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The former Deputy Party Leader examines Burke's advice on an MP's role
ยท A member of parliament should not slavishly follow the wishes of the majority, but should apply his or her own judgement about what is right or wrong.
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I was recently invited to reflect from the point of view of a practising politician and a Christian on the rights of majorities. We all nowadays believe in majority rule and rightly so. But we live in a fallen world. Majorities are not infallible. As Dryden wrote: "Nor is the people's judgement always true. The most may err as grossly as the few."
One interesting issue raised by considering the rights and wrongs of majorities is what is the role of the individual MP. If majorities, though fallible, are the least bad way to select our government - should MPs follow the views of the majority of their constituents on every issue or their own judgement? I share Burke's view that an MP should be a representative not a delegate. He should not be mandated to vote in Parliament to reflect the views on each issue held by the majority of his constituents.
As Burke said, his constituents' "wishes ought to have great weight, their opinions high respect, and their business his unremitted attention. But your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement".
Representative and direct democracy
That is because we are a parliamentary democracy not a direct democracy. We know that legislation and government is a time-consuming business. Most people do not have time to consider every issue in detail. So we send someone whose judgement we trust, and whose broad principles we share, to deliberate on our behalf.
If MPs were mandated as to how they must vote in Parliament by a snap vote of their constituents, Parliament would have no point. As Burke said: "Government and legislation are matters of reason and judgement (and not of inclination); and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps 300 miles distant from those who hear the argument."
The internet may make it technically easier to take snap polls, but it does not make it more desirable. I suspect most voters know serious issues need serious debate not instant responses. So they want MPs to use their judgement on their constituents' behalf. If voters do not like the way their representatives exercise their judgement they can get rid of them at the next election.
What specifically does that representative role mean for a Christian in Parliament? Do they have the right to impose their religious views which may not be shared by their constituents? Certainly MPs have no right to try to use the legislative power of the state to coerce others into accepting their personal views - whether religious or irreligious.
An MP's personal values come into play only insofar as they help decide what is best for the community on any particular issue.
The example of capital punishment
Let me take a particular and difficult issue as an example - capital punishment. I have little doubt that on a snap poll a sizeable majority of my constituents would want it restored.
I share my constituents' revulsion at the crime of murder. That revulsion goes beyond intense sympathy for the victim, their loved ones and dependents. Murder is an attack on the sanctity of life which is a foundation stone of any civilised, certainly of any Christian, society.
Yet I have opposed the return of the death penalty precisely because the more deeply you believe in the sanctity of life, the harder it is to justify the state taking life - even that of a murderer. It could only be justified, even if we could be 100% certain of the guilt of the convicted murderer, if it were proven that capital punishment were more effective a deterrent than a long jail sentence and would therefore save more innocent lives.
In fact, comparison of levels and trends of homicide in states and periods which have had capital punishment with those which have not, shows no measurable extra deterrent effect. This may well be because most murders are domestic and crimes passionnels - and therefore not premeditated nor the result of a rational balancing of pros and cons.
When justifying my stance on capital punishment - as I have had to do at every general election - constituents are often prepared to accept that analysis. But the argument does not end there.
Proponents of capital punishment then invariably propose restricting it to categories of crimes most likely to be premeditated, or capable of being deterred, or outstandingly horrible.
Parliament too has had to consider those options. On the last occasion, I recall we debated and voted on 18 different capital offences. One was for murdering a policeman in the course of a robbery. But what if one gangster killed a policeman in a fight and his mate killed several bank employees in cold blood in the same raid? Could we really hang the former and jail the latter? There is every chance that a jury faced with such a dilemma would be reluctant to convict. Then we would have the worst possible result - murderers escaping scott-free.
When I have taken constituents who criticised me for 'going against the majority will' on this issue through these arguments, most have at least recognised that these are not issues for snap votes. They demonstrate Burke's thesis on the need for representatives to use their judgement after reasoned debate on complex issues of principle and practical realities.
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