If a Member of Parliament in Britain (or in some other country with a Parliamentary system) resigns from his Party, or is ousted by his Party, does he automatically lose his seat in Parliament?
In the U.S. of course, Congressmen can quit their Party without forfeiting their seat (though they might lose seniority and, perhaps in some states be subject to voter recall). I would have thought that Parliamentary systems are similar…
(BTW, there is at least one country where M.P.'s do lose their seat if they quit their Party or are ousted by it. It seems a very bad rule; that’s why I’m asking.)
In the UK they don’t. It doesn’t happen all that often, but they can even join a different party and retain the seat. When the next general election comes around they may choose to stand as an independant, or for their new party.
Actually resigning the seat is an odd process I’ve never really understood involving the Chiltern Hundreds.
As noted by D18, this happens from time to time in Canada; either the MP sits as an independent, or he or she “crosses the floor” and joins another party.
For an example taking place at this time in Canada, in which an MP has been kicked out of cabinet and kicked out of her party, but who still sits as an MP: Guergis faces RCMP probe | CBC News
Thanks for the replies. I thought this would be the answer.
An exception is Thailand which had many strange rules in their “new improved democratic constitution” created about 13 years ago to much fanfare. An M.P. essentially has to vote as his party leader dictates, or it can cost him his seat. (There’ve been at least two new Constitutions since that one, so perhaps this rule’s been fixed.)
To stand for parliamentary election, a candidate must be in a Party, and have been a member of that Party for some minimum period which, IIRC, is longer than the minimum delay for snap elections, so to change Parties the M.P. must anticipate the snap and resign from Parliament. (These rules were intended to “strengthen Parties”, an odd goal for a democrat since most of the Parties are dominated by corrupt individuals.)
And here’s a Canadian example from a few years ago of an MP going the other way: Belinda Stronach.
Ms Stronach was an MP in the Conservative Party, at that time in opposition. The Conservatives were planning on voting to defeat the Liberal government’s budget, triggering a general election. Ms Stronach disagreed with that decision, and crossed the floor to become a Liberal MP. Not only did she not lose her seat in the Commons, Prime Minister Martin put her into the Cabinet, and her vote was one of the handful that he picked up that were needed to keep his government in power. (The budget passed on the Speaker’s casting vote, which had never happened before in Canadian politics.)
Basically the rule is that they can’t resign, but neither can they hold a paid government position. So if they want to “resign”, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appoints them to the position of Crown Steward and Bailiff to the Chiltern Hundreds, and they then lose their MP-ship, and then can resign from that position as well.
They also use the Manor of Northstead in a similar way.
It ought to be noted that the more common occurance in recent years has been for MPs to be involuntarily expelled from their parliamentary party. To the point, post-expenses scandal, where I have no idea who the most recent example is.
But such MPs don’t get expelled from the Commons as a result. Thus Stephen Byers remained an MP until the dissolution this week, despite having been expelled from the Parliamentary Labour Party on March 22nd. His expulsion was entirely an internal Labour Party matter that had no impact on his right to hold his seat. It’s exactly similar if he’d quit the Parliamentary Labour Party instead.
Well, that rule applies in South Africa; but it make sense, because we don’t vote for individual members, we vote for parties. Election to the National Assembly here uses the party-list proportional representation system.
So do other Westminster style systems such as Canada and Australia have similar rules on MP resignation involving appointment to a paid position, or is this unique to the UK?
In Australia, if you win a parliamentary seat, you retain it until the next election, irregardless of whether you leave the party that endorsed you as their candidate, even if leaving to lead another.
The best example would be William Morris “Billy” Hughes, (1862 – 1952) 7th Prime Minister of Australia and the longest serving member of the Australian Parliament. In a career of 51 year (and an additional 7 prior to that in a colonial parliament), Hughes changed parties five times: from Labor to National Labor to Nationalist to Australian to United Australia to Liberal. He was Labor Prime Minister in 1915-16 and Nationalist Party Prime Minister 1916-23
Don Chipp left the Liberals in 1977 to found the Democrats, continuing his parliamentary career as a Senator.
Pauline Hanson (Australia’s Sarah Palin) was the Liberal candidate for Oxley in 1996. During the election campaign she was disendorsed. However the ballot papers had been printed and nominations closed. So she appeared on the ballot as the Liberal candidate, won the seat and sat as an independent before forming Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
Bob Katter and De-Anne Kelly left the Nationals to be independants in 2001, Katter holds the seat of Kennedy. Kelly lost her seat of Dawson in 2007.
Labor party disciple is more strictly enforced. The only recent desertion I can recall was Senator Malcolm Colston who resigned in 1996 and sat the rest of his term as an independent tending to vote Liberal.
Nor in Ireland. And to the best of my knowledge we don’t have this “Chiltern Hundreds” nonsense either; if you want to resign you just resign. Your seat will be filled in a by-election, but it’s entirely up to the government to decide when or indeed if to hold that by-election. There are currently three vacant seats here, one of which has been vacant for nearly a year and there are no by-elections in sight because the government majority is slim enough already and they’re afraid of the opposition gaining more seats.
Nothing so quaint.
We have no rules forcing MPs to attend Parliament.
A House of Representatives (or any state lower house) can resign at any time of their choosing and a by-election will be held to fill the vacancy.
A Senator (or any State upper house) can resign at any time creating a “casual vacancy” which is filled by a senator of the same party (nominated by the state represented.)
MPs in Canada can resign, so they don’t need to apply for a Crown position to do so.
However, the basic point that if you take a position paid by the Crown you lose your seat is part of our law. The exception to that rule is the Cabinet itself.
Although note that you can resign as well, leading to a by-election for the seat (or, in upper houses, the party that won the seat at the previous election will nominate an - ideally - warm-bodied party hack as placeholder).
This led to one of the premiers of NSW to be found as corrupt by an independent commission (or “technically corrupt” as the guy preferred to nominate himself) as one of his party members was dumped from cabinet and, in protest, left the party to sit on the cross-benches as an independent. In order to have the ex-minister quit parliament altogether, the premier offered him a government job as an emissary to the UK.
I’ll point out that “crossing the floor” doesn’t mean leaving your party - only voting against them at some point - but the Australian Labor Party will expel any member that does so.
I’ll also note that it’s more common to leave a party and sit as independent than to join the opposition. In this case, retaining your seat often becomes a lot tougher because you’re going to have to run at the next election without the monetary/machine backing of the party. Some people can manage it, but it usually requires the development of an independent following, which most parties won’t permit to anyone who’s on their fringes.
Nick Greiner was Liberal Premier in a minority government with four independents in 1991. Terry Metherell was a loose cannon who resigned from the Liberal to sit as an independent in a fit of pique. With five independents holding the balance of power, government was close to unworkable. Through the mediation of Tim Moore, Metherell was offer a post as executive director of the NSW Environmental Protection Authority, thereby creating a by-election the Liberals were likely to win, and did.
But as Greiner was still in a minority position, he couldn’t prevent the matter being referred to ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) who found that the job offer had been an act of corruption.
A challenge was available (and later the charges of corruption against Greiner were dismissed), but having lost the confidence of the independents, Greiner resigned and was succeeded by John Fahey.
It was shrewd politics, and given the only viable option was to call another election, I’d bet every State Premier since Federation would have done exactly the same in the circumstances.
A stark example of governance when independents/single issue partices hold the baance of power. You have a government with a lawnmower engine and Rolls Royce brakes.