The Member of Parliament as Representative: The View from the Constituency
| Author | Ronald Munroe |
| Date | 01 December 1977 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1977.tb00468.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1977 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
MEMBER
OF
PARLIAMENT
AS
REPRESENTATIVE:
THE
VIEW
FROM
THE
CONSTITUENCY
*
RONALD MUNROE
Teesside
Polytechnic
I
NTROD
UCTlON
THE backbench Member of Parliament has attracted substantial attention over
a long period. Whilst one writer has been extolling the virtues of the
M.P.
and
the representative assemblies another has been condemning the sham of repre-
sentative government where the majority of representatives are impotent:
Between these two positions have been the apologists
for,
and critics
of,
one
or
the other entering the necessary qualifications to make them more realistic.
Studies
of
the backbencher have not been concerned equally with all aspects
of his work however. His Parliamentary activities have been closely scrutinized,
whilst relatively little attention has been paid to his constituency role except
insofar as it impinges upon his other work. Even then it is a view from West-
minster rather than from the constituency. It is the intention of this article to
make a contribution to redressing this balance.
It should be emphasised at the outset that we are here concerned with the
constituency-at-large and not with the constituency party and local political
activists. Most British M.P.s are well aware that their prime concern must be to
ensure the support,
or
at least avoid the hostility, of the constituency party. The
status of the Member
in
his constituency has a bearing on his relations with his
constituency party, but there is no equivalent
of
even a closed primary to allow
an objective test of constituency-wide support.’ Thus, ‘unlike a (United States)
Congressman
. .
.
an
M.P.
cannot employ a strategy of ignoring his party’s
wishes while simply concentrating on pleasing the electorate.
For
the electorate
cannot save the M.P. from the local party selection committee’.2
Neither does there seem to be any great electoral advantage to be gained by
an M.P. who tends his constituency with loving care. In his study of Sheffield,
Hampton found ‘no indication
of
a personal vote accruing to either
of
the two
‘local’
M.P.s.
At the election in
1966
the movement of opinion was very similar
in all the six Sheffield con~tituencies’.~
In a study of elections in
65
marginal seats from
1950-64
Williams found that
Members who had held their seats
for
at least eight years performed better than
*
I
should like
to
record my gratitude
to
the late Frank Stacey for his helpful comments
on
an earlier draft of this article.
1
There have been rare cases of something like a closed primary occurring, but never strictly
adhering
to
the electoral law, e.g. Nigel Nicolson in Bournemouth East and Christchurch
(1956),
Ian
Lloyd
in
Portsmouth Langstone (1972).
2
J.
S.
Rasmussen,
The Relations
of
the Profumo Rebels with Their Local Parries
(Arizona,
1966).
p.
1.
3
W.
Hampton,
Democracy and Community
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1970),
p.
97.
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XXV,
No.
4
(577-58’7).
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