in place ?

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Sun 31 Mar 2019 6:52 pm
by erol
Mowgli597 wrote:And doesn’t the whip system make the whole idea of MPs representing their constituents wishes moot?
Fair / good / interesting point (imo) - though at least as far as Brexit goes the whole whipping system does seem to me to have largely broken down.

Re: MP's betraying their electorates

Posted: Mon 01 Apr 2019 7:53 am
by wanderer
Dont know many MP's but Walsall North is Conservative not David Winnick
Walsall North Leave vote: 71.2% MP: David Winnick (Labour) He warned that Brexit could have a disastrous impact on trade in the West Midlands.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/every ... remain-mp/

DO NOT Watch if you are easily offended by bad language

https://www.facebook.com/doreentiptonla ... 664091286/