We need the right to recall MPs more than ever

Denis MacShane has done the right thing by standing down as an MP, allowing the people of Rotherham – and the Labour Party – to move on from a sorry episode. His resignation was the right course of action, but it was not inevitable. The Labour Party were putting pressure on MacShane to step down in private, and MPs were readying themselves to call for him to step down publicly over the weekend. Fortunately, that wasn’t neccessary. But even if the pressure had grown to that level, there was nothing that would neccessarily have forced him from Parliament.

It was entirely possible that the people of Rotherham could have had an MP who was barred from Parliament for a year. They would have gone without representation in the Commons. And that would have been within the rules.

That’s not a system that makes any sense to anyone. The government needs to bring forward a bill to allow members of the public to recall their MP, if they feel that they no longer have the backing of their constituents.

Don’t believe that an MP could hang around for the rest of a parliamentary term despite having had the whip withdrawn, losing the support of their constituency party and being found guilty of breaking the law? Ask Eric Joyce, who still remains the “honourable” member for Falkirk. His CLP can try and regain the money they spent on him, his constituents can want rid of him, his party can wash their hands of him – but he’s still there, and will be until the next general election, picking up his salary and expenses.

Makes you proud of our democracy…doesn’t it?

The thing is, the coalition agreement – remember that – devotes an entire paragraph to “power of recall”, saying that the government would bring forward “early legislation” on the matter. Heres the full section:

“We will bring forward early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents.”

I’m sure that whatever your definition of “early” is, you’d probably expect it to have happened inside two and a half years. And yet here we are, in a situation where MPs can remain indefinitaley even if they have manifestly lost the confidence of parliament, their constituencts and their party.

There’s a gap in the government’s legislative agenda where the boundary review and Lords Reform used to be – the government should try filling it with the “right to recall”, and any MP who opposes it can make their case. But the public will be watching.