How can we ever have real parliamentary democracy with a party whip system?

hatrickpatrick

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/1202/breaking5.html?via=rel

So yet another TD decides to maintain his original manifesto (fair play to him) and is expelled from the party for it.
(Correct me if I'm wrong, BTW, but expulsion from the party also qualifies him as an independent in the Dail so he has far less speaking time etc, right?)

How can we ever have a real democracy in this type of system? What's the use of voting people in if their votes are already rigged from the start?

Surely a genuine parliamentary democracy would involve TDs voting one way or another purely based on what way that TD wanted to vote, or by lobbying or whatever, not by a party line?

I voted for four people when I cast my vote, because I liked their policies. They were Richard Boyd Barrett, Eamonn Gilmore, Mary Mitchell O Connor, and Sean Barrett.

With this system of party whips why do we even bother doing this? Would it not make more sense to simply put party names on the ballot paper and ask us to tick them? 1 ULA, 1 Labour and 2 FG? Honestly I'm appalled at how undemocratic "representative democracy" is turning out to be. We had the same sh!te in Britain a few weeks ago when they were asked to vote on an EU referendum proposal and the party leaders essentially made up their MPs minds for them.

I know people will rush in to call me naive and defend this system, but I sincerely hope that you will provide your rationalizations for supporting it when you do. I am appalled by this sort of trampling on democracy.

Scofflaw

I'll be very interested to see if anyone does want to defend the Whip system.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Cuddlesworth

I not sure I understand what the problem is. The "whip" system is clearly a form of party control to keep members in line. Similar to the "law" in which we all live under.

Individuals can choose to defy the whip and get punished for it.
Individuals can choose to defy the law and get punished for it.

But its a thin veil of control. If the party leaders truly tried to press for something that was totally heinous in theory the party members could vote against and the whip would be in essence powerless since the following mass expulsion would dissolve the government. In the similar vein to how the law works, if the whole country chose to deliberately ignore it there would be little our system could do.

I don't think there could be a majority government without some form of control over direction and I can't see any obvious system that is better. Unless I'm missing something.

hatrickpatrick

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I not sure I understand what the problem is. The "whip" system is clearly a form of party control to keep members in line. Similar to the "law" in which we all live under.

Ridiculous analogy is absolutely ridiculous.

Individuals can choose to defy the whip and get punished for it.
Individuals can choose to defy the law and get punished for it.

But its a thin veil of control. If the party leaders truly tried to press for something that was totally heinous in theory the party members could vote against and the whip would be in essence powerless since the following mass expulsion would dissolve the government. In the similar vein to how the law works, if the whole country chose to deliberately ignore it there would be little our system could do.

So what we actually have is a party dictatorship, not a parliamentary democracy?

I don't think there could be a majority government without some form of control over direction and I can't see any obvious system that is better. Unless I'm missing something.

Why exactly? You'd still have a cabinet, but the point would be all TDs would vote purely based on their own decision, so parliament would actually be, y'know, democratic.

I want my representatives to represent my constituency, not their party whips. This system is NOT democratic, no matter how you try to dress it up...

Riskymove

So what we actually have is a party dictatorship, not a parliamentary democracy?

absolutely

The TDs choose to group themselves into parties, no one forces them too

I want my representatives to represent my constituency, not their party whips. This system is NOT democratic, no matter how you try to dress it up...

tbh, this is exactly why i wouldn't want free votes

Cuddlesworth

I don't think my analogy is wrong. There is nothing stopping our representative's from expressing their own view rather then the party's for the duration of their elected stay. They simply face the threat of leaving the party. And in the same way, they themselves have the threat of dissolving the government.

So is the problem the whip system, or the TD's who are too weak willed or afraid to stand up against the system?

Scofflaw

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I don't think my analogy is wrong. There is nothing stopping our representative's from expressing their own view rather then the party's for the duration of their elected stay. They simply face the threat of leaving the party. And in the same way, they themselves have the threat of dissolving the government.

So is the problem the whip system, or the TD's who are too weak willed or afraid to stand up against the system?

Interestingly, both your options say there's an issue with the whip system. If it's not coercive, why would TDs be afraid to stand up against it?

cordially,
Scofflaw

hatrickpatrick

Riskymove wrote: »

absolutely

The TDs choose to group themselves into parties, no one forces them too

Actually the Dail rules are very restrictive with regard to independent TDs speaking rights and so on, so there IS an element of necessity there. That why some independents form technical groups, for instance.

tbh, this is exactly why i wouldn't want free votes

Why, because then parliament would actually be democratic? :rolleyes:

Riskymove

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Actually the Dail rules are very restrictive with regard to independent TDs speaking rights and so on, so there IS an element of necessity there. That why some independents form technical groups, for instance.

who introduced the rules?

or alternatively, which came first, the Party or the Rules?

Why, because then parliament would actually be democratic? :rolleyes:

no I don't believe it would be more democtratic, it would simply mean that TDs voted (instead of the party line) based on lobbying strength by constituents ......... it still would not necessarily be the TDs own personal belief of the best thing to do

southsiderosie

I don't think a whip system is inherently undemocratic. The problem is, Ireland has a very individualized voting system, but the parliamentary system is driven by party blocs not individual votes. So people think they are voting for "Joe who fixed the road", but they are actually voting for Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein or whomever.

