Simon Reevell: We must end the Commons vote circus that puts party before country for MPs

I agree with that sentiment – that’s why I voted with 80 other Conservative MPs and against the Government and its three-line whip.

The flood of e-mails that I received before the vote all spoke of powers being repatriated and in an attempt to head off the rebellion the Prime Minister also picked up on that theme.

The difficulty with this aspiration is that it fails to consider what would happen next.

The assumption is that those newly recovered powers would return to a sovereign UK Parliament and all would be well because they would be administered from Westminster rather than Brussels.

But this ignores the manner in which business is managed in the House of Commons.

The vote on a proposed referendum was a non-binding motion with no legal force.

Yet all three main parties ordered their MPs to vote against it or else – the so called “three line whip” – and did so despite the obvious disconnect it would cause between MPs and the constituents that we represent.

This disconnect was enhanced by – being generous – a failure to make clear that e-petitions might result in debate but would never result in legislation.

There is nothing new about this. Three line whips are routinely imposed and followed without question by hundreds of MPs for a variety of reasons that sit between the extremes of bullying and baubles as party whips seek to bulldoze through whatever orders come down from on high.

Often they are not even needed as some MPs drift into voting lobbies, steered by party whips and oblivious to the subject matter of the vote.

This is despite the new sort of politics that was supposed to emerge after the expenses scandal and the bypassing of Parliament which defined the last Labour government.

But, whether needed or not, the three-line whip is an ever present feature of Westminster politics on most days.

And it really does crop up everywhere – to me, the most surprising example of its use was the vote on intervention in Libya.

I supported intervention and happen to think that the Government did an incredible job in gaining UN and Arab League support before deploying the RAF, but I was appalled that the vote on this was subject to a three-line whip.

Tony Blair had followed the same approach prior to the Iraq vote in 2003. Surely our Armed Forces are entitled to the protection provided by MPs being able to vote with their consciences and not with an eye to preferment or punishment? If the Government can’t convince Parliament of its case for war on a free vote, our troops should stay at home.

The most farcical use of the three-line whip in this Parliament was an attempt to stop MPs supporting another non-binding motion this time opposing the use of animals in circuses.

The MP proposing the motion relayed to the House how he had been the subject of intense pressure to water down his motion but to his credit he stood firm and spoke in favour of a ban.

A few minutes later, the three-line whip was dropped but why try and impose it in the first place?

The repatriation of powers is a worthwhile and achievable objective but the powers must return to a Parliament that is sovereign in the sense of the manner in which it conducts its own affairs and not just because it passes its own legislation.

Parliament must return to being more than just where the government of the day goes to get its legislation rubber-stamped.

The reason that those who know about a debate in Parliament regarding a referendum on Europe are comprehensively outnumbered by those who know about a 1-6 result at a football match in Manchester is at least in part because of the low esteem in which politics is held.

Politicians are not trusted and not just on expenses. Stifling debate and seeking to influence votes with threats and/or promises does nothing to persuade people that integrity and politics are tarting to get to know each other once more.

I applaud those of my colleagues who said “country first, then party” during the debate, but we lost the vote 111 to 483. You deserve better.