I've said it before in this forum, but I really think that given the party dynamics in the Dail, Ireland would be better off switching to a party list system, and better yet (given the country's size), a national party list system like the Netherlands has. This would force politicians to pay more attention to national issues rather than pothole politics, and would also push voters to pay more attention to what the parties actually say and do, rather than their voting decisions being clouded by their personal relationship with their TD.

Dr Galen

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I want my representatives to represent my constituency

Apart from this, I'd broadly agree with you.

We need to remove our legislators from local, constituency politics imho. We have local government for that sort of thing. We should look to improve our system of local government, so that TD's are getting it in the neck because a pothole didn't get fixed etc.

nesf

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'll be very interested to see if anyone does want to defend the Whip system.

cordially,
Scofflaw

It allows faster decisions in an emergency situation...

Cuddlesworth

Scofflaw wrote: »

Interestingly, both your options say there's an issue with the whip system. If it's not coercive, why would TDs be afraid to stand up against it?

cordially,
Scofflaw

It is coercive, but its a necessary evil when dealing with parish pump elected representatives. There has to be some form of party control for a effective decision making process.

Pete_Cavan

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I know people will rush in to call me naive and defend this system, but I sincerely hope that you will provide your rationalizations for supporting it when you do. I am appalled by this sort of trampling on democracy.

Thats because you are being naive. You know perfectly well how the system works and yet you facilitate it by the way you vote. You vote for people who, as individuals are happy to be bound by the whip system, and are members of parties who support the whip system. The majority of people are happy to maintain the status quo and prove this by the way they vote. As others have said, a party list system would be better for this country. But the whip system is not "trampling on democracy", it is a necessary tool in the form of democracy we have. Our democracy could be changed and if we elected a government who would implement this - but we dont, we are happy to stick with FF, FG and Lab. The people have spoken, you may not like it but, hey, thats democracy for ya!

hatrickpatrick

Dr Galen wrote: »

Apart from this, I'd broadly agree with you.

We need to remove our legislators from local, constituency politics imho. We have local government for that sort of thing. We should look to improve our system of local government, so that TD's are getting it in the neck because a pothole didn't get fixed etc.

Perhaps I phrased that slightly wrong. I wasn't in any sense arguing for parish pump politics - all of those issues should be left for local councils, not national government.

What I means was ,a politician is supposed to be representing the PEOPLE who elected them, not their party leaders. The whip system pretty much makes lobbying individual TDs meaningless, which in turn gives the ordinary citizenry less control over how their so called representatives actually vote.

They should be voting based on what the people who they "Represent" actually want, not their party leaders. Representative democracy is supposed to mean a TD represents the people's views, not the party's views.

hatrickpatrick

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Thats because you are being naive. You know perfectly well how the system works and yet you facilitate it by the way you vote. You vote for people who, as individuals are happy to be bound by the whip system, and are members of parties who support the whip system. The majority of people are happy to maintain the status quo and prove this by the way they vote. As others have said, a party list system would be better for this country. But the whip system is not "trampling on democracy", it is a necessary tool in the form of democracy we have. Our democracy could be changed and if we elected a government who would implement this - but we dont, we are happy to stick with FF, FG and Lab. The people have spoken, you may not like it but, hey, thats democracy for ya!

I put it to you that the people also spoke in Britain and demanded a referendum on EU membership. A three line whip was introduced to avoid this which effectively made it almost impossible for MPs to vote against the government, and there will be no referendum as a result.

Had the whip not been introduced, the MPs would undoubtedly have been far more swayed by the opinions of the ordinary citizenry - the people, surely, whose opinions SHOULD have sway in a democratic system?

Pete_Cavan

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I put it to you that the people also spoke in Britain and demanded a referendum on EU membership. A three line whip was introduced to avoid this which effectively made it almost impossible for MPs to vote against the government, and there will be no referendum as a result.

Had the whip not been introduced, the MPs would undoubtedly have been far more swayed by the opinions of the ordinary citizenry - the people, surely, whose opinions SHOULD have sway in a democratic system?

But the people DO have sway in this democratic system, although this system is different to participatory democracy which you seem to favour. If the people wanted to leave the EU they could have elected a government who would bring this about in the GE in 2010. They did not do this but will have the opportunity to do this again in the next GE. Of course participatory democracy could be introduced should a government who supports it be elected, such being the will of the people, but in this country there seems to be no appetite to do so.

Duke Leonal Felmet

I had a 'back of a napkin' idea on this once. How about a 'Dail' restricted to 101 members who are free to vote how they wish, and abstaining from voting is not allowed.

I would be interested in hearing of any potential flaws in that simple idea.

nesf

Duke Leonal Felmet wrote: »

I had a 'back of a napkin' idea on this once. How about a 'Dail' restricted to 101 members who are free to vote how they wish, and abstaining from voting is not allowed.

I would be interested in hearing of any potential flaws in that simple idea.

Abstaining from voting is a right, there are plenty of legitimate situations where a TD could not decide which side he wants to support in a vote.